Page 13 - June 2005 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Satellites
In the early years only professional poker players or those that were nancially well o could participate in the WSOP because of hefty $10,000 entry fee. is changed in the late 1970’s when WSOP tournament director Eric Drache created the “Satellite Tournament.” A player can enter a satellite tournament for a small entry fee and win a seat into a larger tournament. For example if 10 players paid $1,000 to play a single table satellite, the winner would receive a $10,000 entry into the WSOP. Super Satellite Tournaments are multi-table events or mini tournaments. Because it involves more players, there is usually a lower entry fee or there are multiple winners gaining entry to the main tournament. Satellite tournaments are now held for most major poker tournaments allowing a greater number of players to participate in the events.
ey thought the public would be interested in watching a poker match if they could see the hole cards as the hands played out. is was now possible with Henry Orenstein’s invention. e World Poker Tour premiered on the Travel Channel in 2003 and quickly became the network’s number one show.
When other networks saw the popularity of the WPT they also looked to add poker tournaments to their lineups. In 2004, NBC broadcast a WPT event on Super Bowl Sunday while the network broadcasting the Super Bowl was showing the pre-game activities. It drew a record audience. Bravo has the Celebrity Poker Showdown that has been a top rated show. Other shows include
the Ultimate Poker Challenge, Poker
Superstars and many more. Recently
NBC announced plans for a sitcom loosely based on the life of top poker player Annie Duke.
With poker being broadcast into the homes of millions the game has gained respectability. Suddenly the image of the professional poker player changed from degenerate gambler to a new breed of celebrity. e public saw that most of these players were well-educated intelligent people who enjoyed a game that was played by millions of people each week in their homes.
e WPT also showed that poker had a level playing eld. Each week you see amateurs and pros alike playing at the nal table. Poker
has no gender bias. e WPT showed
men and women competing against
each other dispelling any idea that it was
a “mans” game. is sparked the interest
of many home poker players who wanted to
try playing in a casino poker room. An amateur could never trot on to the baseball eld and play in the World Series, but he could sit down at a table and not only play in the World Series of Poker, but win it!
Poker Rooms Expand
Over the last few years many casinos with poker rooms have found that they are lled to capacity every hour of the day. At a seminar during last year’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, Lyle Berman told casino executives that casinos without poker rooms were not o ering full service to their players. He predicted that they probably would lose business to their competitors who had poker rooms. ose casinos without poker rooms are quickly adding to them to accommodate their patrons who want to play poker along with the other casino games.
Some players are making their way to the poker rooms to play in no-limit tournaments like they see on TV. For many players it is their rst introduction to playing live poker in anything other than kitchen table games with friends at home. One advantage to playing
The Invention that Ignited the Poker Explosion
As cable television spread across the country, more channels were added and these new networks were looking for more shows to ll their broadcast schedules. e Discovery Channel was the rst to lm the World Series of Poker. e complete WSOP was narrowed down to a one- or two-hour show. is was because there was no way you could see the hands unless there was a showdown. e show’s appeal was limited to those who played poker or to those viewers curious to see how the pros played. is would change when one man’s idea lead to an invention that rocked the poker world.
Few people know Henry Orenstein by name. Henry is a Holocaust survivor who beat the odds in the Nazi death camps during World War II. He is an inventor, writer, TV producer and an excellent poker player. Most kids who grew up in the 80’s are familiar with one of his most popular creations. Henry invented Transformer toys, and he also holds over 100 patents for di erent inventions. A few years ago, Henry had an idea for another invention that he hoped would make watching poker on television more exciting. Henry invented the poker table with the
“hole card camera” and his invention would be the spark that ignited the poker explosion.
World Poker Tour
e World Poker Tour (WPT) was created by casino mogul Lyle Berman and TV producer Steve Lipscomb.
in a tournament is that it has a xed cost. Players know exactly how much they are risking to play in the event.
No-Limit Texas Hold’em can be exciting, and it is a great format for tournaments; however it can be extremely expensive for the novice player to sit down in a no-limit cash game. (Non-tournament games are called
“ring” games.) In a no-limit game one losing hand can cost you all of your chips.
Limit poker has structured betting rounds and players can pick a limit that ts their budgets. If you make a mistake, it might cost you a bet or two, but you won’t lose all your chips. e majority of the ring games in the card rooms are limit games. Many winning players start at the lower limits and
then move up as their bankrolls grow.
Online Poker
At the same time that poker was becoming popular on television,
it was also making its way to the Internet. Many online poker sites opened up as the popularity of
poker increased. Many players discovered that there were some
advantages to playing online.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of Internet
poker is the fact that you don’t have to travel to play. Many people don’t live near a casino and it may require a lot of e ort to get to one to play. On the Internet you can play 24/7 any day of the year from the comfort of your own home.
Another advantage for new players is less intimidation. Sitting down at a table with nine strangers can be very intimidating to the newer player. Playing online is like sitting down at a video game because you are looking at a monitor instead of into the face of your opponents.
You can play games for lower limits online. Since there are no dealers, rent or utilities to pay, the online sites can o er games and tournaments at very low limits. In a brick and mortar room, spreading a poker game with limits of a dollar or less would not be practical or pro table, but it can be done online.
The new 15-table Soboba Poker Room offers 12 variations of poker play.
June 2005 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE Page 13