Lol true Pardo.

Btw im hoping to tune nat geo tonight and magically ep 2 pops up..

Lol'd hard at the flop comes... 3.. 6.. blank.

thought it was a series......pretty weak if that was suppose to be a documentary.

The narration at the start implied that.

Pretty much this. Unlike JS though, this is totally unwatchable, and doesnt cast the NYC scene in a very positive light.

Pretty accurate for SI games, imo.

I looked to see any evidence of it being a series, but couldn't find any. Perhaps if this "pilot" does well, they'll continue it.

I enjoyed it however I am moving to NYC next year and I cannot say I am looking forward to dealing with the sketchiness/rake of these games much rather a casino. But this is the land of the free which gives politicians the the freedom to shove it up my ass and say I can't play poker.

If their faces had been blurred out or been just a black silhouette with deep voice overs, I'd be a little more into this.

It's like the Drugs Inc. show, just advertising your a crack dealer with money, but yet they prob. will never retire in the drug game after showing every Fed./LEO what your doing and how.

Unless Drug Inc. is fake too, then I give up on TV shows, especially Nat Geo, I respected their work.

RIP - Quality TV

I didn't think it was that bad. I pegged Mush as the fish within 0.1 seconds of looking at him. Score.

Hard to say?

How much common sense do you and everyone else in this thread who are going "could be fake, but not sure" actually have?

The human race does worry me from time to time.

There are a number of people in this thread, including myself, who are analyzing the real-vs-fake issue from a standpoint of actually knowing some of the people playing. We realize that the overall nature of play is not exaggerated and is a fair representation of the level of play, although some of the hands are clearly staged for sexiness.

They also don't mention that if those games were made legal in NY, for every "Joe Mush" that exists now there would be hundreds of not thousands of other people lighting their life on fire because they're degenerate bozos.

But I'm sure you don't want them to mention the whole truth, do you?

what do these guys like joe mush do for living? blue collar type or what's the deal?

also, how much do you think tats or others running a game like that bank in per night?

Yea dont come to the east coast bc of a TV show , stay in the basement you're safe there .

I think you can probably get a good idea by looking at his ongoing expenses (so, not including equipment), then, whatever you think he's willing to work for.

Obvious Expenses:
- location
- 2x security guards
- dealer
- food / drinks
- massage girl (although that may have not been a regular thing, so let's cut that one out)

I guess maybe $1K for the guards and dealer, and... somewhere between $500 - $1K for the location? Food drinks maybe $250. So, and this is a pretty wild guess, he needs to make at least $3K a night to make it worth his time.

From the documentary it appeared he was only running one table, so for the purposes of this adventure in wild guestimates, let's assume that he only ever has one table.

So, how many bb/100 do they have to be raking out? How long does a game go? Again, lots of assumptions, but let's say a game goes for 10 hours on average. Action game.. maybe 20 hands an hour? So we're dealing with 200 hands.

This gives us (and feel free to change these if you think they're off):
- Revenue (R) = 3000
- Total Hands (TH) = 200
- bb/100 = (R / TH) = 15bb/100

That seems about on par with microstakes NLHE rake of 5% uncapped (info from other threads on NLHE/PLO rake). Mind you, there are a lot of assumptions on key variables here, but if you play around with some of the values I think you could get pretty accurate.

If his expenses are higher / he needs more than about $1K to make it worth his time, then maybe $5K? That would be 25bb/100, which, given that it's an action game, also seems reasonable.

Final Answer: $3K - $7K per game

[QUOTE Originally Posted by Tall_Cool
Watching this show reminds me of why I've never visited NY or the northeast in general. Are the producers conveying this stereotype or is every guy really like this?

vomit
[/QUOTE]

What do you think? Do you think everyone in the northeast is like this?

You most likely not come across anyone like this in NYC (Manhattan) the place that most people visit when coming to visit the state of NY.
New Yorkers deff have their own way of doing things and maybe things move at a different speed around here but please don't stereo type us.

awesome, thanks a lot!

Yeah, except I think I overlooked that 5% uncapped would actually be taking a lot more than 25bb/100 in a full ring action-filled game. This leads me to believe that the rake is capped, since it seems unsustainable that even an underground game like this could be taking more than about $500 / player on average out of the games per session (again, assuming only one table). Short answer: who knows but at least my guess-work got me thinking!

Saw this on Sunday and IMO it's a load of made up crap. It's unwatchable trash. As a documentary it's terrible; as a 'series', even worse.

Just wanna be clear this is one 45 minute show? No potential for a series?
I just watched the two clips and it looks highly scripted and staged..But could be entertaining...

Considering some of the feedback most of these guys are real players so maybe I'll give it a go...

Getting whacked off > getting whacked

The dealers get paid either from a % of the drop/tips, or just get their tips. The percentage deal is bad for the game, because it's in the dealer's best interest to rake as much money as possible.

The massage girls/waitresses generally work off tips as well, I don't know if they get something on top of that as well.

The location and security are going to be the main expenses. This game is unusual as it bounces around, most places rent a single spot to hold the game and just pay a monthly rent.

If it got big enough ratings, they'd probably make anything a series.

As I said earlier in this thread, these guys are the ones who give poker a bad name.

What would you guess he's making per night on average (assuming a single table), then?