very cool video...zeeebooooooo

and my god em2

I know this is mostly repeating the general sentiment but I really enjoyed the Zeebo vid, very nice job on all parties involved!

The video was great. Far better than I would have expected great work/congrats to everyone involved.

Yup! It was very very good and interesting! I want more!

ahahaha awesome em2

Congrats on a job well done!

Not sure if that video is a great first episode to a series, but that was absolutely incredible; thanks to everyone for sharing.

zeebo has always been awesome. his fiance is awesome too.

as all have said the quality/production was quite good.

my suggestions for improvement (i know little about filmmaking but i watch a ****load of documentaries):

it almost seems like you had the title or what you wanted the story to be before you made the film. what i saw has very little to do with busto to robusto. it's actually a love story - a real, compelling and tender one - like the kind of stuff that writers try and try to create for the screen but are never able to fully accomplish. it's phenomenal. so...

scrap all the interviews with other poker players. they have little to do with this story and are just all over the place. the galfond stuff is relevant and he's good on camera, so maybe keep him in as the spokesman for poker, but i dont even know that you need to.

if you plan on doing a series of profiles of different players, and you want to establish things we all take for granted for the benefit of the uneducated viewer, then make the first episode a nuts and bolts "here's how the poker world works" or "heres how people play poker for a living", but honestly i dont think establishing the existence of things like EV, or bankroll management or any of that stuff will be compelling at all to the general public. that stuff isnt interesting, the stories are.

also, pretty cliche and reality tv-esque, but i was sure zeebo was going to propose in that last shot! i dont know if it would make it better or worse had that been on camera, but some part of me was waiting to see it.

also i would like to request that the next feature be on one of the russian minbetting, limpminreraising ******s. preferably with lots of footage of them playing. ty.

i agree w/ rob

Great feedback man, thanks. Re: the title, that's partly true, we originally intended this film to be about more than just Greg but his story was so compelling that we decided to scale down and focus only on him. And out of that the idea to do multiple episodes under the FBTR title arose.

If anyone has any other feedback like this def feel free to PM me or post here, much much appreciated and I'm sure the constructive stuff will influence the next steps for the project.

Very happy everyone likes it. :-)

really good watch, really well done. i think lapoker's criticisms are very constructive though.

+1

houstons gm is one of the most statistically oriented gms in the league. i guess the rest of your post didnt really command credibility either.

edit: most of them are public also.

Great video!
When is the next episode coming out?

i think a first episode for the series should be something about the community in general (like when everyone is chilling on their laptops and vanessa is explaining dual lives). i feel like thats a better setup, set the tone for the fact that the online poker world is very unique.

as is zeebo and his fiancee are the obv nuts, i just dont think their story is a great lead. if i'm going to send this video link to family/friends, i dont want them to get the impression that most online poker players spend 18 hours a day behind the computer and have borderline personality disorders (even if a good amount do spend too much time on the computer..... hi).

if ur looking at a series of, say, 7 episodes, then i think zeebo's would be good as number 6 or something.

Very good video, surprisingly good production quality. One thing tho:
I undertsand its meant to be for the community, but as far as showing it to "outsiders" goes, I fear it might nurture general resentments. I mean, it is an awesome documentary, but it does little to promote our cause.
Neways, I need to leave for sweden. Right now.

edit: oh yeah, maybe shouldve read claytons post. i feel pretty much the same.

Krantz, mind telling us the focus of topics for the other series?

yeah i agree with this. It's fun to watch but it's not something I would show my gf. I feel as if Zeebo and his gf have something going that is working out extremely well for them, but it's not really the type of life I'd say I strive for. It kinda provides an image of a social isolation where all focus is on online interaction.
If you want to attract a broader range of viewers you should however try to focus on items that are easier to relate to. E.g., if you follow around Ziigmund for a day while he gets drunk and plays poker your show will be a lot more appealing to viewers outside of the 2p2 community.

I haven't looked into what you groups guys are aiming for as target viewers tho

Ok ok... I actually literally lol'd multiple times at this... "LARGE FRY MOTHER ****ER!!"

Still meh though, Dane's not bad, just not great. Slightly above average, and you get the natural over-compensating reactions cuz people think he shouldn't be as famous as he is, which I am to agree.

But if you want some truly painfully unfunny ****, check out the Carlos Mencia "Mind of Mencia" show, which probably isn't still on the air but you can youtube old episodes i'm sure.

Krantz, its kinda unclear what you meant when you said it was a series, do you mean the rest is shot already, or you plan to shoot more after this series dependant on the reception of this one?

krantz, the vid was very well done and i think all poker players are going to have similar opinions. however i wouldnt show that to anyone i know that doesnt really play poker or understand it as i think many of them would draw the wrong conclusions about online poker players as a whole.

you have no way of knowing what they have created statistically in houston so its u talking about something u have no knowledge of to say most are public. also statistical interpretation is def a step forward, it is still created by a human who makes flawed assumptions so saying player x has higher PER than player y therefore player x is definitively better than player y is more narrow minded thinking than the people who simply dismiss these numbers all together.

krantz can correct me if I am wrong, but Im pretty sure I understood nothing else was shot as of now.

PER is a good all encompassing stat that does a good job of measuring a player's offensive value. It is not flawless, however it will be right far more often than speculation from your average fan. Lebron is not better than Kobe because he has a higher PER. He is better because he scores more points more efficiently, is a better rebounder (bulk and rate), and is a better passer (bulk and rate), which is why his PER is higher than Kobe's. Basketball is not baseball(which is more or less solved statistically), there are lot of variables that are difficult to account for. Anyone interested in analyzing basketball must realize the stats are imperfect, but if you conclude the stats are flawed, therefore they are useless and my personal opinion is more likely to be correct is a much bigger mistake.

If Harabalos or KBFC posted their comparison of two players I would be incredibly interested because they analyze hundreds of games a year. However when posters (or sportswriters) who as far as I know have no basketball expertise make arguments that appear to be largely based on small amounts of empirical evidence it is not particularly convincing.

A few months ago in SI, Phil Jackson was asked if he could have one player in the NBA to start a team would it be Lebron James? He said no, it would be Dwight Howard. Do I belive Phil Jackson thinks Dwight is the best player in the NBA? No. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find another interview where he said he would take someone else. The sports media is so large, that its very easy to find quotes from experts supporting whatever you are trying to prove, its not particularly meaningful.

The following is from Football Outsiders, it does a very good job explaining explaining the results-oriented/flawed thought process of most sports fans/members of the media.
edit: Cliff notes Just please read the quoted portion from football outsiders.

yea I'm with Clayton/tozzy

Video was very entertaining to watch and of substantial quality, but I surely wouldn't want my friends and family to think I was a bipolar candidate and that I didn't leave my house for 2 weeks straight.

As Ruben suggested, maybe documenting the life of a more "normal" online player might be better if a goal of this show/series is to get the average person to understand what it is to be a poker pro.