Poker Column: Is It Lonely At The Top?

Recently, some big poker names diverted their attention from their high stakes games and got involved in some sorts of "projects" that were aimed at the average poker target audience. Are they trying to bond with the normal players? Is this a marketing trick? Do they actually miss playing with the Average Joes of poker?

We have been recently flooded with all
sort of projects, experiments, tests, whatever, coming from the big
names in poker. Is it some sort of season for this? Are they trying
to give us some sort of message? Why are they putting their high
stakes play on hold to go down to normal players? In this poker
column I used three examples that were interesting – to say the
least – from this point of view.

 

I guess by now most of you are already
familiar with Tom “durrrr” Dwan's Million Dollar Challenge. If
not, let me bring back some key details:

• anyone EXCEPT Phil “OMGClayAiken”
  Galfond can join;

• there will be 4 tables at once;

• the limit is $200/$400;

• sessions will last between 200 and
  400 minutes;

• the format is either NL or PLO;

• there's a minimum of 50,000 hands
  that need to be played;

• tables change if stacks exceed
  250BB;

• players have to reload if they
  have less than 75BB;

• durrrr brings $1.5 million to the
  table, the opponent must put $500,000 on the side;

• you keep whatever you win by
  playing those hands;

• you win if you have even $1 more
  than what you started with.

Why is he doing it?

Now, Dwan is known for his huge online
pots and he is definitely not scared by anyone basically (maybe
Galfond scared him, but he said he doesn't want to play him because
he's a good friend of his – whatever, durrrr), so this challenge
may come as a chance to see some spectacular pots. But then again,
this is not something fantastic for these pros – it's good, but not
great.

But why would durrrr do this? He's
giving 3:1 odds at THOSE stakes and he says it with such ease...
Well, according to him, he's doing this whole thing because he's
looking for some thrill or fun, because he can't really get much
action at the high stakes tables, so he decided to change all that.
In short, he got bored.

 

Now let me tell you about another case:
Daniel Negreanu recently posted about his personal challenge, where
he wants to transform $10 into $100,000. Some additional details:

• he will start at the $0.01/$0.02
  limit with $10;

• he will play NL cash games in FR
  format;

• he will advance from one limit to
  the next when he has at least 500 BB for that particular limit;

Why is he doing it?

According to himself, his goal here is
to be able to play NL $100/$200 from this $10 bankroll. He also wants
to know better how the lower limits work and (probably) be able to
use that for his high stakes games. Negreanu is one of the most
famous players and I just love his games, especially because of his godly reads, but what is he
doing now? He's just experimenting – that's what he actually said –
he's trying something fun.

 

Phil
Hellmuth will join Annie Duke for the “Best
Damn Poker Show”
(the first episode already aired on Monday at Fox Sports Net). The
goal of this TV show? These two poker celebrities have to morph some
regular players into champs. Time for some details:

• some people were selected through audition video which they sent to
  the TV show organizers;

• some people were selected via online qualifiers;

• some people were selected from the live auditions at the 2008 World
  Series of Poker.

• 24 players were left standing and they are now competing in this
  7-episode series. The goal is basically to please Hellmuth and Duke
  so that you won't get eliminated.

Why is he doing it?

When I heard Hellmuth (and Annie Duke, but I will only talk about
him) is going to join this show, I thought: “He just wants to show
the world he can make any John Doe into a poker champ”. That means
fame, fame means money, money means good things. But then again,
couldn't he win more money by simply playing online or going to the
major live events? The only answer that popped into my head was: “He
just wants to get back to the little people. Isn't that cute?”

Now I would like to remind you that this column is only reflecting my
own personal thoughts and is in no way directed towards praising or
flaming any of these players. It made me wonder: are these guys
feeling so bad at the top that they want to get back to the 'mortals'
and get a taste of the sweet, innocent and bad poker players like you
and me? Probably.

I'm not saying money doesn't bring happiness – it certainly helps.
But things like these just make me think that these big names still
want to get back down to us from time to time, which is definitely
something nice. I'm just wondering why they do this, because it's not
exactly more profitable than when they would simply play high stakes
cash games.

Maybe it's a marketing move, maybe they try to look better and get
more publicity, which in turn will lead to more money. Maybe they are
trying to enrich their poker knowledge (you can always learn
something new – always) by going to the lower limits and thus
thinking outside the box (a.k.a. “high stakes”).

But what if they actually feel lonely up there?