Eric Drache had one thought when then-Golden Nugget executive Bobby Baldwin suggested he manage the Fremont Street casino’s poker room in the early 1980s.
How long could he last working for Steve Wynn?
Baldwin, the 1978 World Series of Poker champion, thought Drache, who was the annual tournament’s director, could give Wynn’s poker facility a much needed lift.
Drache was perplexed. He was an expert seven-card stud player and had managed the old Silver Bird Casino poker room. But this was big time.
“Are you kidding?” Drache recalled saying. “Steve will fire us within 10 minutes.”
Baldwin and Drache recalled that story last month during a ceremony at the Rio celebrating Drache’s induction into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Drache, 69, joined the late Brian “Sailor” Roberts as the 43rd and 44th members of the Hall of Fame, which is managed by the World Series of Poker.
The Poker Hall of Fame will induct Eric Drache and the late Brian “Sailor” Roberts as the organization’s 43rd and 44th members during the final table of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event later this month.
The pair were nominated by the public and voted in by a 36-person panel made up of existing Poker Hall of Famers and members of the media.
Roberts, who died in 1995, won the World Series of Poker’s $10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em World Championship in 1975. He was best known as a member of poker’s old guard of “Texas Road Gamblers,” along with Hall of Famers Doyle Brunson and the late Amarillo Slim.
Finally got around to watching the new G4 show, Two Months. Two Million, that premiered on Sunday night. To be honest, the preview with the Playboy bunnies made me anticipate a cringe-worthy half hour of programming, but my reaction to it was the opposite. I actually liked it! Granted, the “chicks in bikinis” episode will make me cringe, but Episode 1 was solid.
The guys were likable, as their geeky and awkward ways made them seem like they could be anyone’s little brothers. Their attention to their online poker games was the focus of the episode (duh), and I thought it was explained well to a potentially non-poker-playing audience, complete with the emotions that come with losing/making money. Clearly, these guys have no concept of the meaning of money, but that adds the necessary aspect to the show to make it different. Ultimately, it will be ratings that equal success, so I’m curious to see results.
Personally, I dig Chef Robert and hope he has a bigger part in upcoming episodes.
The folks at G4 have put out some revised bios (below) on the stars of the online-poker-geek reality TV show, which debuts this Sunday (9 pm ET/PT) and runs for 10 weeks.
Wow, so that’s a lot of new poker on TV. Seriously — 2005 again? At least the shows are getting a bit creative and trying new approaches. But will some of this appeal to the non-poker masses, or will they get just downright sick of our kind?
Let’s see, we’re gonna have:
Two Months. Two Million.
2009 WSOP
Face the Ace
Inside Deal (online)
Tiffany Michelle/Maria Ho on The Amazing Race
How’d You Get So Rich (single episode)
Sam’s Game (online)
High Stakes Poker?
WPT?
Poker After Dark?
Are we forgetting anything? Seems like we might be do for a new poll on which Poker TV sucks and which doesn’t. I give 2M2MM a 62 percent chance of being OK or better:
Mark my words, or at least check back in about 15 years … G4 is the next coming of MTV. And the Gen-Y and younger TV station (focussed mostly on the video-game geek culture, and re-runs of Tron) has a new poker show debuting in mid-August — 2M2MM:
Featuring Ansky and some other young online pros, in the show’s words:
Premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9pm on G4. This summer, geeks are wild as G4 takes viewers inside the world of competitive high stakes online poker in a new series that follows four young high IQ friends who join forces and set up shop in Las Vegas. Their challenge for themselves? To collectively earn $2 million dollars in only two months using their own money.
With this show, Face the Ace (on NBC), and even Sam’s Game (on Playboy.TV) … and all of them looking at least semi-good, frankly … anyone get the sense that the future of poker on TV continues to evolve? Mix in live coverage like you have with the Washington State Poker Championship below … and really, you gotta wonder what ESPN, the WSOP, and High Stakes Poker are going to have to deliver to keep up with (or ignore) the theoretically non-crappy televised poker we can expect in coming seasons.
Though admittedly, 2M2MM may well be a semi-successful one-hit reality wonder, while Face the Ace could go the way of Win, Lose or Draw … and Sam’s Game may end up in the archives somewhere next to Naughty Nurses Go To Europe #9.
We’ll see … or not. That’s kinda the question.
Click below for even more on what to expect from this new show:
The Poker Hall of Fame will induct Eric Drache and the late Brian “Sailor” Roberts as the organization’s 43rd and 44th members during the final table of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event later this month.