Poker rooms, both live and online, are constantly looking for new ways to get more people involved either as players or spectators. The latest trend to hit the poker scene is team poker.
Although the team poker concept has been done before (pokerroom.com in 2005 and others), it has taken on a new life in “Dream Team Poker.” They even have a patent pending on a new set of simple rules that they created. The basic rules are that a team consists of three players. Each competitor plays the tournament like normal for themselves with their own cards. However, the team as a whole gets points based on where the players are eliminated. For instance if a Player A on the team is eliminated in 18th place the team gets 18 points. All three players’ points are added together and the team with the lowest score wins. Complete rules are listed at their website www.dreamteampoker.com.
Prize money is awarded to individuals based on their finish, as well as to teams, based on their combined score, giving all players more than one way to win. This of course creates much more interest in the game, even to players who have been eliminated. The concept is very interesting to Casinos because they know that getting people involved can only increase revenue, and this is the type of tournament that will get people involved. Dream Team Poker believes that even people that wouldn’t normally play tournament poker at a casino will like this game, because it takes some of the pressure off of the individual and gives them more than one chance to win money.
Dream Team Poker recently held its premier gaming event at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on November 7th to the 9th. The tournament drew quite a few well-known names, including poker pros Kenny Tran, Jaime Gold and Erica Schoenberg, as well as other celebrities, Mekhi Phifer (ER, 8 Mile), Roger Cross (24), and Sam Simon (co-creator of The Simpsons).
The individual winner of the premier Dream Team Poker event was professional player Jason Lilly. The winning team, “Team Bluff” consisted of Eric Morris, Matt Parvis, and Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (a Bodog pro).