Online poker was huge back in 2010. American players could still play in the international player pool, and sites like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were booming.
In the midst of that poker explosion, a team of talented poker players and video producers created “The Micros,” an iconic animated series that immediately won the affections of the entire poker community.
The series, which followed a small group of micro-stakes players looking to make it big and reach high-stakes poker, was easy to associate with for thousands of players who were in a similar position.
Unfortunately for The Micros, they were just getting popular as Black Friday happened, wiping out the entire industry and causing many players to have their entire bankrolls seized for months to come.
This is the story of The Micros, how they came to be, and why they could have been a much greater success if Black Friday never happened.
How The Micros Came About
The Micros were created as a niche animated series, meant exclusively for viewers within the poker world and the fans of the game, not a mainstream audience.
Yet, their popularity could not be disputed, as the early episodes built a strong following among the poker fans and players worldwide.
The show was created by a small group of poker enthusiasts with talent in filmmaking, all of whom already had some pedigree in the poker world.
Jay Rosenkrantz, otherwise known as KRANTZ, was already a high-stakes player, and he had made a name for himself by taking part in “Two Months Two Million.”
John Wright, on the other hand, was a successful filmmaker with a Master’s Degree in Film and Animation from UCLA, and he had been working with CardRunners for some time.
Together, they founded Showdown Monkey LLC and started working on The Micros. The idea was clearly to make a show that would appeal to the poker fandom, and this idea came to fruition very quickly.
Micros co-creators John & Jay and Head of Production, Marc Brody, will be on the Solve for Why vlogcast today at noon! https://t.co/r2uA7aBQkA
— The Micros (@TheMicros) June 21, 2023
Early Episodes Thrill the Poker World
From the moment it showed up, The Micros was a major success. The show followed Chase, Tommy, and Rose, a group of friends playing micro-stakes poker and dreaming of making it big in poker.
In the pilot episode, the group is gathered behind a single computer screen as Tommy hits a one-outer to win a million dollars playing in an online tournament he has no business playing, as the buy-in is simply beyond his means.
Yet, like so many before him, Tommy hits the miracle card, wins the million, and shares it with his friends.
Chase is a nit, always playing within his bankroll and trying to make a good decision on every street, maximize his EV, and stay in his lane.
Rose is a degen, looking to gamble as high and as often as she can, and paying no attention to the strategy, playing heads-up cash games at any stakes she wants, going from busto to robusto time and time again. She is the kind of player Victor Blom would be proud of.
Finally, there it Tommy, the one who built his bankroll playing the tournament, and perhaps the best poker player of the group.
This small band of poker buddies made the poker world fall in love within seconds, simply because they were so relatable and so easy to understand.b
As the first few episodes were released, every poker group in the world knew who its Tommy, Chase, and Rose were, and the clips were becoming viral.
Black Friday Hits Amidst Funding Appeals
By the summer of 2011, The Micros were doing well, but they needed sponsors and funding. The episodes were expensive to make, and the show was not yet making enough money to justify its own production.
Just as the team behind The Micros was on a major offensive to look for sponsors, it all came crashing down as Black Friday hit and the main poker sites were shut down overnight.
The American government was cracking down on what it believed to be illegal poker operators, and Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars suffered the most.
In December 2011, The Micros released an episode in which the characters reacted to Black Friday in a similar way many of us did, with shock and disbelief.
Black Friday was the end for The Micros, like so many other projects in poker, as sponsorship money was lost, and thousands of players lost their chance to make the poker dream a reality.
While online poker came back in many forms in the years to come, The Micros never did, and the project was abandoned after a single further episode was produced, sponsored by PokerStars.
What The Micros Could Have Been
Had there not been for Black Friday, The Micros could have been a much greater success, and possibly a staple of the poker world that would still be running.
The characters in the show were so relatable and well-written that every poker player in the world could find a way to enjoy the show.
Had online poker continued to thrive as it was back in 2010, The Micros would have likely found its sponsors with one of the major poker sites and would have kept running for years to come.
With a little luck, we could have seen Chase make it into a big-time WSOP crusher, Rose gambling it up with the other degens in the Triton Poker Series, and Tommy make his own way, likely in online poker.
Instead, we were forced to settle for re-watching the same episodes time and time again over the years, looking back at online poker’s glory days that may never come again.
