Stories From The Felt S01E02 ACEHiGH

EliteDrama

Watch Stories From The Felt S01E02 ACEHiGH - EliteDrama on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:01The 1973 championship round draws the largest field ever.

00:06Look at them. No different than the guy next door.

00:09But gambling for this lineup is no hobby. It's their profession.

00:15I have the kind of a mind that whenever I see something happening,

00:21I don't know why, but almost automatically,

00:25in the back of my head, there's a question,

00:29can I do this better? This is my nature.

00:33I can't even help myself.

00:40Poker on TV is something we take for granted today.

00:43Poker After Dark, Poker Night in America,

00:46Poker Masters, Super High Roller Bowl,

00:49and the granddaddy of them all, the World Series of Poker.

00:53It is the deuce! The river comes home!

00:57It is over here at the Rio!

01:00It wasn't always this way.

01:06Back in the day, poker players were thought to be hustlers,

01:09drunks, and criminals.

01:11Shifty gamblers playing in dim, smoky rooms.

01:14Not exactly TV friendly.

01:17Beginning in the early 70s, the only poker shown on TV

01:20was an hour-long documentary recounting the highlights of the World Series.

01:25Doyle Brunson, a one-time high school principal, is next to tap out.

01:29Now a respected gambler, Dolly Doyle is armed with a master's degree in education,

01:35but it's no help here.

01:37It was just simply, this is what happened in Vegas,

01:41a group of people came in, this is the world champion poker player.

01:44A couple of interviews, showed a couple of hands.

01:48I have a lot of inventions, I have almost a hundred patents to my name,

01:54and this is one of them.

01:57Over the years, the players changed, but the TV presentation stuck to the same general format.

02:02I found it the most boring thing in the world, to sit there, watch two guys,

02:06you don't know what they have, and they're thinking, and thinking, and thinking,

02:09and then the guy throws his hand away.

02:11That to me is about as dull as it gets.

02:15I met Henry Ornstein in 1987 at the Bicycle Club,

02:19playing seven car to stud.

02:21And he would sit next to me, and every time I would throw my hand away,

02:26especially when there was action in the hand.

02:29Anyway, I could have had a flush draw that I missed,

02:32or I could have been bluffing that I gave up, or something.

02:34As soon as I throw my hand away, he'd reach out to look at my hold card.

02:37So he just wanted to see everybody's hold cards.

02:40Born in Poland in 1923, Henry Ornstein always loved games.

02:46But his childhood was interrupted by an invading army.

02:50Henry and two of his brothers were the only members of their family

02:54to survive the concentration camps.

02:56After the war, Henry immigrated to America and found success in the toy business.

03:03His inventive mind and playful spirit were behind some of the most successful toys of their time.

03:09But his most influential idea came in the early 90s,

03:12when he happened to catch the World Series of Poker on TV.

03:15It was very boring, because you watched, you watched, you didn't know what was going on.

03:20And of course, to Henry, that was unacceptable, because he loved the game,

03:24and he kept thinking that everybody should know what we're doing.

03:28Everybody should know there's so much more to play in this game.

03:31I figured out quickly that if we just cut the table and put a glass on top,

03:37and then have camera installed underneath,

03:40the audiences could see all the cards, which made it very interesting.

03:45I really hated the idea of showing cards in a Hulk game.

03:49It just seemed like this was not what poker was about.

03:53There is a big element of disguise in the way you want to play hands and the way you play.

04:00A lot of times I hate to run a bluff or something when I know somebody's going to see it.

04:04I'm like, if I do this on TV, they're going to see it and they're going to know,

04:08and I'll never be able to do it again.

04:10So that's how I always think.

04:12And I try and, you know, play more ABC than I maybe normally would.

04:16As a professional poker player, I would say,

04:19how can you expect professional poker players to show their Hulk cards?

04:22That's how they make their living.

04:24You're telling me to expose the way I play? Really?

04:28What did the players say when you said, let's look at your Hulk cards?

04:32Well, they thought that the players wouldn't like it.

04:36But I said, the desire to be seen on TV will be stronger than any other consideration.

04:45I had no doubt about it, and history shows I was right.

04:51The first show to feature the Hulk cam was BBC's late-night poker in 1999.

04:56We'll be using under-the-table cameras tonight to show you the cards.

04:59We're going to have the luxury of being able to know everybody's hands,

05:02but the players have no way of knowing anyone's cards but their own.

05:06The program was a success, and American producers quickly took notice.

05:10Going all in with nothing.

05:12A stunning play from Moneymaker, who missed his draws, has nothing,

05:17and now has put Sam Bojo all in.

05:21Is Chris bluffing his turn?

05:23No.

05:24You know, it was like a perfect storm of Hulk cam being there,

05:28television being interested, and all of a sudden here comes the internet and online poker.

05:33With poker exploding in popularity, a new breed of player was born, the poker celebrity.

05:38Then all of a sudden it hit TV, and there was just a total different air about it.

05:43I actually was a rock star, you know what I'm saying?

05:45That's how you were treated, kind of like a rock star.

05:48Yeah.

05:49And it was strange.

05:51I mean, I would never imagine that high-stakes poker will make me a category of a superstar and a celebrity, you know?

06:02Today, televised poker is evolving along with its industry.

06:07A new generation of players and a changing audience call for innovative storytelling.

06:12A pioneer in the field, Maury Escondani continues to find new ways to bring poker to the world.

06:17Poker on TV is going to be outlasting my grandkids, your grandkids, just because the game is so amazing.

06:26The game itself just captures everybody's heart and soul.

06:31As the inventor of the Hulk cam, Henry Orenstein has earned his place in poker history.

06:36What's the secret for staying sharp at poker in two-year-old age?

06:41What's the secret of staying sharp at poker at your age?

06:45You eat a pound of raw cabbage every day.

06:50What is he?

06:52I'll check.

06:55I bet.

06:56I'll call.

06:57Kings over.

06:58Kings and Jacks.

07:0010's over.

07:01You win.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended