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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According to this report, published in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Palms Casino took a $500,000 hit for being unlucky enough to host a few tournaments gone wrong including the now infamous Pokerbowl.

Officially it’s just been postponed … but I might be willing to make a wager.

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: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
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:

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Just because my poker telecasting career the PokerBowl seems to have fizzled under a cloud of overt mishandlement (like the video’s gone and everything), don’t think the concept of organized semi-collusion has been simply tried and dismissed. A different operation — Dream Team Poker — pulled off a successful invitational at the Hard Rock in November, and sure enough, as is always the case with these team poker events … everyone had a great funky-slightly-different-poker time. And the winners (Bluff publisher Eric Morris, editor Matt Parvis, and tournament ringer ZeeJustin) actually got paid — $39k divvied up accordingly.

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.

As we can tell from a flurry of new comments on an old post, apparently the creator of the Poker Bowl, John Nightingale, is up to his old plausibly criminal heretofore legally uncontested shenanigans … as some fantasy sports players are feeling a little ripped off, kinda like cash-finishers in the Poker Bowl did until the Nevada Gaming Commission held the Palms’ feet to the fire and made the host venue pay up.

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.

Semi-related conversation from last week:

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.

The Team Poker concept isn’t going away just because its big introduction to Las Vegas a year ago turned out to be a near-criminal scam. (FWIW, everyone did eventually get paid from the PokerBowl, I’m pretty sure, except Karridy.) The LV room embracing it — team poker, not the rip-off attempts — is the Hard Rock … which is now running weekly team poker tournaments:

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.

Johnny Chan is so serious about making All In Energy Drink a success that he has dyed his hair red and is throwing a tournament that almost sounds too good to be true.

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 …

Slowly but surely, the fate of the US PokerBowl becomes clear-ish …

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 [email protected] 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:

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A lot of people have been clamoring about my TV poker hosting debut wondering what has happened with the U.S. PokerBowl. Indeed, this inaugural team poker concept tourney was supposed to be airing this month on FoxSports. But I don’t think it will be — despite the arguable success of the event. Sure enough, everyone there seemed to be having a really good time … the televised images looked different than what has previously been seen on Poker TV … and amid an interesting re-interpretation of important poker rules, there was all sorts of heartwarming emotional drama with potential controversy (would Marc Seif’s Absolute team insist on wearing their be-logo-ed hats so visibly?) to give us announcers — and presumably the blogging television audience — much to talk about.

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

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T.J. Cloutier has another “blog” about good times around the unique concept of the US Poker Bowl with his Dallas Roughnecks teammates. Though for some reason he doesn’t extol the virtue of Karridy’s team management prowess — he was the bossman of the Roughnecks — in it T.J. does point us to Kenna James’ write-up about the same event — where the singing cowboy discusses how the team concept really got his juices flowing as a guy who played sports in high school but always found himself sitting on the sidelines.

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

I think I’ll bid on this item, since I didn’t get my personally autographed copy during the PokerBowl as promised. Speaking of, here is a great article by Dallas Roughneck, T.J. Cloutier, on the unfortunate demise of my team.

Vinny Napolitano brought it home for Cincinnati by defeating Allen Kessler on the first hand of heads-up play.

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

Check it out … Beyond the Table has a new distribution partner in CardPlayer, where we’re putting up some special episodes for the US Poker Bowl. And, of course, you can always hear the latest semi-regular, never relevant jimjabber from Tom, Dan, and Karridy (and SnG Steve!) — aka the 2nd Greatest Podcast in the History of the Internet — here.

Depending on when you are reading this, you might be learning of the good news before they do. By “they”, I am referring to my partners in podcast crime, Tom Schneider and Dan Michalski. Just a little while ago, I received a welcomed email from Pokerpreneuer and PokerBowl creator, John Nightingale. It appears that the dick sucking negotiating that I did has paid off and Tom and Dan will be the on-screen commentators for the inaugural airing of the US PokerBowl.

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!