EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY:
THE FIRST LIVE POKER WEBCAST
TUNICA, MS (2000)
Poker is all over the web and television, nowadays. But there was a time when covering a poker event live was next to impossible, and perhaps even unthinkable.
The challenges of covering poker as a spectator sport are obvious. This isn’t a three-hour game with quarters or innings. No one really knows when a tournament ends. Some finales last many hours, with massive amounts of downtime. Even more problematic — most of the players are boring to watch. Many don’t talk. This makes many final tables unbearably dull much of the time, and I say this having covered as many of them as anyone in history. Long periods go by without significant action.
In the late 1990s, a dynamic couple from England attempted to change all that. They began by watching and re-watching old WSOP videos that had been taped, then were heavily edited down to just an hour in length. The videos were compelling to watch. Even captivating at times. Indeed, maybe poker could work as a spectator sport if it was produced and packaged attractively. They were determined to make live poker events as compelling to watch. Incredibly, they somehow managed to pull it off.
Mark Napolitano and Tina Napolitano were true pioneers in the poker industry (who deserve far more credit than they’ve been given). They invested heavily in the game — creating a poker school online, a news content website, videos, interviews, a global player database, and the first live tournament streams. They called their website “Poker Pages.”
The first live tournament coverage took place at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City at the United States Poker Championships. It was 1998 or 1999. I remember it well because I was there. It was the first time I met Mark in person. He set up microphones, brought in play-by-play and color announcers (including me), and streamed the final table of the USPC Main Event over the Internet. I also remember T.J. Cloutier, one of the finalists, getting annoyed by the inane chatter which could be heard from a broadcast table positioned just a few feet away. “The action is now on T.J…..he’s going into the tank…..you can see this is a grueling decision….will he call the all-in or fold?” T.J. (and the other players) could hear every word of this, plus the so-called “analysis” from the on-air poker pro/expert. “There’s no way T.J. can call this raise here, no way!” which finally caused the tall Texan to mutter an expletive and then approach the table and ask us to lower our voices. Of course, we didn’t lower our voices. We all got carried away during the broadcast. This was all primitive stuff, laughable by today’s standards, but somehow the raw banter worked and poker fans tuned in to listen. Even the chaos was fun to hear. Mark had latched onto something that could be big.
I began working closely with Mark, starting in 2000. We covered the Jack Binion World Poker Open together. It was a joint venture — me working for the casino and Mark providing exclusive coverage on Poker Pages. People might not remember just how big and popular the WPO was back then, which was every bit as prestigious as the WSOP in Las Vegas. Held during the entire month of January, that meant many 16-hour days at the Gold Strike Casino (and adjacent Horseshoe), which was the tallest building in Mississippi and rose out of nowhere in the middle of a cotton field in the poorest county in America about 30 miles south of Memphis, but which might as well have been in Outer Mongolia. There was nothing to do in Tunica, but gamble and drink, and Mark and I did plenty of both.
A few years later, Mark and Tina did the first WSOP live stream. I believe their broadcast remains the only record of Robert Varkonyi’s unlikely world championship victory in 2002. Then in 2003, a U.K.-based website called Gutshot Poker took live-streaming coverage to new heights. ESPN was there, also. The spark was lit. The poker boom happened. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I enjoyed spending many great times with Mark and Tina over the years. They became dear friends to both Marieta and me. We dined out together often, attended wine seminars, and even took a vacation together (to Sonoma and Napa). So, the poker collaboration produced other joys that were just as meaningful.
When I left the game in 2016, I kinda’ lost touch with Mark and Tina. They live here in Las Vegas and continue to work in the game they love, as owners of Card Player Cruises. I believe they’re doing well now, though the COVID crisis a few years ago did hurt their business, as many businesses struggled. I hope they’re enjoying all they deserve, not only because they were so wonderful to work with and hang out with, but simply because they worked so hard and are still doing what they love. I supposed that’s the ultimate definition of being successful.
I took this photo of Mark Napolitano working the soundboard at the World Poker Open, in 2000.