Poker players deal for riches of publicity

By Robert K. Elder Chicago Tribune
Posted February 9, 2005

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?"

"I can't walk through a casino anymore," Duke says. "It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen."

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 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. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson throws playing cards at high velocities, cutting through bananas and various objects.

Phil "Unabomber" Laak wears sunglasses and a hooded sweat shirt.

"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."

'She's the whole package'

For Duke, it has already started to flow. Her face adorns the cover of "Tournament Poker 2005," a video game by 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 a 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."

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 the camera is looking for, and a great player too," says Linda Johnson, former editor of Card Player 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," McManus says. It is a measure of how extreme the stampede has become to change one's appearance, he says. "Poker is a sedentary game that can lead to massive obesity."

"The Hollywood look is pretty much what they are after," says Johnson, now with Card Player 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."

A different game

From the very beginning, Lipscomb says, World Poker Tour 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 necessarily make 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.

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, that sitcom or movie based on her life.

"I figure the [poker TV boom] will be over one day, and then nobody will know who I am again. So I might as well enjoy what I have now," Duke says. "I want to pursue opportunities that are more likely to allow me to sit back and put my feet up with my kids for a long time. That's what it's all about."

Robert K. Elder is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.