What started the revolution?

Every now and then, you will be barely alive at two in the morning pacific time and run across an old world series of poker on ESPN Classic. Even though you are initially excited to see Scotty Ngyuen in all his glory, or a cast of moustaches you never heard of dressed like they just got done making a stag film, the novelty wears off at most ten minutes in to play. Then you start to get pissed off, why wont they just show us the fucking cards. Right about then is when you realize that poker is the most boring thing in the world to watch if you dont know what cards people have. Barely anyone is in the audience and the fields were smaller than todays satilites for tournaments. When you compare that to the hoopla surrounding the psuedo sport in the present, you cant help but wonder what was the keystone to poker’s rejuvanation.
Best I can tell, the popularity was spurned from the confluence of three milestones in close proximity of one another. Namely: The release of the movie rounders, the advent of widespread internet gambling, and the innovation of the hole card cam for televised poker. Lets start at the start with the release and cult success of the texas hold em based film. I didnt see rounders until it was out on video, and only then because my buddy the pilgrim drunkedly demanded that we order it on the big dog’s pay per view bill. Once the shit started going, we realized that the pilgrim just wanted to mimic Teddy KGB’s accent, with him spending the entire feature slobbering “Meestar Son of Beech, Im still up from the last time I stick it in you”. Meanwhile, we realized that this movie was the shit and edward norton was turning in a tour de force. As happens with those rare movies like fast and the furious, fight club, and spellbound, you couldnt possibly have been a red blooded american who had just watched rounders and not want to play some fucking cards. We henceforth started playin weekly games, each time with rounders playing on repeat in the backround while we mimicked our favorite characters. As hands were being dealt, we would take a couple big chugs from our tallboys of coors light, and then raucously call out whose style of play would we be utilizing on the impending hand. Teddy KGB, Mike McD, Kanish, and Johnny Chan were all popular calls in the early going, but we came to realize that in true transative property format there were only two properly dominant characters in the entire movie. The correct answers are the pimp Grandma and the golf pro douchebag. Following the chain of defeats, Mike McD beats just about every signifigant player in the movie except for the fucking golf pro, dude makes a move at him with that cheap jewlery and declares “I bluffed a big ringer, anytime, anyplace, and oh yeah, anybody.” Grandma on the other hand, was a desperation call allowed once per game, whereby you were allowed to flip over the table in anger, and anyone not securing their chips directly after hearing the call of “Im grandma” would be forced into a scramble for that which they had justly won. Like I says, we were big fans of the movie.
When thus returning to college the summer after my introduction to big blinds and flops, shit found solace on the internet. I played a shitload of play chips on paradise poker, which infuriates not satiates a gamblers need for real action. Thus salivating, I was ushered into a circle of sharps playing a home game well above my skill level. After turning an ass lucky straight to be big winner first game holding 8-4 unsuited to a preflop raise, I started calling the hand “The Moulton”. I shat away at least a grand over the course of my senior year to these soulless fucks, but I did get to hand out my fair share of bad beats with the always lucky 8-4. As I became more aware of the odds underlying various situations, I fell further under the spell of poker’s sirens song.
By the time moneymaker won his fortune, I was already playing live games in california casinos on the regular, most notably at Oceans Eleven casino in San Diego. When he galvanized the amatuer against the pro as a less one sided battle, the flood gates opened up for the prize pools we see today. Televised events on the world poker tour and other trumped up contests are only going to increase in the future because of the increased production values which draw in the audience. I think I could watch bass fishing if they had live odds fluttering around which I could take against other sedentary spectators from the comfort of my own living room. What Im trying to say is, give me the keys to the gambling channel and I will guarantee your profits. We could broadcast any live event so long as we knew the true odds of events and they appeared on screen before we let those two chickens fight. Beyond that, you could gear a reality show to support an obstacle course of online wagering. Imagine being able to turn your television to a mechanism for action at any time a day, dream with me dude. Of course we would have to put the fix in every now and again, but you sons of bitches know that comes with the territory.
The way everything came together is actually quite breathtaking. In the two years Ive lived in vegas, every major casino has added a poker room and most have added a stop on the tournament circuit. The boon has to fade at some point, but I would bet it waxes before it wanes. The approaching world series of poker 2006 should be the biggest event in poker history, and Im gonna be right there to collect from you suckers. Shits going big from the begining, buying into the 1500 dollar pot limit event and taking it the fuck down. After that you’ll see me posted up at the cash games and taking my shot at satiliting in to the main event when bankroll permits. Could be I run out of money week one, but thats the beauty of poker these days. Any piece of shit can win, and any sharp can go broke, even if the odds are against it. We’ve come a long way from the days when every socially dysfunctional card holder looked like they should either go by Lester or Tex, and no matter how we got there, we better get it while the gettin is good.

What started the revolution?

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