WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ... BAR POKER IN ROGERS : Knowing when to hold ’em and fold ’em
Posted on Monday, June 30, 2008
ROGERS — These are the training grounds, where the would-be amateurs and the not-quite professionals overlap.
The small casinos are the proving fields. Vegas, maybe Reno or Atlantic City, those are where the pros play.
The barroom poker leagues, all of them free in Arkansas, serve for some as their entry into the world of Texas hold’em.
There are chips, but no money.
There are winners, but no losers.
There are cutthroat games, but they are also friendly.
Unfortunately, they are also smaller than they used to be, especially in Rogers.
“ We used to have a great crowd in Rogers, ” said April Jones, co-owner of the Poker Pub, a business that organizes and promotes free bar poker leagues. “ I don’t know where everybody went. ”
In its heyday, the Poker Pub drew 60 to 70 people per tournament, but now it is out of Rogers entirely.
“ We just kind of gave up, ” she said.
There are still big crowds to be found in Fayetteville, and during a tournament early last week at Bentonville’s Deja Vu, 24 people attended. None of them were the old Poker Pub regulars from Rogers. That group seems to have disappeared. Everywhere and nowhere
As the Poker Pub’s popularity grew in Rogers, the company made a big mistake, Jones said. It expanded.
Instead of one night in one bar, funneling all the players into one location, Jones’ company was offering tournaments almost every night of the week in two bars.
“ There’s a saturation of poker that’s just unbelievable, ” Jones said.
The result was initially a split crowd, she said. Players would often stick to the bar they preferred or only play one or two times a week.
Now, instead of having one overwhelming presence, setting the events up as a must attend affair, the games were smaller, more sedate. They attracted the regulars, who viewed poker as a hobby rather than a pastime. It was something they were going to do somewhere, so why not there.
Bayou bar manager Toby Tobias said the varying nights at varying bars, switching from one venue to another, caused a confusion that kept people away. Often potential players would simply stay home rather than try to figure out which bar was hosting which poker game on that particular night. The Bayou now has a game every night. Doing it their way
The problem with organizing poker games in barrooms is that, at first glance, it is just cards, chips and felt tables. It has, in the past, led the bar owners to branch out on their own, Jones said. And although the bar-run tournaments have some small prizes, like a bar tab or maybe a little cash, they are unable to reward the players like a poker company can. The Poker Pub, Jones noted, sends players to regional tournaments and even a few to Las Vegas.
The goal, she said, is to get them coming out more often. If there is no reward for frequent play, players attend games less often.
But Rogers’ two remaining poker venues have not seen a dip in card-playing attendance since severing ties with the Poker Pub. Roger King, owner of Good Vibrations, said he has about 30 players, the same number he’s had for years. And he also gives away seats at tournaments, just smaller ones than the Poker Pub’s.
Tobias said the Bayou’s turnout has slowed slightly, but he attributed that to the slumping economy.
“ When the economy’s bad, entertainment is the first thing to go, ” he said.
Instead of spending money at a bar, people can stay home and play online poker if they still feel the need, he said. The warmer temperatures also play a factor, he said.
The Bayou is one of those bars banking on instant gratification. Its top three finishers in each tournament receive gift certificates to the bar. Tobias said people like that more than waiting for monthly, quarterly or yearly special tournaments to maybe win one of the big prizes. The Moneymaker effect
It started in 1998, the meteoric rise of poker’s popularity. And it was Matt Damon who gave Texas hold ’em its first big boost, calling it the “ Cadillac of poker” in a film.
The main push, however, came from a win in the 2003 World Series of Poker by Chris Moneymaker, an amateur who had only played online. He walked away with $ 2. 5 million.
The next year, enough people paid the $ 10, 000 entry fee to build a $ 5 million pot, followed by $ 7. 5 million in 2005 and an astounding $ 12 million in 2006.
Poker analyst attributed the sudden rise in the game’s popularity to Moneymaker’s victory, proof that someone can rise from nowhere to become a wealth poker sensation virtually overnight. Amateurs flooded the various poker arenas, including casinos, online poker venues, and bar poker leagues. Jones said it was not uncommon to get 60 to 70 people to flood a bar for a tournament.
But there was one thing that no one seemed to expect. Moneymaker was not the grand people’s champion that the masses hoped he would be. That main event victory is still his only one. Since then, he has only finished high enough to share in the winnings six times.
While Moneymaker was learning how hard it was to keep winning on a national stage, the throngs of amateurs were also learning that at home. Audra Shay, a New Orleans resident who took in a game at Deja Vu, said she’s seen people come and go and attributes it to Moneymaker. He brought them out, she said, but then they couldn’t win. Some had beginners ’ luck, but the good players will ultimately always beat the bad ones, she said.
And now they’re gone.
They are apparently starting to leave the World Series of Poker too. The prize money dropped to $ 8. 25 million last year. This year’s big pot has not been determined — the World Series of Poker began in late May, but the 12-day main event is scheduled to begin July 3.
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