Tournament Trail Q and A -- Daniel Delshad

The first Dream Team Poker event took place at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Nov. 7-8, 2008. Dream Team Poker events involve teams of three players who compete in a no-limit hold’em tournament as individual players. Each player is given a rank when they bust out of an event (the eventual winner ranked as one, the runner-up as two, and so on). Players receive an individual payout if they finish in the money, and their rank is factored into their team score, as well. The team that has members with the two best (lowest) scores wins additional prize money, and that team is crowned as the champion for the event. The inaugural event attracted 81 entrants, and the second event, which was hosted at Caesars Palace on Mar. 27-29, 2009, grew to 444 entrants.

After such large growth, Dream Team Poker is looking to the future. Card Player caught up with the CEO of Dream Team Gaming, Daniel Delshad, and he talked about what plans they’re working on for Dream Team Poker and how their business plan is different from previous attempts at team-based tournament poker.


Ryan Lucchesi: What is the attraction of team-structured tournament poker?

Daniel Delshad: I think it’s a new era in poker where socialization comes back to the forefront. Have that fun time back at the poker table. We also want to give people more chances at winning. The way we have it set up is that you still have a chance of winning, because in our point system, if you get eliminated, you can still win because we pay both teams and individuals.

RL: You have hosted two Las Vegas events so far. What plans do you have for future event locations?

DD: The people who really came to the event at Caesars Palace were a huge cross-section of people from all over the country, as well as international players. From our standpoint, we have to continue to bring the event to other places. We plan to work with established tours that are already there and bring Dream Team Poker to established big tournaments across the country and the world. Our business model is built on the fact that we are not a competitive event, but something that works with established tours, whether it’s the World Series, the WPT, or international tours.

RL: What can Dream Team Poker contribute to the poker world?

DD: For the World Series to continue to grow, for all of the other tours to continue to grow, you’re going to need to bring in new players. We think our tournament is a basic, fundamental, new-player-development tool for the industry. Because we think we are providing that venue for all of those players who are watching on the rail or are watching on TV who have always wanted to play in a tournament but are too intimidated to play. All of the casinos will get that benefit from those new players who were sitting out now coming to play. I think at the end of the day you’re doing something to help the industry grow.

RL: Can we expect to see Dream Team Poker events this summer in Las Vegas during the WSOP?

DD: Right now we’re in discussions to see how we can bring the event to Las Vegas in the summer. It’s where the Mecca of poker is at that time.

RL: How is your business plan different from past team-poker-style tournaments?

DD: I’ve always said that team poker is not a new concept. I think the problem with the past models you’ve seen is they didn’t take into account two things: making sure the casino partner has a benefit and the players have a benefit. We feel that the tournament structure model does that. What I mean is that we’re going to bring new players to the casinos, and at the same time, because people are hanging around, there is obviously opportunity for the casinos and the host properties to reap additional revenue from people who stay around. The other side is for the players; we’re giving them more chances to win, a fun experience, and something new.

I’ve been a student of the industry to see what is going on, and I guess a lot of the questions that people have when it comes to team poker is that nobody wants to learn anything new. That was the difference between other team models and ours; we kept the game as is. What we’ve done is to remove collusion as much as possible so you don’t sit on tables with your teammates and you can’t play your teammates until we’re down to the final two tables, and that removes a tremendous weight of nervousness from the players. We tell them, “Look, it’s the same no-limit hold’em you’ve been playing for years, we have just added another layer to it.” Sometimes you’ll want to just last longer because it will add to your team score to benefit you.

RL: Are you guys looking to establish a season one, season two, and so on, and set up Dream Team Poker on that type of schedule once you get the casino partnerships in place, or are you looking to schedule events one at a time as it makes sense?

DD: I think from us you’ll see we’re trying to go on a license model, and what we mean by that is the ability for others to take the game and play it at their casinos. Really, you’ve got to have people playing it. We’re not trying to launch our own tour, we’re not trying to be competitive with other tours. We want others to have the ability to play the game at their own places on their own time and not have to fly to Vegas. They should be able to play the game at their local casinos. That’s the important thing for us to provide.

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