Will the WTP be a matter of someone finally getting it right, or is there something inherent to the game itself that makes team tournament poker a concept that just can’t stick?

The WTP inaugural at the Golden Nugget will feature eight teams of what seem to be six, seven, or four players each. They face off at different tables, in shootout-fashion.

We’ll be able to watch it low-res live and streaming here.

Here’re the official rosters:

Team USA: Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow

Team China: Johnny Chan, David Chiu, Maria Ho, Chau Giang, Winfred Zhu, Derek Chung, Rich Zhu

Team Vietnam: Men “The Master Nguyen” Scotty Nguyen, Kenny Tran, Tim Phan, John Phan, Karina Jett

Team Australia: Jeff Lisandro Tony Guoga, Mel Judah, David Saab, Gary Benson

Team England: Ben Roberts, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Joe Beevers, Peter Costa, Surinder Sunar

Team Israel: Eli Elezra, Josh Arieh, Abe Mosieri, David Levi, Robert Mizrachi, Michael Mizrachi, Mose Elezar

Team Brazil: Juliano Maesano, Rodrigo Capriolo, Felipe Ramos, Christian Kruel, Leandro Pimentel

Team Greece: George Kapalas, George Theofanopoulos, Alex Dervos, Stavros Kalfas, Dimitris Chatziriotis, Dimitris Liritsis

Sounds great, no? I presume that list is in order of seeding. Team Greece is already being made out to be the potential Cinderella story.

Also noteworthy, however, are the number of teams that didn’t quite pull it together enough to be included in this first go-round. But hey, original plans often change, and maybe it’s good to have the next round of eager contenders waiting in the wings? Shannon Elizabeth got in touch with her inner Arab (who knew!) to partner with Freddie Deeb and Danny Joe Georges on Team Lebanon, yet they didn’t get seats and will instead make an appearance limited to the red carpet. All events like this have to have a red carpet …

Below is a rundown of team poker ventures that have gone before, and what ultimately became of them:

The US PokerBowl (2007)

Wrong out the Gate

The PokerBowl grew out of a local team concept that had taken off in a couple cities — creating an event where teammates were identified by wristband, and chip-dumping, collusion, and hand signals were all part of the game. So they took it to Vegas, promised a million-dollar prize pool, and before you knew it, TV production crews were on the clock, and all the top pros and recent stars (Steve Dannenmann, for example) on board … 25 teams of six, split up into five “conferences”. Day 1 was a drinky day for Scotty Nguyen, which 9 times out of 10 great for TV.

The whole city concept got lost along the way … but that didn’t really matter nearly as much as the issue of collusion. Many of the online-backed pros — if I recall, Doyle Brunson (playing for Denver) had the final say –refused to play if endorsed collusion was gonna be part of it. So USPB ganked it … no cheating allowed … and all the semi-pros and TV-unknowns who paid their $6,600 buy-in had to unlearn signals, for example, like covering your cards with two chips to signify a pair, and placing them like clock hands to indicate its strength.

But for all the clusterfuckiness that goes along with the first attempt at any new-big event, everyone seemed to be having a blast … so much laughter, screaming, hugging, and general raucousness amongst teammates. There we’re only two people in the entire Key West Room at the Palms who looked unhappy — John Nightingale, the creator of it all, and John-Robert Bellande.

Bellande’s team had cashed, and the fresh-from-Survivor big-man was becoming a bit irate that a check for his winnings would be sent to him by mail … in a few weeks. That scene was not the new era of poker they wanted to show on TV.

I first sensed that something was wrong when Tom Schneider and I got hired as the television hosts … without having to send in a video or even talk to anyone on the phone! By the time they mysteriously fired Lacey Jones on Day 2, only to replace her with Nightingale’s wife … Tom and I began discussing bets on whether or not the show would ever make it to TV. It never did.

Clearly the event had grown beyond the infrastructure needed to support it. And Nightingale made the critical mistake of forgetting that just because several pros lured in on a freeroll, someone still needed to cover their buy-ins in the prize pool! It would take months before the winners received their checks, which all bounced … more than $440,000.

The Palms would eventually end up making good on the payouts, but still received an additional $100,000 fine from the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Dream Team Poker (2008-2009)

We Are the Champions!

Similar concept, smaller teams, and a patented scoring system that ensured teammates would never be at the same table until the final. But once in the big-money, teams could call time-outs to collaborate on a hand. There were two separate prize pools — for team and individual results.

The folks running this one seemed to be good people … and sure enough, at their inaugural event at the Hard Rock, DTP paid their winners, lol. (Who woulda thunk that in tself would be enough to have everyone happy-happy.) From there they threw a second event … this one even bigger, 144 teams on about a $500 collective buy-in, at Caesars. Again, a great party beforehand, and a fun tournament to follow.

DTP seemed well on its way … hooking up a $1,680 (per team of three) non-bracelet event at the WSOP. They even got to do a dry run at the media event, and then at the real deal, where 366 players bought in (122 teams) … none other than Team Tao of Pokerati took down the team prize … (for what would become the biggest score of my not-so-pro poker career).

(Still kinda peeved this victory isn’t reflected in the Hendon Mob, Cardplayer, or PokerPages databases.)

Alas, though Team Tao of Pokerati are still the defending WSOP Team Champion, it seems that instead of becoming the team poker ambassador I envisioned, we’ve been relegated to just a footnote in the poker almanac under one-off events.

The problem Dream Team ran into, apparently, was that running a solid operation (that pays winners promptly) costs money! So even though copycat events began springing up — using slightly altered rules to dodge patent issues — instead of growing bigger, Dream Team Poker’s next step looked like downsizing. They launched a small buy-in team league at the Bike, which was supposed to be a beta-test of the concept they were hoping to bring to casinos around the country.

Like everything else team poker, that seemed to develop a loyal following of players. But as of now their status seems up in the air. There’s no word of Dream Team continuing for a second season at the Bike, and they’re no longer listed on the Bike website. We’ve heard nothing publicly from Dream Team since their 2009 season finale. Supposedly they still exist … but it seems they are laying low, perhaps looking to retool their business model.

Even so, they were the one team concept that was an arguable success … yet at present their future is unclear.

UPDATE: Dream Team Poker CEO Daniel Delshad writes in to assure us that they are by no means dead:

After the successful DTP event at WSOP we had many requests for DTP to come to local casinos. With that in mind, we successfully beta launched of our league product for local casinos at the prestigious Bicycle Casino. With the game becoming so widely accepted, we have been working on several very large partnerships to take DTP worldwide across other platforms. These partnerships do take time to formalize and we believe it’s very important to pick the right partner when dealing with contracts that secure long term rights in events, online, and TV. We know that our patience will be rewarded.

Caesar’s Cup (2009)

Et tu Harrah’s?

I couldn’t even tell you the rules of this Ryder Cup-like set-up designed especially for WSOP-Europe … a made-for-TV special event put on and put together by the WSOP-E with their lead sponsor Betfair. But Betfair is no longer with WSOP-E … their contract ended after ’09 and they didn’t renew … which is fine by World Series officials, who look forward to self-sponsoring the London event with WSOP.com, CaesarsCasino.com, and CaesarsBingo.com. With those kind of web-names to be pimping, you’d think a 2nd annual Caesar’s Cup would be inevitable.

But there’s been no mention of it, and word last fall was that a repeat performance wasn’t likely. Again, at best unclear … but another team event — this one more contrived than others — that still hasn’t taken solid hold.

JBet Battle of Nations (2009)

The Communist Hope

From the best we can tell, the inaugural Battle of Nations (presented by some Asian site I had never heard of called JBet) was a success — sounded pretty exciting with the Koreans (Steve Sung, Chino Rheem, and Brandon Wong) beating the Vietnamese (represented by the Le brothers, Nam, Tommy, and Allen) … it was the battle of America’s Asian war enemies from the second half of the 20th century, fighting it out amongst themselves for honor and Hong Kong dollars on the APT in Macau.

Do not, however, confuse the APT (Asian Poker Tour) with the APPT (Asia-Pacific Poker Tour presented by PokerStars) There’s been just one running of one event so far, sponsored by an online site that wasn’t sponsoring the whole tour, and may or may not matter in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Remains to be seen if there will be a round 2 of world poker fighting (hey, quick, somebody trademark that!) in Macau.

International Team Poker League (2010)

A Lot of Talk, Not Progress

Sigh … just when it seemed like maybe we were getting there … Montel Williams was the ITPL commissioner, but even his starpower was hardly enough to make this thing happen. In fact, his business partner would sue him (for $300k) before things even got going … Montel claimed it was a simple matter of sour grapes from a rogue business partner that he needed to get rid of to give this thing a chance. (Though not certain, I think the case has since been thrown out or settled.)

Regardless, an investment somewhere had clearly gone awry. But the ITPL still showed up at the Vegas Hard Rock in late January with hopes of living up to their team poker mission:

With plans to turn the International Team Poker League into the greatest televised reality poker show in 2010, the ITP League is kicking off the year with an event in Vegas which promises not only to have a great poker tournament line up with fantastic prizes but also an experience of a lifetime.

Their opening non-team charity event went fine … but they knew they might have problems come the open main event — which was supposed to be the springboard for the whole league. Not only was no one buying in directly (at $3,500/player), but they couldn’t even make a table for a $350 satellite.

So that’s pretty much a complete history of team poker as we know it in the 21st century. The latest incarnation of a collaborative (but non-cheating) game — the WTP — gets underway Wednesday at noon. We can only anticipate there will be jerseys.

I’m by no means assuring failure. Think how many would-be pioneers took off with wooden arm wings, hopping carts, and soda-water jetpacks only to literally fall on their faces before the Wright Brothers came along and finally figured something out. Once that happened, a true revolution was underway, and in less than a lifetime humans were hopping around on the friggin’ moon!

I can almost guarantee you the WTP will be a hopping wild, great-fun televisable event … one that has people talking about how awesome team poker is and speculating on how it seems an inevitable part of poker’s future.

But what no one seems to be able to guarantee — no matter how things go this week — is that any of these events can survive long enough to become more than just a really good time, a business venture that didn’t quite take hold, and a footnote in the history of poker.

The red flags flying around this thing made it seem, well … at best, like the second coming of the Poker Bowl. Not implying that the guys behind the Sports Legends Challenge are in any way shady, but the numbers just didn’t add up. They promised so much — so much poker, and black jack, and party-party-party with not just poker pros but real celebrity athletes, and $10 million worth of prizes, all on a beach! — and yet it was based on 2,100 people ponying up $10k (in 2009?) for Poker-Sports fantasy camp and that didn’t even include travel. No way its presenting sponsor, Absolute, could send as many people as PokerStars sends to the main event. Even with PokerNews pumping it up, mix in tons of freerolls and a disclaimer that any million-dollar jackpots would be paid in 40-year annuities … and yeah, all those who thought they might be headed to the Bahamas in a couple weeks got an email today like this one:

From: entries@sportslegendschallenge.com [mailto:entries@sportslegendschallenge.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 1:17 PM
Subject: On behalf of the Sports Legends Challenge

Hello,

On behalf of the Sports Legends Challenge, this letter is to inform you that due to circumstances beyond our control, we have decided to reschedule the inaugural Sports Legends Challenge event.

From the outset, our unvarying commitment has been to produce a world class event for participants, sponsors and spectators. It is our conviction, that this goal can best be achieved by rescheduling the event for a domestic location that will not only make the event more accessible to major population centers, but also make travel much easier for the participants. We are also modifying the time of year for the event so that weather issues are much less of a concern (a major issue for a September event in the Bahamas).

We are pleased to note that not only are the investors involved in the program fully supportive of this change, but it is also supported by our key sponsors, partners and affiliates. The essence of the program will be unchanged – creating unique opportunities for sports and gaming fans to interact with some of the greatest Sports Legends of our time along with some of the world’s top poker pros while competing for major cash prizes. However, we plan to use the time leading up to the rescheduled event to add elements and make adjustments that will make it even more exciting.

Over the next few days we will provide you with additional information about the rescheduled event, including the new location and dates. We appreciate your patience in working with us to accommodate this change and will do all in our power to help ensure that the Sports Legends Challenge is a highly successful event.

Thank you,

Bruce Bibbero, CEO and Larry Lubin, President

Interestingly enough, no word on any money or refunds for those who might like to back out now that the dates and details have changed. (Though their website did claim all would get refunds should it be canceled, which is why the claim will be that it isn’t canceled … just postponed, lest they started having to give money back, I speculate.)

UPDATE: Click here to learn about the lawsuit resulted the last time Bibbero and Lubin tried to put on a similar tourney with PokerPlayerNewspaper.

UPDATE 2: Allegations of bad internet etiquette, too … http://www.patrickokeefe.com/2009/07/02/sports-legends-challenge-presented-by-absolute-poker-is-engaging-in-a-despicable-online-marketing-campaign-relying-on-lies-and-spam/

Click below for a list of sports legends you will not be playing golf, poker, blackjack, and slot machines with on Sep 14-17 in the Bahamas this year, despite strong means weak! super-heavy promotion and mass emailings offering buy-ins at a 40 percent discount:

• Bobby Hull • Brooks Robinson
• Reggie Jackson • Gale Sayers
• Richard Petty • Jerry West
• Herschel Walker • Michael Strahan
• Mike Ditka • Jim Brown
• Sugar Ray Leonard • Fuzzy Zoeller
• Kyle Petty • Troy Aikman
• Emmitt Smith • Joe Namath
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • Dr. J
• Laffit Pincay • Rocco Mediate
• Ozzie Smith

Recently added to the roster of folks who said, “Sure, I’ll show up if it actually happens”:

Randy Couture
Mark Messier
Tony Hawk
Chuck Lidell

As of yesterday, the pros whose names were used on a semi-bluff who had agreed to take part included:

Johnny Chan
TJ Cloutier
Annie Duke
Kenna James
Chip Jett
Karina Jett
Robert Williamson
Jamie Gold
Layne Flack
Marsha Waggoner
Barbara Enright
Kathy Liebert
Amir Vahedi
David Singer
Marco Traniello
Gavin Smith
Cyndy Violette
Antoni Esfandiari
Mike Sexton
Men “the Master” Nguyen

Dream Team Poker 2 is ready to go — Mar 27-29 at Caesar’s — and this one will be an open event … so any threesome with $1,650 ($500+50 per person) can get in on the action. Because the buy-in is both big enough and low enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this be something of a good-ole-fashioned pro-am event … especially if some of the pros who have been buying into similarly priced Venetian Deep Stacks lately feel they have an edge because they’ve played in a couple of these team tournaments already.

Click here for tourney details and to preregister online.

Supposedly all was going to be rectified and the event resurrected under new management … and then we didn’t hear from them for a while — televised poker is hard. But as Mathers points out, there’s a new video from October showing what a fun, different, crazy-but-still-true-pokery tournament the Poker Bowl really was, or could have been. You get to see Lacey Jones doing her thing, Mark Seif (and a happily drinky Scotty Nguyen) wearing an Absolute Poker uniform, and lots of moaning and dancing. Fun video. No audio though … gee, televised poker is hard … (or at least good televised poker apparently is).

Supposedly we’ll be seeing the PB (again) in 2009. But that was posted in October, right around the time financial realities were becoming uber-clear to potential backers, so … we’ll have to see if the Poker Bowl can live up to its promise. Meanwhile, the original creator of the event seems to have nothing to do with it — he’s busy taking in a few months worth of upper-middle-class living expenses while fantasy sports players screams “rip-off!”

Good times.

Dan: I knew the Poker Bowl was in trouble when they hired me to be TV commentator without even having talked to me on the phone.
Clonie: I knew the Poker Bowl was in trouble, too, when I heard they hired you.

Hello Everyone!
Welcome to Team Poker at The Hard Rock Poker Lounge!

Every Thursday night at 6pm we have our Team League Tournament. It is teams of 4 people. $100 buy in per player, you start at different tables and you get 4 chances to win $2000, 3rd place wins your money back!! It is a lot of fun. We have lots of teams signed up already, Don’t miss out!

Call me asap 702-245-3758 If you want to register your team for tonight.

Hope to hear back from you,
Lara
Poker Host

In addition, the Hard Rock has just announced a big “Dream Team Poker” tournament, a $1k per player team event to be held there November 7-9. Check out the details at DreamTeamPoker.com. This one is the brainchild of a dude named Daniel Delshad, who from the best I can tell made his name in networking among storage professionals.

You know that feeling when you shove all-in with nothing … You’re pretty sure it was the right play, but you’re nervous it wasn’t, but even then oh well, because if your read was off at least you’ve got two live little unders working on your behalf?

Uh-huh … That’s kinda how I feel, having recently put $300 into Johnny Chan’s All In Energy Drink(s).

All In is all over the WSOP this year — they’re the official energy drink, making them the Red Bull alternative at the tables, and their patches are all over players. In an effort to drive online sales and overall poker-player awareness, they’ve got a big booth right outside the Amazon Room, too, where the promotion they’re pushing is a $500k free(ish)roll on July 1 and 2 … which I will be playing in because I bought 144 cans of the stuff. Yep, should be arriving at my doorstep any day now … [whistling phrroo-hoo] .. yep 12 cases make me one of their top 1,000 customers … yep, any day now …

It all made sense mathematically at the booth … I’m getting a bunch of energy drinks (and energy water) for a Sam’s club price ($2/can). And I actually like the stuff — the root beer is totally unique and fantastic in my minority opinion. So in making this purchase, I get to play in a fun tourney where not only am I competing for a $125k first prize, but also there’ll be a bunch of pros in it with $1,000 bounties attached to their heads. Positive EV, right?

click to enlarge

The only thing that’s giving me a little grumble in the tumble is that the numbers don’t seem to add up on the other side of the felt. I mean let’s see, the prize pool is $500k “guaranteed” … the promotion says it’s limited to 1,000 players … I paid $300, people who bought multi-cases of All In before me got in for only $100 … now the price is $500 … and then all the pros who may or may not be freerolled … and two WSOP main event seats added to the prize pool. Would probably sound better were it not for All In’s play with the word “cases” … technically I bought 12, even though it would be 6 if I were buying 144 cans of just about any other beverage. I dunno, it just kinda feels like the Poker Bowl, ya know? The difference, of course, is that this event has Johnny Chan’s name and backing attached to it, but when it comes to honorable reputations among the top 3 bracelet winners of all times … um, let’s just say Phil Hellmuth is a solid second.

But hey, I’ve got an open mind, an enthusiastic desire to bust some pros, and if I wear the patch that came with my receipt, I get free All In root beers throughout the duration of the WSOP! (Go Hevad Khan-ish behavior!) Should be interesting to see what happens — because either this tournament is a model for corporate-sponsored events in the future, or it’s gonna prove a money-loser for All In. Could be both and just a marketing loss-leader, of course, assuming the 144 doses of an unregulated, arguably addictive product sold over the internet arrive by US mail.

UPDATE: Still waiting …

Another semi-private email went out this weekend to the winners who are still awaiting to be paid out. It says cash is ready to be handed over to its rightful owners — so long as they promise not to sue after they collect. Fair enough … (Presumably reliable super-secret inside sources say the unpaid PokerBowl prize money totals more than $400,000) … Step 2 will be to make-good with team managers and vendors (who might-should-wanna get in touch with this help@pokerbusinessenterprises.com guy so they can square up some invoices).

Sounds plausibly legit, and I happen to fall in this category, so we’ll see …

ALT HED: Netellery?

Click below to read the soothing email:

—–Original Message—–
From: help@pokerbusinessenterprises.com
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 7:23 PM
To: help@pokerbusinessenterprises.com
Subject: [SPAM] SETTLEMENT OF POKERBOWL PRIZE MONEY! (fwd)

===== Forwarded message from help@pokerbusinessenterprises.com =====

\From: help@pokerbusinessenterprises.com
To: help@pokerbusinessenterprises.com
Subject: SETTLEMENT OF POKERBOWL PRIZE MONEY!
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:18:13 +0000

TO RECEIVE YOUR PRIZE MONEY IN FULL ON OR BEFORE MARCH 25, 2008:

POKER BUSINESS ENTERPISES IS HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THEY HAVE REACHED AN AGREEMENT WITH THE PALMS CASINO TO GUARANTEE PAYMENT OF ALL PLAYERS OWED POKERBOWL PRIZE MONEY:

YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO SIGN THE ATTACHED RELEASE PROVIDED PRIOR TO RECEIPT OF YOUR PAYMENT.

WE NEED YOUR FULL NAME, ADDRESS, AND A CONTACT PHONE TO VERIFY SUCH NAMES AND AMOUNTS WITH OUR ACCOUNTING.

PLEASE EMAIL US YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION INCLUDING MAILING ADDRESS, DAYTIME PHONE NUMBER AND AMOUNT OWED.

FUTURE OF POKERBOWL:

POKER BUSINESS ENTERPRISES HAS EXTENDED THE DUE DILIGENCE PROCESS AS REFERENCED IN OUR FIRST EMAIL.

AS STATED IN OUR ORIGINAL EMAIL WE INTEND TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL AND PERMANENT ORGAINIZATION WITH STRONG STRATEGIC PARTNERS AND ALL THOSE INVOLVED FROM THE BEGINNING WILL HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PARTICIPATION. WE ANTICIPATE AND HOPE TO BE ON NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION REACHING OVER 200 MILLLION HOUSEHOLDS THIS SPRING.

ADDITIONAL MASSIVE EXPOSURE TO COME VIA INTERNET AND NATIONAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS WILL PRODUCE BRANDING AND ECONOMIC OPPRTUNTITIES FOR ALL INVOLVED.

AIRING THE EVENT SHOULD ENSURE PAYMENT OF ANY SPONSORSHIP MONEY YOU HAVE NEGOTIATED.

AGAIN, WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOUR CONTINUED PATIENCE AND COOPERATION TO MAKE THIS A REALITY.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL US AND SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE OF THE POKERBOWL.

PBE

===== End forwarded message =====

But perhaps everyone knew something was amiss when the only two people not smiling in the Key West ballroom at the Palms were the guy organizing the whole thing and John-Robert Bellande (who wasn’t even playing).

“Hey, congratulations on pulling off something really cool,” I said to John Nightingale at the start of the final-final table.

“Well, it was until about 30 minutes ago when the shit really started to hit the fan,” he responded before walking away all exasperated. I guess maybe we shouldn’t be surprised when a tournament that relies on too many freerolls and forgets to take any juice runs into a financial clusterflubbing. Bummer if it can’t be resurrected. Just ask anyone who participated … it really was pretty cool.

Click here to see my photos from the PokerBowl (kicking myself for not taking more of the real behind-the-scenes stuff) … and/or click below to read an email that went out last week updating those with a vested interest in the success (or failure) of the PokerBowl on where things currently stand and what the money situation is:

Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:29:35 +0000
From: help[-at-]pokerbusinessenterprises.com
To: help[-at-]pokerbusinessenterprises.com
Subject: POKERBOWL MONEY OWED URGENT UPDATE

Poker Bowl Participants: The nature of this email is to inform you that Poker Business Enterprises ( “PBE” ) has entered into escrow to purchase the assets of USPOKERBOWL (“USPL”). PBE is in the process of evaluating all the assets and liabilities that USPL has incurred under the ownership of John Nightingale and Traci Wolfe. This due diligence period will be for the next 30 days. This includes the prize money which was not paid at the poker event held at the Palms in Las Vegas along with any promises not kept to franchisees. PBE is deeply committed to finding a resolution satisfactory to all parties who are still owed prize money. PBE encourages you to contact us at 702 [xxx][xxxx] immediately or email help[-at-]pokerbusinessenterprises.com. We will do our best to respond to any inquiry within 24 hours. We look forward to working with everyone regarding this matter. We are confident your cooperation and communication will expedite the financial resolution of all involved individually and collectively. For the next 30 days John Nightingale will not have the resources to deliver accurate information that many of you need. The reasoning is to ensure you can receive dependable, consistent answers to your questions. PBE welcomes your input and communication to make this a successful, stable, and proper transition.

PBE intends to build a permanent and successful organization with strong strategic partners and all those involved from the beginning will have the opportunity to have substantial participation. We anticipate to be on national and international television reaching over 200 million households this spring. Additional massive exposure to come via internet and national media campaigns will produce branding and economic opportunities for all involved.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

PBE

Good stuff. Can’t wait to do the commentationating once they cut it all up.

I’ll be having my own 3-way tonight to honor the team.

While they do make up a charismatic 50% of Beyond The Table, it will be very interesting to see how the audience reacts to the brewsome twosome once they are presented visually. I, on the other hand, will be doing my best to raise the aesthetic average of the player field when I sit down with TJ Cloutier and the rest of the Dallas Kowboys on October 19th, in Vegas. I wonder if my BFF’s will find it in them to afford me a little favoritism kick-back come game day…

And before he was commentator on Fox Sports Prime-Time, he was getting his 3 minutes on ESPN.

P.S. – The latest episode of Beyond The Table is my all-time favorite. Nothing sexy, just fun pokery goodness.

Alt Hed: Watch out, Balsbaugh!

Additionally, PartyPoker has announced a televised event inviting pros such as Phil Hellmuth, Devilfish, Kenna James, and Vicki Coren (London EPT Winner). To play you only need $20k, an invitation (due to a nice resume) and a nickname. Lacking an AKA, well-mannered Vicki stuck with tradition and decided she couldn’t possibly nickname herself so she took a poll, the results of which she announced in her column yesterday.

Opposing players include some of the best in the game, including hometown boys David Williams, Scott Levy, Gregg Merkow, and Webber Kang, who I hear have worked together to win a similarly structured local tournament in the recent past. Even Pokerati Invitational champ, Tom Schneider, has assembled a top tier posse for Phoenix. I’ll soon be tearing my own collusion hymen with my home game crew in Burleson when we adopt this intriguing format for our next regular home tournament. I actually predict that you will see a surge of local team tournaments over the next year. After all, where else can you win from the rail? Other than by fading me, of course.