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In a world of opinionated poker players, raging debates
are daily fare and discussion will inevitably turn to
the perceived war between the World Series of Poker
Tournament and the World Poker Tour.
Until June 2002, the only poker tournament that drew
the attention of every serious poker player was the
main event of the World Series. However, just moments
after the closing of the 2002 WSOP, the World Poker
Tour raised the curtain on a new era of poker competition,
with its inaugural event at Bellagio.
With the fanfare befitting a Fortune 500 corporation
rolling out a spectacular business plan, Lyle Berman
(Chairman of Lakes Entertainment Inc.) and Steven Lipscomb
(President of the World Poker Tour) cooed to a rapt
audience that the WPT was about to put poker on the
map - like never before. The words sounded mere hyperbole
then, but today no one can deny Lipscomb’s boast
that he ‘has forever changed the face of poker’.
Not so fast, however, did the WPT work toward creating
individual poker stars. The WPT business plan initially
focused on making the game, rather than players, the
mesmerizing force of the shows. At the heart of the
WPT’s initial branding campaign was the production
of poker as a spectator sport with the players as fungible
pawns navigating the stage. It worked!
By the spring of the following year, the worldwide
poker community was thrilling to a full season of WPT
poker action on the Travel Channel. Players were consumed
and awestruck by the new method of hand analysis —
watching them as they progressed, on their boob tubes.
Under the table cameras, dubbed ‘lipstick cameras’,
were adapted from a concept created by toy inventor
and poker player, Henry Orenstein, for the UK’s
Poker Million Tournament in 2000.
No one could have predicted the impact of the WPT (in
conjunction with the development of internet poker)
on attendance at the 2003 WSOP until it was upon us.
In fact, there were plenty of pessimists around at the
time promising that the demise of Binion’s Horseshoe
was near and that the fabled WSOP had already lost its
luster. But at the opening bell of the 2003 Tournament,
the whopping increase of entrants into the finale —
839 in all, set the record straight about the unstoppable
growth of poker.
Clearly internet poker sites were rapidly gaining ground
in attracting players, with relative newcomer PokerStars.com
carving out for itself an untapped niche in poker tournament
competitions, including satellites for the World Series’
‘Big Dance’. It was at the 2003 Big One,
that Chris Moneymaker, a strictly internet-based poker
player on Poker Stars won a ‘super satellite’
that propelled him to the WSOP’s main event. His
fairy tale story set the poker world on fire. A rank
amateur, with a graduate degree in accounting and a
job as a comptroller for a local Nashville restaurant,
busted out one pro after another, until he was last
man standing. And as word spread that this fellow had
won his seat into the tournament with an initial investment
of $40, that his name was Moneymaker, and that one of
his two financial partners in the tournament was named
David Gamble, the media went positively wild.
Even before Moneymaker’s name began to cross
reporters’ lips during the five-day do, ESPN was
prepared for an historical event, having decided that
the purse in 2002 was big enough to warrant multiple
days of coverage of the final event, rather than just
the final table. So, the public got the full Monty!
Unlike the WPT, which was emphasizing the game of poker
with an underlying theme of the destinations where the
game was being played (as per the requirements of the
Travel Channel with whom the WPT made its television
deal), the WSOP seized the opportunity to create a reality
show that highlighted the players and hyped personalities,
as well as focusing on the broad international mix of
players and the complexity of the relationships at the
tables. The immensely successful productions of the
WSOP and WPT events of the 2003 season did not go unnoticed
by the pros. Royally miffed by the realization that
their player-funded events had become money machines
for casinos, producers and television networks, resentment
began to simmer in the poker world, and talk of a player-owned
tour, as well as the possibility of a poker union, surfaced.
WPT brass, hardly retiring wallflowers in the face
of a threat, moved quickly to form a player management.
The mission: to help grumbling WPT top performers make
hay with increasing visibility. The World Poker Tour
Management Company was to become Poker Royalty, Inc.
with the WPT taking a minority financial interest in
the new company.
In the meantime, to the relief of WPT honchos, there
seemed to be no effective leadership for the concept
of a competitive tour on the immediate horizon. And
on a separate front, the Harrah’s folks, who had
steeply increased player costs for the 2003 WSOP, calculated
that their newfound World Series Tournament was hot
as a pistol. Any worries they might have had before
the opening day had long since evaporated. Meanwhile,
poker pros were becoming increasingly aware of their
integral role in the fortunes of the casinos and the
surrounding entertainment industry.
Around the time of the 2003 WPT Battle of Champions,
several high profile players began a march to get the
WSOP organizers and WPT principals to throw some cash
in their direction. Most tournament circuit regulars
were united on one point: the producers of poker tournaments
were making out like bandits on the backs of the players.
To make matters worse, the casinos and their network
partners were also locking arms with rules that banned
logo wear, effectively cutting paid to player sponsorship
deals. It was no wonder that the chorus of complaints
grew louder and more persistent on the tournament trail.
Re-enter Henry Orenstein, the toy inventor who had
invented the under-thetable cameras across the pond
back in 2000. He arrived on the scene with a wheelbarrow
full of cash — poised to jerk the chain of WPT
honchos, while pulling on the heartstrings of disgruntled
top players. Multimillionaire Henry, a seventy plus
Holocaust survivor, is always at the forefront of something
big. This time he reportedly went head to head against
the WPT in a bid to produce a Tournament of Superstars
in a deal with NBC.
According to a source close to NBC: “Orenstein’s
presentation dislodged negotiations between the WPT
and NBC for a second production of the WPT Battle of
Champions.” Ultimately, the super wealthy independent
entrepreneur got the nod over the WPT. Henry went on
to create a one-table spectacular Invitational that
featured a blend of icons, youthful stars, successful
‘luckboxes’ and a couple of ‘controversial
choices’.
Henry forced WSOP and WPT executives to rethink their
‘belligerent’ positions by offering hundreds
of thousands of dollars in added monies and serious
player recognition. Harrah’s and ESPN figured
out that poker was about to become a true cash cow,
and that players could no longer be ignored in the process.
ESPN blew its filming time of WSOP events wide open
to prepare for a full season of poker tournament shows,
featuring not only No Limit events, but a wide variety
of additional poker games (although No Limit proved
to be the ‘mother of all poker games’ among
viewers).
Harrah’s also responded to Henry’s gambit
with one of its own, creating a partnership with ESPN
to produce a two million dollar free roll — a
‘player appreciation tournament’ for a group
of tournament pros that purportedly were voted most
popular players of the 2004 WSOP. Of course, there was
the usual groaning about who was in and who was not,
but the notion of giving back to players was now firmly
planted into the poker landscape.
Not to be outdone, or perhaps smelling more competitive
initiatives by Harrah’s, the WPT made a series
of titillating announcements about expanded Invitational
events. And then it geared up full throttle for the
first Professional Poker Tour.
No sooner than rumblings of a PPT were heard in Harrah’s
executive suite, the quick footed, mega casino moved
with its own tour, the World Series of Poker Circuit
Events, which offer player points as well as prize money,
with a monumental carrot — a two million dollar
free roll tournament open to the top hundred point getters.
The battle for supremacy between the WSOP and the WPT
continues to the definite benefit of the players. By
virtue of the competition, there is a slow but steady
shift in the balance of power between organizers and
producers on one side, and players on the other. The
results: the elevated stature of the game, accelerated
visibility of players and a budding pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow for poker players who have the stuff
to make poker tournament competition a career.
Wendeen H. Eolis was selected as
one of the six women at the final table for the 2004/5
WPT televised Ladies Night 11 event. She has to her
credit seven world record-setting performances for a
woman in major tournaments, four at the World Series
of Poker. Her legal consulting company, Eolis International
Group, Ltd. reviews law firms and selects counsel, worldwide
— for companies, governments, and individuals.
You may contact Ms. Eolis at wheolis@aol.com.
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