My late uncle had a lifelong friend, author and editor Daniel Okrent, who was also an innovator. Before his time, there had been pretend general managers putting together make-believe teams made up of real athletes.
But in the spring of 1979, Okrent invented Rotisserie League Baseball, so named because it was first discussed at the Rotisserie Francaise, a New York restaurant frequented by journalists.
Besides the idea of holding an actual player draft, Okrent added salary caps and the use of real-time statistics to the nascent craft of putting together fabricated line-ups, false starting rotations, and bullshit bullpens.
When the Baseball Hall of Fame finally relents and recognizes what an integral part mountebank managers play in the national pastime, I’m sure that my old friend Dan will be a first ballot inductee into Cooperstown.
As most of the original participants in the Rotisserie League were members of the New York media world—apparently, before fake news, they made fake teams—it’s no surprise that their hobby found its way into popular culture, eventually becoming the multibillion-dollar fantasy sports industry that we know today.
I’ve never had my own fantasy team. I’ve never needed one because I’ve been a Chicago Cubs fan since 1969. We put the fan in fantasy. But in my new role as poker writer, I want to cover the full breadth of experience that is the World Series of Poker, and so I dutifully logged onto PokerGo this past Monday to watch this year’s WSOP 25K Fantasy Draft.
For the uninitiated, let me explain what happens. For the initiated, don’t skip ahead; there’s a great joke coming up, I hope.
Created in 2011 by another innovator named Daniel, Canadian poker pro Daniel Negreanu, the WSOP Fantasy Draft costs $25,000 for the right to bid on players from a curated list of tournament pros.
Team captains, high stakes pros themselves, are each allotted a budget of 200 auction dollars with which to fill out an eight-player roster.
The draft aired live at 4:30 pm Pacific Time. I was home and free to watch because it was Memorial Day. Is there a better way to honor fallen war heroes than an ersatz auction of gamblers? Probably, but nothing comes to mind.
The actual draft went like this: a player would be offered for sale at a set opening price by an auctioneer who had an English accent to give you the feeling that something very important but boring was happening.
After accepting competing bids from team captains seated at long tables around the PokerGO studios, the auctioneer would eventually end with a flourish, such as, “Daniel Negreanu for $116 dollars, going once? Going twice? Going three times? Sold to Daniel Negreanu for $116!”
That’s right, Daniel procured his own services for Team DNegs. I get it. One of the best players of all-time is betting on himself. I do the same thing when I play craps. I play conservatively with just a Pass Line bet. That is, until I’m the shooter.
Then I’m throwing chips all over the board, saying things like: “Give me the hard eight! Press my bets! Iron my pants! I’ll take all the numbers! And some of those letters! I’d like to buy a vowel. Come on, baby needs a new pair of shoes and a mommy makeover!”
“Seven out! Line away.”
As the 25K Draft progressed, there were many bargains to be had, with tournament crusher Jason Koon going for just one dollar. Adam Hendricks was procured by Eric Wasserson for his team Ewass for 26 bucks.
The highest-priced player was, predictably, last summer’s WSOP Player of the Year, Shaun Deeb, who went for $133.
Once formed, these teams compete for the prize pool by amassing points for individual player cashes, final tables, and bracelets. First prize is $250,000.
The player prices set by the draft are also used for the ODB Fantasy Draft, run by David “ODB” Baker, which only costs $500 to enter. If you were only going to gamble 500 bucks on poker this summer, you could do a lot worse than to draft an OBD team.
For example, you could have played Event #1 $550 Mystery Bounty this week, in which the main mystery was where’d the money go? The rake was $93.50, or 17 percent of the prize pool. ODB takes no rake. He’s playing for the love of the game.
Up until now, I was never interested in participating in any Fantasy Sports, but watching the proceedings of the 25K Draft, I contemplated backing my own ODB team.
Why not? I’m already in my own poker fantasy that I’m going to, one day, win the Main Event. I may as well put some money down where I have a shot. Maybe I’ve finally realized I’m never going to be a high stakes pro. I’m a writer, and I’m ready for some Rotisserie League Poker.
Don’t You Let That Deal Go Down
One of the things that was trumpeted with great fanfare in the days leading up to the Series was the new Dealer Rating System on the WSOP Live app.
Many thought it was a good idea because it would reward competent dealers. Others feared it would be weaponized by players who had suffered a bad beat. But nobody thought, “I can’t wait to catch my dealer putting an instruction card in the flop.”
In case you missed it, in event #1, the alluded to above $550 Mystery Bounty, a dealer flopped the [invalid notations]KhJc{/pcn], and an instruction card. Unfortunately, it didn’t contain instructions on what to do when this happens.
There was a lot of laughter around the room and online. The floor came over. There was disagreement over what should happen. Should they rule the hand a misdeal, or just cancel the entire Series?
I mean, it’ s day one of event one. As Mike Holtz noted in his post on the spittoon-in-a-bar- from-an-old-western formerly known as Twitter, ”That didn’t take long.”
Eventually, the floor correctly ruled the hand a misdeal. Mistakes happen, and everybody was pretty good-humored about it, except the guy who had flopped a set of instruction cards.
What’s Black and White and Red All Over?
As the new and improved WSOP was being rolled out this week, much hype surrounded the unveiling on Friday of the new main stage in The Paris. The expansive area was shrouded by dark curtains all week and off limits to the gen pop.
Well, the big reveal happened, and it’s pretty spectacular. A black, red, and white color scheme ties together 25,000 square feet that is home to 17 feature tables, the set of the new daily Countdown show with Jeff Platt, David Williams, Joe Stapleton, and Norman Chad, and of course, the Final Table.
There is also plenty room for spectators, so the rail is going to get loud in what Platt and crew have already dubbed the Thunderdome.
It’s gotta be an intimidating place to play. And deal. Holy smokes!
Tournament Director Jack Effel should walk the dealers into the Thunderdome like Gene Hackman did with his small-town basketball team in Hoosiers. I think it would go a little something like this:
Ominous music plays.
Jack Effel and a small group of nervous dealers walk into the Thunderdome, casting their eyes all over the arena and to the high rafters above. Jack takes out a tape measure and hands it to a young man.
Jack: Dealer, measure the length of the table.
The dealer measures.
Jack: What’s it say?
Dealer: Uh, 96 inches.
Jack: Same as the table you learned on last week at dealer school.
Jack turns to an older woman dealer.
Jack: Now measure the distance from the dealer tray to seat seven.
She complies.
Jack: How long?
Dealer: 34.5 inches.
Jack: Same as the table you dealt Puggy Pearson the winning hand at Binion’s in ‘73. I think you’ll find that all the dimensions are the same as you’re used to.
Will Kassouf enters.
Will: Jack, I need to talk to you—
Jack: No! I can’t take it anymore! I quit! Good luck, dealers. You’re on your own.
And scene.
My Hot Take on The Show of Hot Takes
Each night during the Series on the WSOP YouTube Channel, live coverage will stream of the biggest tournaments going on that day, and every stream will kick off with a pre-game show called The Countdown.
I’ve watched the first two episodes, and so far, it has me counting down to when Stapes and Norman do a production of The Odd Couple on Broadway. The poker scenes would be epic.
Stapleton and Chad are both very funny guys in different ways, who both love the game. Their chemistry, as they take the piss out of each other and grudgingly laugh at the other guy’s jokes, makes the standard fare of poker recap and prognostication a lot of fun.
The unflappable Jeff Platt is pitch-perfect doing the difficult job of ringmaster of this fast-paced, chaotic production. For example, Norman picked John Smith to win the $25,000 Heads Up NLH event that was going on as they spoke.
Stapes quipped that this is a very safe pick for Norman because if John Smith gets knocked out, there are likely 7 other players left with the same name. Then, Platt chimed in with a real-time update, “John Smith has just been eliminated.” It was what we used to call “good TV.”
The production quality was just okay on the premier, but improved the second night, with more video inserts and graphics, including a funny lower-third about Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler, during Norman’s nightly rant, Why So Mad, Norman Chad?
I predict the show will find a nice groove as the summer progresses. David Williams is the one panelist who has been a full-time professional poker player, with over nine million dollars in career earnings, and I look to him to bring his insight, the way that A-Rod and David Ortiz do during a little thing I like to call The World Series of Baseball.
Have a great week!
