Bob Dylan sang about it, people are scared of it

I want to start with something big, that a lot of people find really, really scary.

CHANGE

There it is, that thing that makes grown ups angry, confused and frightened!

But why? I have always thought that it is because humans like to be comfortable. They like knowing where things are and how to get them, and when that is changed it brings out irrational feelings that we fear. I have seen this so many times over the years, especially when I had a ‘proper’ job; changes in working practises, change in management, change in shift patterns, change in company goals. Many people dislike it and some try to fight it. The latter always end up looking for a new job and the gold at the end of the rainbow (which is generally in  field of Unicorns).

Poker had one of those moments this week. It wasn’t a surprise, we knew it was coming, we knew who was behind it, but yet there are still some surprised people out there when it was announced.

The entrepreneurial Alexandre Dreyfus has finally announced the Global Poker League, which is a ‘franchised’ based poker league, played in ‘The Cube’. For those needing to play catch up at this point, please click on the links to understand what is involved.

Let us look at things this way; you are involved in a very niche industry that can only grow if it has broader appeal and new customers walking in through the door. To get the new customers you have to reach out to them and offer them a vision of your product that interest, excites and motivates them to try it out. If the do, and they like it then they will buy into the product as a whole. For example, Formula 1 fans, may not love NASCAR and Le Mans, but they will watch it as they are Motor Racing fans.

There are too many people in the poker industry who are too keen to bat away new ideas and new concepts. I have always felt that these people are like the ones in my old career who do not like change. Change is bad, change is evil, yet change is what will (I am not going to say grow) keep poker alive. Too many people think it is played in back rooms by grumpy old men, or young kids in hoodies and headphones who sit in silence looking angry, or by mouthy frustrated people who want to berate their opponent for making a bad decision. Guess what, THEY ARE RIGHT!

We need fun, we need audience, we need music, lasers, arenas, T-shirts, LED screens, heroes, villains, laughs.

Why would nobody want that? Why would nobody want new players? Does it matter how we acquire them? Does it matter if someone wants to invest time and money to get them? Does it matter if they need an ROI on getting them?

If you don’t want the change that will keep the game alive, then step back into your provincial card room, shut down your Twitter account and stay out of the limelight. This industry needs change and it needs people who will invest (and get make money) to get there. Maybe a Global Poker League is not the definitive answer, but there is not a line of people with there hands in their pockets, enthusiasm and fresh ideas.

Let’s break the mould and EMBRACE CHANGE. Let’s be better than regular people with regular jobs. Let’s support ideas that can bring new life into our industry.

Heroes can't live forever

I haven’t blogged since December 2012. I guess there has not been much to say, although there have been some huge changes during this time where I have fallen out of the Poker industry and then fallen back in again, I haven’t been inspired to write.

I haven’t really felt loss (outside of family and friends) that meant anything since May 1994. On a Sunday afternoon at Imola, I found out that your heroes aren’t immortal and people that you were in awe of were just human like the rest of us.

Regardless of personal opinion, the world is a poorer place, with the news that Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott lost his battle with cancer on the 6^th of April 2015. Probably the first Poker player to attract mainstream popularity in the UK, Devilfish had swagger, sunglasses, a cool nickname and a sketchy past. What other ingredients do you need to be a legendary card player in the Nineties?

While the game has changed beyond all recognition, moving from smoky backrooms to Hilton Hotel Ballrooms, Poker is still a card game that is widely perceived as gambling yet there is still an aura around the game, a mystique that is both intoxicating and inviting to those who play or just have a passing interest. I quite often wonder where I would be today if it wasn’t for those backroom heroes from 20 years ago.

Back in 1999 I, like so many others, watched the card game I used to play at school and during my teenage years after it was thrust on to our TV screens courtesy of a little camera hidden under the table.

Yes, we have all seen the interviews where Steve Lipscombe says it was the World Poker Tour that did it first, but those of us who finished work late or stayed up late in the UK have always known it was not true. Channel 4 pioneered poker television, four years before the world had heard of Chris Moneymaker. Watching Series 1 of  ‘Late Night Poker’ introduced us to the Devilfish,  ‘Mad’ Marty Wilson, Liam Flood, Surinder Sunar, Simon Trumper, Joe Beevers, Ross Boatman and his brother Barny all with commentary from the equally legendary Jesse May.

They were all so far removed from the world I lived in and were playing cards for an eye watering top prize of £40,000 (a number somewhat lower than the multi millions of Pounds, Euros and Dollars that are played for across the felt in 2015), yet they seemed like the most fascinating characters in the world. Sometimes I find it strange that I have met all of these ‘Poker Pioneers’ and socialised with most of them at some point over the last few years. The world truly is a strange place.

Anyway, in case you missed Series 1, the Devilfish won the £40,000 and became, as close to a household name in the UK as a poker player will ever be. I always say if you as an American who has followed poker for 15 years to name a player they will inevitably say ‘Phil Helmuth’, but ask someone from the UK who has followed poker for 15 years the same question they will say ‘ Devilfish’.

To say Dave Ulliott helped bring Poker into the mainstream is pretty much on the money, to say I wouldn’t be doing what I do today without Dave Ulliot is an exaggeration, but the truth is that without these heroes of the game back in 1999 it would not be the multi million industry that it is today.

RIP Fish and thanks for the memories.