You were right, it was 54 sessions in a row. A month+ long heater single tabling sessions without losing. To be fair this was written in 1979 you'd have to embellish a little bit.

I just struggle to see how you could make a long doc about Doyle. His early years as a basketball player, his road gambling years, 80s-90s??? Boom years with maybe some Andy Beal stuff? I wouldn't be surprised if Doyle actually meant ESPN is going to do a 30 for 30 on him. Although it would be a little odd for ESPN would be doing this since they dumped they won't be doing any WSOP coverage and long sold the rights to PokerGo.

if you weren't a cheat in the 70s- could you have been ROI positive?

Wrecked? Doyle is smart enough to know online poker is the best thing that ever happened to poker. Poker was irrelevant before online poker came about.

His commentary video will be amusing/attention seeking, no doubt.

54 in a row is not impossible. He was coming off of beating cancer and playing the best he's every played in his life. Probably something close to clairvoyant. Everything was clicking for him. Against competition that was not very strong, super deep stacked, and super long sessions. Maybe he lied, it's impossible to know for sure, but it's certainly not unreasonable he could win 54 in a row under those conditions. I believe it.

There's a lot there. You could easily do 30mins alone about his interactions with Anthony Spilotro aka "Tony the Ant", basically Joe Pesci's character from Casino and other mobsters that ran games or that shook down poker players. The game that had a machine gun nest on top of the building run by a known murderer. The two men he saw murdered at the poker table on different occasions. 30 mins certainly wouldn't do his life justice. An hour opening episode exploring his high school track and basketball career, his drafting by the lakers and accident breaking his leg. Six to ten 60 min episodes would be doable imo. I'm in.

I know Doyle tends to spin some pretty long tails so 54 sessions in a row feels a bit off, until someone old school folks who tracked sessions tell me other wise.

The stuff with Spilotro would be interesting, but it also may paint friends of his like Chip in a bad light. Doyle has said in the past that he kept away from Tony but Chip was connected with bad people during the time.

I think people should keep their expectations down until something official is announced. I’ve seen Doyle say “I’m retiring” from the WSOP to “well I’ll still play the 50k HORSE” and then there is the whole WPT and SEC lawsuit “I’m buying the WPT” stuff. I think a 30 for 30 at best although ESPN looks to be pivoting away from poker but probably a PokerGO maybe CBS Sports App thing at best.

Yea I mean even if the last dance they spun the narrative however Jordan wanted and that's with video and stats of all the games. Doyle can spin whatever bs he wants and there's no way to verify it.

the 50 game streak is more believable than the tumor story.

It seems like Doyle doesn't like to talk bad about anyone until after they are dead. Not that he bad mouths them, but just admitting that in the old days they cheated. He has talked about keeping confidences / not ratting people out, and so being trusted by people with their dirty secrets.

If they really make a "Last Dance" style documentary, where they interview like 100 people, and are willing to talk a bit negatively with him like how they did with MJ, this could be very cool. But I'm a bit skeptical that Doyle would give them a ton of access if they did that

I'm also a bit skeptical of the claim that it is "The Last Dance team." I don't really get why they'd go from making a wildly successful documentary about one of the most memorable events in sports history to one about the life of a comparatively niche activity/celebrity. Maybe he's using the term a bit liberally, or documentary crews don't get as much clout as I thought, but if it actually is true, I think this could indicate that they got a lot of access and have good stuff

I think the really interesting stuff is his rounding days, but it's tough because almost all of those people are dead, so I don't see how you can do much besides have a doyle monologue about the stuff prior to the wsop days

…so I went out to the parking lot to get the barking spider from the trunk while the argument raged on inside…

The director of last dance replied him on twitter.

That's what I've been trying to research. You can't find one specific crew/company that did it. Again Doyle loves to embellish and BS a story.

it'll also mostly be americans that see this, and without the ability to advertise rooms, a ton of ppl either dont know you "can" play online in non regulated states, or it's just a hassle and they dont bother. Some 56yo man isnt going to make his first btc transaction so he can play 50usd mtt's on acr/bovada w/e

Yeah. Play poker long enough you'll see or do everything. Over what, 50 years or more he's played. I don't see why one of the best ever couldn't string together 50 in a row. I watch at our local game the worst player win 10 or 12 in a row.

Maybe when grinders played 10k hand sessions each day that was true. 50 years live isn't much though- some of us used to play more hands in 2 years online than Doyle has played in his life. Some people are over estimating his probability of winning any individual session. Even if he played "for days", that's still not a lot of hands; 1,500 at best for a single session, no doubt. And most sessions would be low 3-figures amounts of hands.

"The worst players winning 10 or 12 sessions in a row" is an anecdote, where in reality it's probably not accurate. And even if it was, it's not significant. You can toss Heads 10 times in a row (approx 1,000/1) but that doesn't mean 50 times in a row is remotely likely (over 1,000,000,000,000,000/1). That example is not exactly the same as what you're saying, but it gets the point across.

If you survived cancer, played basketball professionally, and were a world-record holder at plate spinning (or whatever it is he's achieved) then it's a small step to claim to win 50 sessions in a row. Impossible? No. Embellished? Almost certainly.

I said worst player, not players. Was speaking of my own experience. The worst player was a completely accurate accounting. His nickname was atm. He was horrible. Somewhat wealthy guy who lost almost every night. There was a running joke on how he was putting peoples kids through college. He lost that much for years. Then for no reason or improvement in his game, he won 10 or 12 straight nights.

I don't know why you brought up online play. I never said anything about amount of hands played. Was referring to 50 years in cardrooms you prob saw everything. I don't know if he embellished or not, but just because something isn't probable doesn't mean he exaggerated.

Hehir, a good number of The Last Dance's EPs and much of its technical crew, just streeted the SpaceX Inspiration4 doc. So Hehir certainly could have done Doyle's series, but it's pretty clear he didn't, based on that Tweet.

JohnRusty and AtariRob probably have it right. My guess is Doyle is misunderstanding or conflating who (or what) is behind this documentary. Moreover, Doyle might be referring to ESPN Films as "the group." I suppose this is quite possible, since they've been the distributor for the WSOP and that poker miniseries Tilt since the days when they went by the name ESPN Original Entertainment.

In fact, I still get a little nostalgic when I hear this bit of music:



This is to that twangy circa 2004 WSOP theme song what the 20th Century Fox fanfare was to the Star Wars opening credits in my head. I hear one, and my mind immediately wants to play the next.

Doyle's texas days were pretty nuts. They don't make Tex Dolly's anymore.

Lol, you're right on that one. I get a slight pumped feeling when I hear that and the twang guitar.

It's possible that ESPN might do a 30 for 30, but feels unlikely now that they got rid of poker and sold the rights away to PokerGo.

God guiding him through a 50 game winning streak is more believable than God curing him of cancer.

I heard from someone that Doyle was one of the pioneers of the one hand jumpshot?_

I guess he took it personally.

Before the advent of online poker, NL Hold´em was mainly a tournament game and hardly ever spread live, so no, online poker did not ruin the live game. There are way more live poker players at any time after the boom than there ever were before online became big.

FWIW, he didn’t say online poker wrecked live poker but online players wrecked the live game.

I think that’s a statement that a lot of people agree with.