The Real Deal!

I ended my last column by talking about how great my life is. If your life isn't great, I'm sorry, and please don't hate me. But … my life just got a lot better with the announcement of The Real Deal! by The Venetian Hotel and Casino.



I've actually been planning for the opening of the show with the rest of the crew, but the producers wanted to keep it under wraps until the official press release. It's been extremely hard to keep quiet about it. I've been chomping at the bit to tell the world, so here we go!



This is going to be a show in the sense that Siegfried and Roy is a show, with the exception that the entire audience gets to participate in the action. Obviously, if you tried to participate in the Siegfried and Roy show, you'd probably get mauled, like poor Roy did. The worst that can happen in our show is a severe dressing-down and lecture by Phil Hellmuth on how badly you play after you put a bad beat on him.



I'll tell you about the rest of the lineup before I discuss how the game actually works. I've already mentioned Phil Hellmuth and myself. The rest of the players are Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman, Scotty Nguyen, Eli Elezra, Gavin Smith, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, and my dad, Doyle Brunson.



On the other side of the camera, the talent is equally impressive:



Merv Adelson, chairman and co-executive producer – Legendary television producer, entrepreneur, and motion-picture executive, Adelson was co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Lorimar-Telepictures Corp., producing Dallas, The Waltons, Knots Landing, and many others. Adelson later became vice chairman of Time Warner Inc.



Gary Smith, co-executive producer – Six-time Emmy Award-winning producer and director, Smith is recognized as one of the leading producers of live shows in Hollywood, with such high-end work as The Oscars and The Emmy Awards.



Bill Nuss, producer – Nuss has produced and written more than 300 hours of network prime-time television, winning a variety of awards for excellence in television production.



Gary Adelson, chief operating officer – With more than 25 years of experience as a television and film producer, Adelson also brings experience in telecommunications and media venture capital to the creative team.



Erick Brownstein, director of technology – A respected creative strategist and new-media marketer, Brownstein has extensive experience in bringing online strategies to fruition.



The show's host, as of this writing, has yet to be determined. I recommended Vinnie Favorito, a former Bostonian who now lives in Vegas and does a comedy show in Downtown Las Vegas. His quick wit and Andrew Dice Clay-type humor would fit right in with an audience-participation show like ours.



The way the show works is that two members of The Real Deal! professional poker team will compete live with six amateur players selected from the audience in a tournament-style game of Texas hold'em. Along with the game onstage, the rest of the audience will use their ultra-mobile touch-screen PCs (more on these later) to try to accumulate points through wagers on the action (everyone will be dealt a "ninth hand") and various side bets (aka prop bets). An elimination process will result in the chip-leading pro, the final surviving amateur, and the points leader from the play-along audience competing onstage in a three-handed finale.



Everyone in attendance can win cash and great prizes, including a chance to win the $1 million grand prize, which can be won like this: Four times during the show, audience members will pick five facedown cards from a 52-card deck on their hand-held devices. Ten audience members with the best poker hands not only win a prize, but advance to the final 40 for a chance to win $1 million. Toward the end of the show, each of those 40 qualifying players again will select five facedown cards on their hand-held devices. If any one of them hits a royal flush, it's worth $1 million!



The prizes aren't limited to the million dollars, which is obviously not easy to hit. Other great prizes such as

flat-screen plasma TVs shipped straight to the winner's home also can be won. You might even win a dinner with me! Or maybe that's what the losers get … I'm not sure.



The way the hand-held electronic devices work is this: Operating under exclusive North American and EU patents, TimePlay has developed and commercialized the world's first wireless and touch-screen multiplayer platform, enabling The Real Deal! audience members to play interactive content in the theatre. Audiences use these hand-held computers as game controllers, enabling hundreds of players to interact with each other – and with the action onstage – while the system keeps track of each player's individual points and other personal data.



Thanks go to The Real Deal! website for help in explaining the ins and outs of the show. You can find more details at http://www.therealdeallv.com/#/about-the-show. Pay special attention to my bio, please.



I've been involved in a lot of projects in my career that had the potential to be home runs. Most didn't work out. I really hope this one does!



If you're sick of me bragging about how great everything's been going, stick around. I didn't do so hot at this year's World Series of Poker, but you'll have to wait until my next column to read about my misfortune.