Alan Meltzer

When Alan Meltzer passed away last October, he left behind $1 million in his will to his chauffeur and another $500,000 to the doorman of his building. An entrepreneurial success story, Meltzer built his fortune in the music business and gained fame in the poker world when he appeared on Season 5 of High Stakes Poker.

The chauffeur and the doorman were close friends of Meltzer, and had provided him with support during his divorce from his wife of 13 years. His chauffeur, Jean Laborde, father of 5 from Irvington, NJ, said in fond remembrance of his dear friend, “He never looked down on anybody. He was such a nice guy. He left me money but it’s not a good deal for me because it means he’s no longer here.” The doorman, Chamil Demiraj confirms by adding, “He was a generous guy. He was a really good friend of mine and I was a good friend of his. It’s a surprise. Peace and rest to him. That’s all I can say.”

His ex-wife Diana used less delicate words as she commented bitterly, “He can leave it to whoever he wants to. I’m doing fine. I could care less. If he wants to give it to the bums, he can give it to the bums. He could f–k a nun. I couldn’t give a s–t. We’re divorced. The man is dead.”

Alan Melzter achieved his business success through his entrepreneurial ventures in the music industry. In 1985 he founded CD One Stop, the first CD distributor of its kind, which he started out of his own home and grew into a booming business. He later moved on to found Wind-Up Records in 1997, the largest independent record label in the world, home to artists such as Creed, Evanescence, Seether, Finger Eleven and People in Planes.

Apart from his business successes, he was a known presence in high stakes poker games as he set up private games in Vegas attracting pros like Sammy Farha, David Williams and David “Viffer” Peat. Playing 30 hours a week, he claimed that he spent more time at the poker table than at his job. In his appearance on High Stakes Poker in its 5th season, he played a big hand against Tom Dwan, as he bravely called an all-in river shove with pocket kings on an Ace-high board vs Dwan’s full house, resulting in a pot over $500,000. Famous for his refusal to “run it twice” even at the highest stakes, Meltzer had a real love for action. “I don’t need nut-peddlers in my game,” he said. “I want an action game. I’m an action player all the way.”

It all started when Huck Seed saw this video poker machine at the Aria with a massive progressive jackpot. After consulting a few friends and reading several books about how to play perfect video poker, the always game Huckleberry did some research about how profitable it would be to take on the machine. Huck came to the conclusion that with the massive progressive jackpot, and if he played perfectly, he would have an edge against the machine of roughly +.65%.

That percentage, .65%, doesn’t seem a whole lot, but when you factor in $500 per bet, that’s roughly a $3 profit per hand of video poker played. A top video poker player could play roughly 600-800 hands of video poker per hour, which would be an average win of $2,500/$3,000 hour, this all assuming Huck was able to play perfectly. The swings in high stakes video poker are massive however, and it’s estimated that to be properly rolled to take on the machine Huck would need a video poker bankroll of roughly $800,000-$1 Million!

After taking on this machine several times in the past, with mixed results, Huck decided to pony up $50,000 out of his pocket and take a shot. It was a long 10 hour video poker session, which had Huck down $10,000, but despite being tired, Huck remained intent on playing as well as possible against the machine.

Then Huck got dealt K spades J spades, he drew 3 cards, and got back the Ace Queen and Ten of spades to hit the royal flush! Hitting the royal flush on that hand was 1 in 16,215! Ecstatic, Huck went onto his Twitter with a screen shot of the good news and a picture of the machine saying, “Jackpot $670,665, call the attendant.” Seed tweeted, “Internet poker is down in the US, but I’m still pressing buttons!”

Congrats to Huck Seed on making one of the biggest poker scores of the year off of video poker! His lifetime live tournament poker winnings are over $5.8 Million, and now he can add “video poker pro” to his resume. This $670,665 win is his second biggest win ever, behind his 1996 Main Event prize of $1 Million!

This move comes as a result of the actions of Black Friday, which removed many of the major online poker rooms from the American market. Formerly, High Stakes had been under the patronage of PokerStars. After the government crackdown, the executives at the Game Show Network decided to pull all commercials featuring the popular site. Players were still seen wearing their typical badges, but no mention was made of this on the broadcast.

Now, according to Gold Strike spokesman John George, his US-based company is ready to step in and fill the gap.

“With the FBI seizing the illegal poker sites,” he says, “50 million American poker players have no idea where to play poker. Gold Strike Poker is America’s only legal online 3-D poker site and is taking the leading position in the U.S. market.”

So what makes Gold Strike different from Full Tilt and PokerStars? The answer, simply, is that it’s not a free poker site. By charging their members a monthly fee of $20, the company falls under the label of private club, similar to the rules of taverns operating in supposedly “dry counties.” This subscription style of service then allows players to participate in as many freeroll tournaments as they are able, all of which hand out real money prizes. There are no sit and goes, since these do not conform to a free-entry structure.

Game Show Network hopes to regain a portion of their viewers now that PokerStars is no longer in the picture. Full Tilt pro’s, who once were banned from competition due to contract issues, will now be able to sit in on the action. Fans are also hoping to see a return of their favorite hosts, Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benz.

The differences between them were more technical details than anything philosophical. PAD featured almost exclusively single table tournaments, like insanely stacked online SitnGos. Old hands and up and comers would battle it out, dropping one by one as their skill or luck ran dry.

High Stakes Poker, on the other hand, has always been about the cash games. It was more like being a fly on the wall in Bobby’s Room. Huge ring games happen in Vegas all the time and the likes of Doyle Brunson have made a living sitting in on them. For the bankrolled pros at the table it was just another day, but for us it was a window into a ridiculous world where money means nothing and everything all at once.

Fast forward to the present day and you’ll see that things have changed a little. Once again PAD and HSP are the premiere poker shows, but this time it has less to do with their quality. Black Friday has networks squirming in their seats and the instant reactions has been to cull with reckless abandon. The Big Game, Million Dollar Challenge and NAPT have all been axed, leaving our old favorites as the only remaining bastions of poker television.

But things are different too in these old haunts. Divisions now spread further than format, they drive right down to temperament.

With Norm MacDonald in the booth and a handful of rich businessmen at the table, High Stakes Poker has become more about goofing around than high class play. The attraction of HSP used to be seeing the best cash game players in the world compete for money that mattered. Now it’s just a case of seeing who can drain the whale the quickest.

The hands are still worth seeing and, with amateurs at the table, there are more big pots and exciting hands, but its a very different scenario from what brought people to HSP in the first place. The change of commentary team is more evidence of this shift. Norm does his best to add a insightful analysis to the table, but he’s no expert. Gone are the days of AJ and Gabe providing a little humor and a little expertise. Now it’s a mishmash of both that is often uncomfortable and rarely successful.

By contrast, the most recent episode of Poker After Dark seems to have been shot in a mausoleum. I expect a total lack of expression from Phil Ivey, but the usually animated Tom Dwan looked like he’d been lobotomized. Compared the trashy thrills and spills of High Stakes Poker, this was an exceedingly sombre affair.

That said, the action on the felt was far more interesting. PAD appears to be the show for poker purists and there’s no better testament to that than their choice to run two full weeks of Pot Limit Omaha cash games. PLO is undoubtedly a less exciting format to broadcast, but as Phil Ivey pointed out, it’s one that rewards more skillful players.

HSP has become a party and PAD a clinic. Where they both used to be a mix it up, neither does a good job of addressing its shortcomings. There’s very little expert analysis on HSP and in any case, as affable as Kara Scott is, hearing why mega-rich billionaires decided to 3-bet that particular hand is of little interest. Equally, when Leanne Tweeden attempts a terrible post-game interview with the six players at the table, you can cut the boredom with a knife.

Neither show has become bad, I should stress. What they have done is narrow their focus in opposite directions. PAD is now for the poker geeks and HSP for those that love the action. Perhaps I’m being one of those sad idiots who think everyone was better “in the good ol’ days,” but if we could have a little more levity in our PAD and a little more finesse in our HSP I think the world would be a finer place.

The most obvious change, and the one that has lit up comment sections around the world, is off screen rather than on. Norm MacDonald, of Saturday Night Live fame, arrived in the wake of the ousted Gabe Kaplan. The Welcome Back Kotter alumnus has been a mainstay of the poker community for years and was a regular at the Vegas card rooms long before the boom hit. Over six seasons he had made the High Stakes Poker booth his own.

If he weren’t wandering into the wake of such a competent card caller, you could say MacDonald was doing an decent job. He reports the action competently and makes questionable comments, as befits an amateur trying to second-guess the best players in the world. There’s no doubting MacDonald is a fine comedian, but he doesn’t have the history with the game that Kaplan can draw on. Gabe knows the likes of Doyle Brunson personally and can use that history to make incisive, if corny, quips.

Ironically, what MacDonald would benefit most from is a cohost, which is exactly what Gabe was intended to be. It was only in Season 6 that Kaplan was stuck in the booth alone, after regular commentator A. J. Benza was fired in favour of front-of-house dame Kara Scott. The Canadian belle, who is no slouch at the tables herself, goes about her work amiably, but I’d swap her for another voice in the booth any day.

But what about the action on the tables? There’s a reason I’ve left it until the fifth paragraph to talk about actual poker. There have been a few interesting confrontations and some hands worth chatting about, but no real blockbuster moments. The only pot that’s generated any column inches was a big all-in between Barry Greenstein and Antonio Esfandiari. It was a set vs. straight flush draw situation and the players built a pot of $593,900. It’s only the money that makes this interesting, the play itself was standard.

That’s not to say that this series has made for poor television. The overall quality from a spectator’s point of view has been decent, but it’s difficult to pick out one individual hand that demonstrates that.

For my money, there have been too many amateurs. I understand that whales fuel the cash game scene, but this isn’t a regular game. The promise of air time ought to be enough to tempt 6 pros to step into the ring, without the need to prop up the table with piles of easy cash. These billionaires might be very interesting people. Models of capitalist excellence even, but I don’t care one tiny bit about how they play poker.

This influx of businessmen may be the result of the second big change to hit High Stakes Poker. Their new sponsorship from PokerStars lead to a knee-jerk reaction from Full Tilt, who banned all their pros from participating in the show. That means no Phil Ivey, no Tom Dwan, no Patrik Antonius, and no Gus Hansen. Some of the biggest and most exciting cash game players will never be seen again on the world’s most popular poker show. I hope those PokerStars bucks are worth it.

One thing I will most certainly give GSN credit for is uploading every episode on Youtube a few days after it airs. They’re smart enough to realise that a bootleg will hit online video sites within a matter of hours whatever they do and if they offer a high quality version, people will choose their official channel over any grainy knock off. It also means that poor saps like me who live outside the U.S. can keep up to date without feeling like grubby criminals.

It would be patently unfair to pass definitive judgment on Season 7 of High Stakes Poker so early into its run. Still, the show has stumbled rather than leaped into 2011 and will need to quicken the pace a little if wants to quiet the hordes of detractors venting their spleens onto the nearest message board.

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Poker, when played as a uniquely American game, seems to be a pretty appropriate fit.  Nowadays it is played all over the world, but its American roots seem to match what Americans value most — competition, fair rewards based on better performance, the ability to earn as much as you are able based on merit, and so on.  Any variant of poker that you will play awards the pot to the best hand only (or splits it between the High and Low hands in some cases).  Its fair that way — no prizes for second, just the way we like it in the United States.  Come in 2nd in most places, and you get a silver medal.  But in poker, like the Super Bowl and every other quintessential American title match, 2nd place gets the same as everyone else who didn’t win — nothing.  (Obviously in Tournaments you get cash for second, this is meant in terms of individual pots.)

The next time you fire up your HUD and 24 tables of whatever limit you choose, understand that the fundamentals of your game were written not in computer code, but in backrooms and bars across the land.  If you look at the player lists from the first editions of the World Series of Poker (basically the entire decade of the 1970′s) you will find the names of road gamblers who had to carry knives, guns, and piles of cash to keep from getting robbed or caught in what they were doing.  Their chosen profession was frowned upon to the point where players like Doyle Brunson himself would tell his children and family not to tell the truth about “what daddy did for a living.”  Road Gambler wasn’t a box that you could check off under “Past Employment Experience” when looking for a job, but in all honesty that only added to the mystique of it all the more.  Men like Johnny Moss and ‘Amarillo Slim’ Preston would barely recognize the game today. Even though Preston still plays in some events, the game that he plays now has eschewed the shadows for the spotlight. The small circle of Texans who brought the game to Nevada’s glitziest desert have given way to a worldwide influx of poker players that know the game in a completely different way.

When poker first came to Las Vegas by way of the tiniest towns and smokiest rooms that Texas had to offer, the casinos resisted it simply because tables took up lots of space, and the potential revenue that could be generated seemed small.  After all, in poker unlike other floor games, the house does not gamble, it simply collects a portion of the pot as a rake, or charges seat rental for the privilege of sitting down at a given table. Slowly but surely, Poker made its way onto the floor, when casino executives decided that it could stay alongside of other new experiments, such as the in-house Race & Sports Books.  If you’ve played live poker in a reputable casino at any time, thank men like Benny & Jack Binion, or Sam Rosenthal — men who saw the vision for the game that the Texans imported to one day hold an unassailable spot on the landscape of the Las Vegas gaming scene.

Those men were right, and so it was that in 1970 the Binions and their Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas hosted the finest players in a battle of the best, the inaugural World Series of Poker.  The players voted for the winner (freeze outs weren’t invented yet), and they unanimously voted on Johnny Moss as winner among those in the group.  It would be several years yet before the WSOP would evolve into a larger event, and ultimately into the world’s preeminent poker festival that we know it as today.  In Part 2 of this 3-part series, we will take a look at the rise of the modern tournament format, as well as players who made their mark on the game because of tournaments and the fame that they offered.  Until then, Good Luck at the Tables!

While HSP has seen a wide variety of players, settings, and styles, a few things have remained the same.  Daniel Negreanu will always run horri-bad in this format, and it’s no knock on him. He has just been surprisingly unlucky in expensive spots over the years.  Sam Farha will apparently no longer play on television, believing that it’s bad for his game (and he might be right, we’ll just have to take his word for it).  Amateur players will, for the most part, provide some comic relief or interesting plays, but generally lose (except for Guy Laliberte).  But this seventh season of HSP will not necessarily hold to form in all ways – although Farha remains absent, as do all of the Full Tilt Poker red pros who had played previously, because Pokerstars.net now sponsors the game.  What we have in this installment is a pretty entertaining game, a mix of pros, amateurs, and tournament players who are newer to the cash games, all clashing at the Bellagio with Norm MacDonald calling the action.

Thus far in Season 7, well-known pro and HSP regular Anotonio Esfandiari has been a solid winner at the table, as has new amateur player Phil Ruffin.  Four episodes into this season, in fact, Ruffin has already left the table over $300K ahead, thanks in large part to a flopped nut flush that bested Barry Greenstein’s made wheel on the turn.  I doubt if Barry signed a book for him.  But speaking of Barry, who is also a regular on this show, he has been uncharacteristically weak-tight in a few spots thus far, and is down to the tune of $180K.  Peat and Robl have been moderate winners in the game (Robl only sat down after amateur Robert Croak tapped out), and Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson is running close to even in this game, but probably down slightly, albeit by a minimal amount.

The straws that have been stirring the drink are definitely doing so in different ways. Vanessa Selbst, a well-known and highly accomplished tournament player, was stacked almost immediately on Episode 1 when her QQ ran into an amateur’s flopped set of 3′s. Since then she has not only stabilized the ship, but found a few solid spots to get her money in and win back cash and respect at the same time.  To her credit, she has not only gone after the amateurs, but mixed it up quite well with Brunson and the other pros as well.  Bill Klein, on the other hand, has lost in the neighborhood of $400K. It’s bad on the one hand, but since he’s matching his wins or losses in charitable donations, I’m hoping that he either loses more or goes on the heater of his life. He more or less wished for the same thing in an early season interview, hoping that they’d either beat him badly or let him win a lot.  Regardless of his wealth, it takes a stand-up guy to make that kind of commitment to charity, so at this point I’m rooting against his cards so that his charities win.  But in all fairness to Klein, he’s been a bit unlucky in tough spots, and managed to flop a set of 8′s only to see his opponent fold on the turn (although he took a nice pot).  He’s not as polished of a player, but has been fun to watch.

If you enjoy cash games and the drama and thought processes that go into them, you will really enjoy this season of HSP.  The amateurs seemed to be beating up the pros early, but the pros are certainly making a comeback. With new players coming into the mix in the weeks ahead, it will be fun to watch the entire table adjust.  Have fun watching Season 7 of High Stakes Poker, and Good Luck at the Tables!

“A chip and a chair” is all you need to make your comeback. And in 2011, there are already some serious underdogs writing their own comeback stories …

Chris Moneymaker
The one-time-lucky, seven-year-bust, comeback-accountant

Who doesn’t know the story of Chris Moneymaker? He is likely the single greatest reason for poker’s popularity boom in the last 8 years. As a total unknown in 2003, and working as an accountant in Tennessee, Moneymaker bought into a $39 satellite tournament on PokerStars. He ended up winning a seat a the World Series of Poker Main Event, the most revered and coveted tournament in the world, and became a legend.

Moneymaker bested a field of 838 players. In the final heads-up match, he faced Sammy Farha, a well-known and highly successful poker celebrity. Moneymaker took first place, and the enormous $2.5 million grand prize. He quit his job to become a professional poker player, and went on to live the dream!

But, Moneymaker was a total bust.

From 2005 through most of 2008, Moneymaker didn’t record just about any live tournament cash worth talking about. In 2008, he recorded two cashes for just over $150k. In 2009, he recorded one cash for $15k. Considering living expenses, and regular poker losses, these types of cashes after 4 years of running dry were nothing but blips on the radar. (2010? No real cashes.) People have looked at Moneymaker as an amateur who got lucky once, and just didn’t have what it takes to be a regular winner. Generating mostly losses for seven years (not like he couldn’t afford to) does not earn you respect.

Enter 2011… Moneymaker hired a mental coach. He began leaning on his experience of 8 years of regular play. He developed strategies, and studies regularly. Moneymaker has decided to stop being a lucky player, and start being a smart one. The result? 2011 is only three months in, and he won second place in the National Heads up Championship (to the tune of a cool $300,000) and 11th place in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event (for a respectable $130,000). In these three short months, he has pulled in more significant tournament money than in the entire seven years prior.

His rate of winning far exceeds anything he has ever accomplished to date, and his consistent performances suggest a totally new style of play. With determination, and the willingness to invest in developing his skill, Moneymaker has taken a whole new tack and completely upended all the negative opinions. Moneymaker is on the comeback trail, and just might be earning the respect of poker professionals by the end of 2011.

Patrik Antonius
The Finnish Rollercoaster

2009 was the year of Patrik Antonius. Up $9 million, almost all of it in online winnings, the Finnish pro put up a stellar performance. But later that year, he admitted in an interview that he “lost millions, millions, millions of dollars with other stuff last year.”

2010 didn’t get any better. He lost $3.6 million in the year from high stakes cash games alone, going nowhere about as fast as you can go. In addition to his poker losses, Antonius reportedly lost millions in sports bets, and millions on the golf course. To cap it all off, Antonius began suffering seriously from his back problems, and was forced to attend rehabilitation sessions twice a day. Antonius summed it all up pretty simply: “I hate these moments when everything just goes bad.”

That’s what they call a tailspin.

Enter 2010… Antonius plays Draw Poker. A lot of Draw Poker. It’s March, and he’s won more almost $2 million at this game alone. With his other online poker efforts, he pulled in by the end of February a huge $3 million in profit. That’s more than Moneymaker made in one of the world’s largest tournaments in 2003!

Let’s put this in perspective: last year in March, Antonius was negative $3 million. That is a $6 million difference year-to-date. That is more money than most people will earn in two lifetimes! Antonius credits his intense focus and work ethic for his ability to create such a turnaround. But come on Patrik, what poker secret do you know that we don’t? Regardless, we’ve only got respect for a player who can comeback like this.

Just remember poker players: no matter how bad it gets (losing $3 million in three months is pretty bad!), there is always another comeback story waiting to be written. All you need is a chip and a chair…

Chris Moneymaker photo, The Telegraph
Patrik Antonius photo, Poker Player.co.uk

This practice is particularly common on clips from High Stakes Poker, where Daniel is generally regarded as one of the least successful players. To be fair, he never seems to catch a break in front of the camera. More than anyone else on the show, Negreanu gets his money in with the best of it, but ends up with the worst of it.

Being a millionaire poker pro and the face of the world’s biggest online poker site doesn’t soften the impact of a bad beat. Especially when you’re watching hundreds of thousands of dollars crawl across the table to your opponent’s stack. Lets take a look at five of his most gut-wrenching hands.

Durrrr Rivers the Gutshot

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Four Fours for the Frenchman

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David makes a big raise on the flop which Negreanu calls. When he commits his chips there, has he signed his own death warrant? If you’re calling on the flop, why slow down when another 4 hits? He obviously doesn’t put Benyamine on a set, so there’s no reason to consider quads on the turn.

E-Dog buys a Boat

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Four of the Best for Lindgren

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The Great Dane and the Savage Beat

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OK, so how about running into quads three times? And how about this time, rather than a straight, we’ll let you turn a full house and watch as you collide with the only hand that could possibly beat you. That’ll cost $300,000 sir.

Let me know what you think of Daniel’s play and whether I’ve overlooked any classics.

Although reports are varied, Johnny Chan is clearly one of the big winners so far, along with one of the locals. Dwan, on the other hand, has found himself down a massive $2 million, taking a significant cut out of his November winnings. Juanda has also been seen on the wrong side of the rail, also down roughly $2 million. However, with blinds as high as $4k-$8k, a quick comeback is always possible.

Dwan was felted holding KQ early on when one of the local Chinese players won with KK. The situation was a tricky one, where the local player was known for gambling big on draws. It was either unlucky or a bad read, but either way, it left Dwan smarting.

Dwan is clearly investing a lot in this game, in both time and money. He recently wrote in the Full Tilt Poker chat box, “Been playing 30hrs str live… jus drank a ton of coffee and game broke, so cant sleep, but also cant think too great yo.” Known for his extremely aggressive play and player reading abilities, Dwan is never one out for the count. The Macau Big Game is still in its early stages, and he may very well find himself back in the black before the game draws to a close.