Finding the Ace Among Kings: A True Story

A rush of anticipation fills the Key West Room at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The lights are hung, the stage is set, the cameras are ready to roll. The audience has begun to filter into their seats, students sitting down for a lesson the likes of which they've never seen. Outside it is a sweltering 110 degrees and two massive air-conditioning units are working overtime to cool off the large production van in the parking lot. The camera feeds appear on a wall of tiny television screens, each one capturing a different angle, each one looking at a bit of history. One by one, they appear – the superstars have arrived. Young and old, small and tall, smiling and stern, they are legends of the past and future. Over the next five days, a champion will be deemed the ace among kings, and a 10-year dream will finally be realized.

The Idea

It was the summer of 1994. Vegas was a different place, poker was not in the public eye, and the Internet was only being used by a handful of people … and only to send chain e-mails. But, it was still 110 degrees outside (some things never change). Before Bellagio opened, the kings of the poker world sat in their thrones in the Mirage. And there I was, sitting in my usual $75-$150 seven-card stud game, next to a good friend. Henry Orenstien is a rarity. He was a man who had done it all: survived the holocaust, moved to America, wrote a best-selling autobiography, and was an inventor by trade. The patents he held had made him a very wealthy man (including the popular Transformers action figures). So, naturally, when Henry had an idea, I was all ears. He leaned over to me and said something to this effect: "Mori, I am thinking of building a poker table with small cameras positioned in a way that would expose players' holecards to a viewing audience. What do you think?" I had nothing but respect for this man, as he had done a lot and was a huge success, so the least I could do was refrain from laughing at him to his face. Was he serious?! I thought the idea was absurd. I politely told him that holecards are the most sacred and closely guarded secret of any professional poker player. We don't even like it when a railbird stretches to get a glimpse of our hand, and this man wanted to broadcast our secrets to the whole world? "You got it," he said. "That's the idea." He started up on some insane explanation of how this could work, and each pro at the table who heard it struggled to maintain his well-trained poker face. But when Henry gets an idea, there's no stopping him.

Eight of the best players in the world are comfortably seated at the Poker Superstars table. Fitted into the soft blue felt in front of them is a small glass square where their holecards will be filmed. The Key West Room is silent except for the hum of machinery. A microphone is given to Mr. Orenstien and he begins his speech. He talks about his love of the game and the skills you must possess to be the best. Each player sitting at the table has the intellect, the nerves, the patience, and the instinct. Each player also had the $400,000 it cost them to be sitting here. The money will be divided between them, the loser will go home significantly in the hole, and the winner will walk out with a cool million, not to mention the best darn bragging rights in the poker world. Henry finishes his speech and heads back to his seat. Like an attentive shepherd, he watches the flock … crew, audience, players. He is a starry-eyed child watching the visions from his head play out for the world to see.

Henry

If you don't know Henry, let me try to give you an idea of what I was dealing with. Think of the most determined person you have met in your life. Now, multiply that by 10. Henry refused to take any of our advice. He didn't want to hear that his idea was absurd, and the more we ridiculed him, the more determined he became. His poker trip came to an end, and he left Vegas and headed back to his home in New Jersey. While we continued our nightly games, Henry was hard at work. He hired engineers, carpenters, camera specialists, and, needless to say, patent attorneys. Every week, my phone rang and Henry gave me a full progress report. The snowball was rolling down the hill, and all I could do was run with it, lest I be crushed into an icy grave. Despite my convictions, I encouraged Henry with his project. As Henry's poker table was being made, the world was changing. The Internet was used in more and more households, Vegas was getting an image overhaul, and poker was starting to attract more and more attention. For the first time, the World Series had enough players to increase its first prize to more than a million dollars. And websites were letting players buy chips at cyber tables. Henry's snowball was part of an avalanche.

"Shuffle up and deal." The dealer opens the DeckMate and spins the cards across the table to the superstars. In the production van, cameras take a close look at each of the players. At times it is as though the screens might be frozen. The players, like stone, are perfectly still. Phil Ivey's eyes dart back and forth, scanning the table trying to stare through each blank face. Johnny Chan sits back in his chair; they'll be there for five days, and he's gonna get comfortable. T.J. Cloutier has somehow smuggled a bag of Fritos away from the snack table. Between hands there is friendly banter. This is, after all, a competition between friends. Doyle Brunson says something and lets out a venerable chuckle. Chip Reese and Howard Lederer both smile. The DeckMate opens again and the next set of cards come flying across the table. Gus Hansen puts his game face on and Barry Greenstein leans slightly forward in his chair, looming over his chips.

Selecting the Players

We were wrong. Boy, were we wrong. My fellow pros and I were caught up in a new world of poker. Henry's crazy scheme was the wave of the future, and we had laughed at him. Televised tournaments were giving average Joes the chance to see our holecards, and the Internet was recruiting average Joes to sit with us at our tables. Online poker sites had become phenomenons, and on top of that, Moneymaker had won the World Series … there was no stopping it now. You could see poker on TV any day of the week. But somehow, Henry and I thought something was missing. The people playing these televised tournaments were good, but they weren't the best. We wanted to show the world what real poker pros are made of, and give the best poker lesson in history. Between Eric Drache and me, we knew every poker player who had passed the test of time and every newcomer who had won the respect of the legends. In short, we were interested in poker superstars, not shooting stars (since the latter come in bunches and the former are few). We quickly came up with a list of about 20 players. The hard part was narrowing the field to only eight. We consulted with some of the players and came up with a game plan. First, we had to have some cash-game players, people who have been successful in megagames for many years. The names Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, and Johnny Chan are synonymous with such high-limit side games. Then, we had to add the player whom those three respected as being one of the toughest megacash-limit players for the past six years, so we got Barry Greenstein. Next, we decided to add players who had made the biggest splash in both tournaments and cash games in recent years. These players were the fresh faces, Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen, and the veteran, Howard Lederer. Finally, we wanted to pick one tournament player who had won the most tournaments, T.J. Cloutier, and see how he could hold up against this kind of firepower. We had assembled our superstars, tried and true, not passing fads or lucky Internet newcomers. These people were the best. And to the remainder of the great players who didn't get picked, we have to say: Your turn will come … soon, we hope.

The last two players remain at the table. Night has fallen and so have six superstars. Today's tournament was a well-fought battle, and with the turn of the final card, it comes to an end. But this is by no means the end of the war. Anybody can win a single tournament, but these boys would be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, playing over and over again. There is no sense of defeat in the room. Each player knows he can still win it. The audience begins to filter out of their seats. The cameras have stopped rolling. The empty table sits quietly amid a flurry of activity to wrap up the day's endeavor. The crew shuffles back and forth, the audience chats about this, that, and the other, the superstars head out to get some much needed rest, but the table sits silent, empty, waiting for the next chapter of history to be played out upon it.

The Format

There is no doubt that part of poker is luck, but coasting on luck alone is not what makes a great player. A great player can win even if he's holding the worst hand at the table, and a great player knows how to use the best hand to the best of his ability. Luck comes and goes, but skill can give pocket aces a run for their money. So, how could we decide who among our superstars was the best, not the luckiest? In other tournaments, the players bought in, and after one go-round, someone went home a winner. Ours needed to be different. Because of the importance of this event in poker history and the amount of money each player put up ($400,000), we had to come up with a format that diminished the luck factor as much as possible. Henry laid out the basic idea and Eric and I polished it up to this:

FoxSportsNet would broadcast two tournaments. These tournaments would be broken into 12 episodes, starting on Sunday, Aug. 15, 2004, at 9 p.m. and running on each consecutive Sunday after that. Each tournament would consist of two matches and one finale. The purpose of each match would be to accumulate chips for the finale. The purpose of each finale on FSN would be to accumulate chips for the championship on NBC. For each match on FSN, players would begin with $100,000 of their $400,000 buy-in. NBC would then televise the championship on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb 6., two hours prior to the Super Bowl. This format would give the players several chances to accumulate chips for the final championship. The players who perform the best in the matches will have more chips to start the finale, and the players who perform the best in the finale will have more chips to start the championship. So, a lucky break would help only so much if you couldn't keep up the good work in the rest of the games.

This was the way to do it. Whoever came out on top had to prove himself. There was one more key difference between our tournament and the televised tournaments preceding us. We were here to bring the best to the world. Not only did we assemble the superstars, but Henry paid them to be there. We weren't raking anything off the top. The players bought in and that was that; they didn't have to pay an entry fee and Henry gave them $25,000 apiece just to play. It was unheard of. Henry was sharing his dream with the world, no matter what the cost. As Doyle Brunson put it, "Henry puts his money where his mouth is." After 10 years of work, ridicule from the pros, and countless other speed bumps, Henry had done it – and he had done it right.

The Key West Room is empty. The first day has finally ended. The lights have gone dark, the cameras are unmanned, the body mikes are tucked away, and the screens in the production van are black with dim reflections of vacated seats. Inside this van were the minds behind the show – the means by which Henry's dream could have life on TV. And tomorrow, they would be back to do it again, quickly barking orders to cameramen and taking feverish notes as the chips are shuffled from player to player. The van is hot now, but nothing compared to the combined body heat of 15 people all in such close proximity. Someone would have to fix the air conditioning tomorrow, because they had been worked to death today.

"This is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning."

- Winston Churchill

The rules were set. The players were picked. The dream was being realized. One problem remained: What on earth did we know about producing a television show? I was working hard to get all the pieces together, and the last piece would be Sherman Eagan and David Doyle. Sherman had earned a great deal of recognition in sports telecasting, and David had more experience than most in producing poker for television. They would be our more than capable executive producers. They would call all the shots. That's not to say that we were out of the picture. I stayed on board with a myriad of titleless jobs; let's call me a general manager-consultant-tournament director-glorified secretary (welcome to television, the world of the hyphenated). I was the go-between man for the world of television and the world of poker. And slowly but surely, all the pieces came together. The dream had gone from a crazy idea in the summer of 1994 to a group of people ready to bring television poker to the next level. The stage was set for the tournament that would crown a true champion. And then like a shot, the first day of filming was upon us. The dream was to be a reality. The world would watch greatness.

A rush of anticipation fills the Key West Room at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

Tune in to FoxSportsNet on Sunday, Aug. 15 at 9 p.m. for the first episode of the Poker Superstars Invitational.