From Pocket Fives to the Fab Five
One of the great ironies of poker is that as the game comes out of the smoky back rooms where it was hiding for 100 years, its players are expected to transform themselves from dusty caterpillars into designer-clad butterflies. It's not okay to be a frumpy math wizard or an antisocial stay-at-home any longer. Players everywhere are falling all over themselves to learn the image game.
On a spring evening in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, the image game is being played, and the TV cameras are there to capture it all. I sit under the lights on a plumped-up sofa, laptop poised precariously on my knee, smile plastered across my face, waiting for my cue. Across from me sits Ed Miller, poker teacher and author of three poker books. Miller is sporting the same sort of crazed grin as I am; only his might be a bit more manic. And with good reason: He's about to do his first-ever serious interview and photo shoot. And somewhere in a trailer not too far away, five boys will be scrutinizing his every move.
Yes, fabulous. As in the Fab Five. As in Bravo's hit show Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. Perhaps Queer Eye and poker don't seem like the most likely partners, but as we all know, everybody wants a piece of the poker craze, and Miller, the quintessential stay-at-home poker guy, is getting a Queer Eye makeover.
"Reality television is a phenomenon of our time," he explains when I ask him why he's agreed to go on the show. "I would like to look back 30 years from now and be able to show my grandkids that I was on a reality show."
It helps, of course, that said reality show isn't setting him up to eat worms or jump off a cliff. Instead, they've decked him out in a designer suit, snipped his formerly out-of-control hair until it kisses his forehead in glossy GQ style, and moved an assortment of trendy designer furniture into his pad. In return, he's given the Fab Five a crash course in cards. This is something he's well qualified to do.
As a beginning poker player in 2001, Ed clocked a lot of time in the online card rooms. But being more naturally inclined toward teaching than competing, Miller soon became a fixture as a tutor on the 2 + 2 message boards. His first book, Small Stakes Hold 'Em, went on to sell more than 100,000 copies. Miller's third book was released in June 2006. Co-authored with David Sklansky, No Limit Hold 'Em: Theory And Practice is billed as the "definitive" guide to Hold 'Em strategy and theory. And Miller is out to distinguish himself as the "definitive" authority. Hence the Queer Eye makeover, gave him some free exposure on TV.
"Just put in the time, play the game, practice, learn," Miller tells us," and the success will take care of itself."
And if you still need a little push, get yourself a makeover from the Fab Five.