Does Team Poker Have a Future?

World Team Poker is the next \”big event\” in Las Vegas … gets underway at the Golden Nugget with a party tonight (of course) and cards in the air on Wednesday. The WTP will be the third big-dollar, made-for-TV attempt to bring team poker to Las Vegas (fourth if you include one that was canceled the weekend of) … and like all the rest, as the WTP teams came together, the usual on-camera stars lined up to get their airtime register. We can tell there is a definitive desire for team poker somewhere — why else would the pros keep showing up? — and everyone who ever plays in these events reports having an absolute blast. But for some reason or another, they often tend to falter.

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?

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.