star poker

The Making Of A Poker Star Two years ago, few people could pick poker champion Annie Duke out of a crowd. Today, the ruby-haired mother of four can barely walk through an airport without getting stopped.
At a recent promotional poker event in Chicago, two young women showed up in homemade T-shirts that read "W.W.A.D.D?," or "What Would Annie Duke Do?"
It's amazing, but poker's success has been much like the game itself -- coldly and calmly calculated, worked for angles and advantages. In the past two years, poker has evolved from a backroom game to a big-money media property as cable's Travel Channel, ESPN, Fox Sports and GSN push their various televised tournaments.
For players, this means more opportunities for play, endorsements and profitable sponsorships. Positioning themselves for media exposure, players are adopting nicknames, eyewear fashions, gimmicks -- anything to distinguish themselves from the crowd. For 2004 World Series of Poker champion Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, it's 3-D, lizard-eye sunglasses and a fossil card protector. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson throws playing cards at high velocities, cutting through bananas and various objects.
Phil "Unabomber" Laak wears sunglasses and a hood.
"Three years ago, people really could have cared less about poker," says Steve Lipscomb, creator and producer of the World Poker Tour. "Two of the six players sitting at the first World Poker Tour final table in 2002 were embarrassed to tell their families."
But that's changed, says James McManus, author of "Positively Fifth Street."
"Now that poker has become so amazingly lucrative, especially since 2003, many, many players have been groomed or are grooming themselves for prime time," McManus says. "There's a sense that the sponsor money is about to flow in."
For Duke, it has already started to flow. Her face adorns the cover of "Tournament Poker 2005," a video game by Plainfield's Donohoe Digital and Eagle Games. She is managed by Brian Balsbaugh, a former golf agent who has built a stable of high-profile card players. She also is represented by the heavy-hitting talent agency International Creative Management.
There's a book coming out next year with her name on the spine, and Duke is developing both a movie and television sitcom based on her life (the latter through "Friends" star Lisa Kudrow's production company and NBC).
Although she became poker's highest-earning female moneymaker of all time in 2004 -- capping her achievement with a win at ESPN's Tournament of Champions and capturing a World Series of Poker bracelet -- Duke says her success isn't solely based on her card sense.
"I'm the right story at the right time," Duke says.
Part of that story is legacy. She's sister to poker champion Howard Lederer and author Katy Lederer, who chronicled the family card obsession in "Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers." Her double degrees in English and psychology from Columbia University further her perception as an Ivy League player. In person, she's looser than her TV poker persona, pleasantly unpolished, and at times, downright salty.
"I happen to have great results, which helps," Duke says. "Not to say that I want to downgrade my poker skills . . . but my poker skill is so unimportant to my success in the media."
Not mincing words
Here, Duke doesn't mince words: "The better you look, the more money you're going to make when you're talking about being a media personality."
"She's very entertaining, very energetic, very articulate. Animated, for sure. She's what's the camera is looking for, and a great player too," says Linda Johnson, former editor of CardPlayer magazine and a longtime player. "She's the whole package."
Some players have been packaging themselves more aggressively, as of late.
"Gastric bypass surgery is sweeping through poker. It is a measure of how extreme the stampede has come to alter one's appearance," McManus says. "Poker is a sedentary game that can lead to massive obesity."
"There's about 40 of us poker players who have had it done," says Johnson, pointing out that she and Howard Lederer had their procedures done in 2002, before the cameras made Texas Hold'em a hot cultural phenomenon.
"The Hollywood look is pretty much what they are after," says Johnson, now with CardPlayer Cruises. "They are looking for sexy, young people, and that only makes sense, I guess. Many of us dinosaurs don't like it, but that's the way it is."
There have also been whispers of plastic surgery among a few of the female players. "I don't know necessarily if there has been cosmetic surgery, [that] it was because of TV," Duke says. "Most likely, the cosmetic surgery would have taken place anyway. But I've had my teeth whitened. You only need to see yourself on TV once to realize your teeth need whitening. I also tend to work out more."
Impact of a makeover
The World Poker Tour's Lipscomb echoes similar sentiments: "As far as various surgeries and that sort of thing go, I might lay more of that at the extreme makeover shows having an impact."
But, from the very beginning, Lipscomb says, WPT told players it planned to "take your image and improve it."
"We were asking the players to dress nicely, and at final tables, we required it," Lipscomb says. Not only has the success of TV poker sparked changes in its players, it also has changed the game itself.
"People are much less likely to fold now," Duke says. "That's really the main change is that you have to make adjustments because people are harder to bluff."
There's more of an urge to pull an upset win because it makes for better television, Lipscomb says.
But does better TV does necessarily better poker?
"My answer to you would be, 'Who cares?'" Lipscomb says. "The World Poker Tour is now making a millionaire a month from July to April. Events that [previously] had 32 people in them now have 600 and 700. Those events are really amazing poker television events. But that is the phenomenon we've created."Next year, Duke says, she's likely to make more money from endorsements and outside projects than from tournament play.
"If you take anything, any phenomenon . . . suddenly, people have stylists," says ESPN spokeswoman Keri Potts. "There's a natural Hollywood-zation, if that's a term. I don't think poker, in this regard, is unique."
With all the competing tournaments, there's been a movement to create a professional league, says Lipscomb, in part to counter the numerous "World's Best" claims and titles.
Duke remains less concerned about titles. She's more focused on the future, and for her that means, more tournaments, endorsements and possibly, a sitcom or movie based on her life.

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Sunday, May 15, 2005