Rick
11-21-2004, 11:17 AM
Poker bets on allure of legitimacy
By Vic Vogler
Denver Post Staff Writer
Anyone who's plunked 10 grand on a horse race or $10 in a football pool understands the creed of pool shark Fast Eddie Felson in "The Color of Money":
"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
Sweeter still is a game that promises fun, sociability and the potential for glamour and riches. A vocation that presumably anyone with gumption and smarts can learn to conquer.
Poker, that is. Vegas gold. Texas Hold'em.
Recently I went to a tournament at B-52 Billiards. I wanted to better understand why a simple game of seven cards - two down, five shared - is exploding on TV, online, in rec rooms and across Colorado, from Black Hawk to Diamond Cabaret. And why some guys are making it a second career.
My empirical conclusion: When betting gains both cachet and legitimacy, few of us can resist it.
Like similar events in Denver, the LoDo affair offered Hold'em naturals and wannabes the chance to win plane tickets and other loot. The absence of a buy-in - the price of entry - and thus real stakes muzzled much of the testosterone, leading to a friendly populism. Guys in hooded sweat shirts, leather jackets and goatees swam around islets of women and older folk.
Phil Gordon, an expert who has won nearly $1.2 million and co-hosts Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown," roamed among seven tables with 10 players each, drawn from about 375. Microphone in hand, he dished out tips and genial trash talk: "For two hours, I will be making fun of people."
Brian, 35, who declined to give his last name (what, like Hold'em is something to hide?), seemed immune to ridicule, and not just because of his Red Sox cap. He described winning $3,000 on the Internet in the past two months.
"I lost ($2,000) until I learned to play online," which took about a year, he said. Brian, who plays up to five times a week, added, "I don't see it as gambling." That echoes Gordon, who cites the difference between the "negative expectation" of, say, craps versus the numbers, odds and averages his poker skill reliably turns into winnings.
Casey Stetzel, 49, said his wife has urged him to quit his retail clothing job and focus on Internet poker, which he said netted him $45,000 over six months of playing 20 hours a week. Yet if his and Brian's learning curves have been steep - and there are no end to books and tutorials - won't the opponents they pick off so easily now eventually catch up? Both he and Brian acknowledged the possibility.
For most people, no doubt, Hold'em is a way to bond through home games or watching competition on ESPN, the Travel Channel and Bravo. "We never play for money," Amy Vaughn, 28, said of the poker party she hosts each fall.
Yet amid the Vaughns and Stetzels lies a tension between what should be fun and what could be profitable.
"There's no barrier to entry except a lot of guts and a little bit of money," Gordon, 34, told me before arriving in town. By "little bit," he meant the online tournaments in which you can win, for example, a $10,000 buy-in at a contest featuring millions of dollars.
A sincere fellow with a love for the game, Gordon is convincing when he says a person with patience, courage and aggressiveness can rise to the top in poker. He's a star showing us how we might join him in the firmament.
Maybe that's more pressure than possibility. Maybe our stars, like Lance Armstrong and Roger Clemens, shine brightest when they're out of reach.
Staff writer Vic Vogler can be reached at 303-820-1749 or vvogler@denverpost.com
By Vic Vogler
Denver Post Staff Writer
Anyone who's plunked 10 grand on a horse race or $10 in a football pool understands the creed of pool shark Fast Eddie Felson in "The Color of Money":
"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
Sweeter still is a game that promises fun, sociability and the potential for glamour and riches. A vocation that presumably anyone with gumption and smarts can learn to conquer.
Poker, that is. Vegas gold. Texas Hold'em.
Recently I went to a tournament at B-52 Billiards. I wanted to better understand why a simple game of seven cards - two down, five shared - is exploding on TV, online, in rec rooms and across Colorado, from Black Hawk to Diamond Cabaret. And why some guys are making it a second career.
My empirical conclusion: When betting gains both cachet and legitimacy, few of us can resist it.
Like similar events in Denver, the LoDo affair offered Hold'em naturals and wannabes the chance to win plane tickets and other loot. The absence of a buy-in - the price of entry - and thus real stakes muzzled much of the testosterone, leading to a friendly populism. Guys in hooded sweat shirts, leather jackets and goatees swam around islets of women and older folk.
Phil Gordon, an expert who has won nearly $1.2 million and co-hosts Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown," roamed among seven tables with 10 players each, drawn from about 375. Microphone in hand, he dished out tips and genial trash talk: "For two hours, I will be making fun of people."
Brian, 35, who declined to give his last name (what, like Hold'em is something to hide?), seemed immune to ridicule, and not just because of his Red Sox cap. He described winning $3,000 on the Internet in the past two months.
"I lost ($2,000) until I learned to play online," which took about a year, he said. Brian, who plays up to five times a week, added, "I don't see it as gambling." That echoes Gordon, who cites the difference between the "negative expectation" of, say, craps versus the numbers, odds and averages his poker skill reliably turns into winnings.
Casey Stetzel, 49, said his wife has urged him to quit his retail clothing job and focus on Internet poker, which he said netted him $45,000 over six months of playing 20 hours a week. Yet if his and Brian's learning curves have been steep - and there are no end to books and tutorials - won't the opponents they pick off so easily now eventually catch up? Both he and Brian acknowledged the possibility.
For most people, no doubt, Hold'em is a way to bond through home games or watching competition on ESPN, the Travel Channel and Bravo. "We never play for money," Amy Vaughn, 28, said of the poker party she hosts each fall.
Yet amid the Vaughns and Stetzels lies a tension between what should be fun and what could be profitable.
"There's no barrier to entry except a lot of guts and a little bit of money," Gordon, 34, told me before arriving in town. By "little bit," he meant the online tournaments in which you can win, for example, a $10,000 buy-in at a contest featuring millions of dollars.
A sincere fellow with a love for the game, Gordon is convincing when he says a person with patience, courage and aggressiveness can rise to the top in poker. He's a star showing us how we might join him in the firmament.
Maybe that's more pressure than possibility. Maybe our stars, like Lance Armstrong and Roger Clemens, shine brightest when they're out of reach.
Staff writer Vic Vogler can be reached at 303-820-1749 or vvogler@denverpost.com