DANGERLION

I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the $2 million dollar goal on 2+2 over the past few weeks and I understand where it’s coming from.  There are two issues at work here:

1. It seems like we never play any poker and don’t care about the goal

This criticism is extremely valid and it’s one of the prime reasons the show could use more time each week.  Firstly, live poker (and WSOP event scores) and staking (we staked a few horses in the WSOP this summer) counted towards the goal.  Secondly, the show has been poker-lite in several episodes (wouldn’t be a big deal if we were crushing the goal but we’d been losing or breaking even those weeks) suggesting that all we do is party and vacation.  Now this is true to an extent but 2M2MM is actually really accurate in capturing what it’s like to be a high stakes online poker pro in Vegas over the summer.  Very, very little is staged to be “reality tv-esque,” which is something that I’m proud of and something that speaks to the reason we have a TV show in the first place.  Each previous summer my days in Vegas looked like this:

1. wake up hungover

2. eat awesome breakfast from chef

3. play tons of poker, crush every single person at nosebleeds while running in hyper god mode

4. nap/watch tv/jump in pool/go shopping/eat more chef food/play basketball/go on touristy excursion

5. eat ridiculously decadent dinner at fix, nobu, delmonicos, insert every other restaurant worth going to, gamble for massive tab

6. party at some nightclub (btw w/ regards to girls, emil might seem awkward and have nerdy game but i guarantee he is getting more ass than any of the ppl hating on him…)

7. rinse and repeat.

Every single other high stakes online pro will attest to some variation on the above routine.  But yes, other than Episode 5 the perfect balance between life and poker has been difficult to achieve on TV.  We played a lot of poker this summer, it just hasn’t been shown like it would be in a strategy video (speaking of which, inserting shameless DC plug, I did a series called “2 Months 2 Million” on DC while we were filming the show that reviewed hands I played in the house over the summer… there’s a great vid in there with some hands vs haseeb and vs fullflush for ppl who are interested in more of the poker we played on the show)

2. The goal is too ambitious

Here is where I gotta defend the title of the show.  As a group we won more than $2mm in the summer of 2007, and we did it again in 2008. 2M2MM has been an idea and in development since 2007.  The reason $2mm is our goal is because it was proven doable.

In 2009, more difficult than in past years.  Players have gotten better, more good players now have the bankrolls to play nosebleeds and filet the fish there.  We get less action.  We knew going in that nosebleed games would be tougher… we just weren’t prepared to see that they weren’t running at all.  We had to change our gameplan and took shots (we are NL specialists, remember) at nosebleed HA and nosebleed PLO, and we ran awful when we played in good games at those stakes.

In Episode 1 of 2M2MM, you see us at dinner at Aquaknox when Tom and Phil drop by.  What you don’t see is the cut sequence where we are talking about the goal and Tom and Phil bet on whether or not we can do it.  Phil has to set the line and sets it at 2.8:1 against, and Tom snap bet on us to do it.

We were dogs, we are huge dogs now (moving into Episode 8 right now, it would take a miracle), but anyone who knows anything about high stakes poker knew that it was always doable for us and that there are very few groups of players that would have any chance at doing it.  People just can’t understand that a downswing at 500/1k doesn’t mean we’re washed up, it just means that we can’t afford to play 500/1k all the time anymore.  Believe it or not, I didn’t play a lot of poker before this summer this year because I didn’t want to and didn’t have to, not because I couldn’t beat anyone anymore.  I’m sure the scores of people who still refuse to play me at HU NL will confirm that.

2 million was never impossible, just difficult.  And I wouldn’t count us out completely.