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The world of Quorum is most assuredly made up of fictional characters. While we have set the backdrop of our story against real-world events, our portrayal of those events is far from historically accurate. That said, if you find some of the characters in Quorum intriguing, you may also find enjoyment in some of the colorful characters making a name in the real world of professional poker.

Oddly, Jimmy Harmon probably takes his greatest influence from live players as opposed to online players. For one thing, in Quorum we would mostly be depicting live poker as opposed to online play, so it was important that he have a personality that could be compelling in that atmosphere. Daniel Negreanu’s amiability was a strong influence, as well as some of the showmanship of Antonio Esfandiari. Negreanu has an ability to project an uncanny ability to read opponents, and Esfandiari — often nicknamed “The Magician” — can perform some compelling chip tricks (something I often imagine Harmon doing on the side). And, of course, WSOP Main Event champion Joe Hachem’s outsized personality influenced Jimmy — a fact I wrote directly into the story with his less-than-successful Australian impression.

Peeps is an amalgam of several female poker players, all of whom are successful players, but are often relegated to being portrayed as good “women” players, with televised stories often playing up their ability to use their femininity as a factor (rather than merely acknowledging their table skills). Dual World Series bracelet-winner Jennifer Harman stands out, as do Annie Duke and Clonie Gowan, and even actors-turned-poker-players Shannon Elizabeth and Jennifer Tilly. She takes her crazy pattern-recognition skills from the aforementioned Daniel Negreanu, and at least some of her personality from Fiona Dourif’s portrayal of the holistic assassin Bart in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

“Big Mike” Dalton actually adapts characteristics from a number of old-school poker players, the group of long-time pros who continue to garner respect across the board. Doyle Brunson has always been a personal favorite, someone who truly exemplifies the idea of the old poker pro (right down to his ubiquitous cowboy hat). And it may be the hat, but I also drew influence from Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (whose card-throwing skills I loved watching) and poker legend Amarillo Slim. Brunson also stands out in having managed to parlay his live success into a modicum of online-play respectability, a trait that Dalton attempts to emulate. Dalton’s influence in both online play and televised poker most closely mirrors that of Howard Lederer, who frequently guest-starred on the Learn from the Pros show (which was a thinly-veiled promotion for the Full Tilt Poker site) and Gabe Kaplan (yes, Welcome Back Kotter’s Gabe Kaplan), who hosted the cash-game show High Stakes Poker.

Wiktoria Sałkiewicz isn’t directly influenced by anyone in the poker world, but came about as a result of my research into Las Vegas history and its various criminal power brokers over time. While the Italian mob is most frequently depicted in popular media, I found several instances of smaller groups — still often bound together by ethnic ties — which wielded influence in smaller spheres. The Polish mob was not particularly influential in Las Vegas (other than the Polish heritage of mobster Meyer Lansky), but that led to the notion that someone of a less-prominent “family” might be more likely to survive the string of anti-crime initiatives over the decades. Similarly, making her a woman in not one but two male-dominated professions (organized crime and the casino business) made for a much more compelling character history.

Of course, none of these characters are direct counterparts to any real-world personalities. But after watching dozens (if not hundreds) of hours of televised poker, and delving deep into the history of the city surrounding the game, I wanted to acknowledge at least some of the significant personalities who all-too-often outdo those of the fictional world.

~William R. Coughlan, writer/director of Quorum

Poker has been televised in one form or another since CBS started airing the final table of the World Series of Poker in the late 1970s, but the appeal of these shows was limited, as viewers had no idea what cards the players held, and there were limited options for real-time on-screen graphics, making it difficult to follow the action.

Those limitations changed in 1997 with the advent of the “hole-card camera,” a camera positioned underneath the table that captured the player’s hands. The cameras came about in Europe, and were first used on the British poker show Late Night Poker. But their potential was truly realized after filmmaker Steven Lipscomb produced a documentary on the World Series of Poker for the Discovery Channel, and the network saw substantially higher-than-anticipated viewership.

Using these hole cams as a critical building block, Lipscomb worked with others to develop the World Poker Tour, a televised series of poker tournaments produced independently and adopting a sports-television style. The show premiered in 2003 on the Travel Channel, and was the network’s highest-rated television program to date. ESPN’s World Series of Poker broadcasts fully incorporated hole cams that year, along with improved graphics and a live-sports feel. Coincidentally, that year also saw the Main Event win of amateur player Chris Moneymaker, inaugurating the so-called “poker boom.”

In addition to the regular World Series of Poker broadcasts (hosted by Lon McEachern and Norman Chad) and World Poker Tour shows (hosted by Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten), a number of shows became staples of the televised poker scene. Here are just a few representative examples of shows that most heavily influenced the fictional shows we portray in Quorum:

• High-Stakes Poker: A GSN show in which invited players participate in a cash game (or “ring game”) rather than in a tournament format, hosted by A.J. Benza and Gabe Kaplan across most of its run.
• Celebrity Poker Showdown: A Bravo program where poker-playing celebrities (as opposed to professional players) compete for charity, hosted primarily by Dave Foley and Phil Gordon.
• Learn from the Pros: A Fox Sports Net show sponsored by online poker site Full Tilt Poker and hosted by Chris Rose, in which a guest poker pro (usually Howard Lederer) would provide tips and tricks, illustrating points with scenes from actual hands taken from televised poker tournaments.

Part of the appeal of many of these shows was not just the game play itself, but the array of colorful characters, many of whom would clearly exaggerate their personalities for the camera. As televised poker became more widespread, opportunities for corporate sponsorship abounded — and one’s ability to attract an audience became just as important as (if not more important than) one’s skills at the table. Many of these sponsorships (both of individual players and the shows themselves) came from online poker sites — which naturally led to a seismic shift when the poker landscape changed in 2011…

~William R. Coughlan, writer/director of Quorum

Quorum doesn’t specifically cover the World Series of Poker, but several references are made to it throughout the show. My hope is that we’ve explained things sufficiently enough for listeners to follow along to the degree necessary (without over-explaining), but some of you may enjoy a bit more background.

The World Series of Poker started out as a private-invitation event in 1970, when casino owner (and mob boss) Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker players in the industry to the Horseshoe Casino for a private tournament — a timed cash-game event with multiple game variations, after which the players voted on the overall winner: Johnny Moss. Moss was awarded a silver cup and proclaimed the first “World Champion of Poker.” The following year, a set buy-in ($5,000 originally, but raised to $10,000 the following year) and freeze-out format was introduced — and the game was limited to a single variation of Texas Hold ’Em — and the World Series as we know it was born. It has continued as an annual tradition ever since (sponsored by Caesar’s Entertainment since 2005).

Though the no-limit Texas Hold ’Em “Main Event” — which still retains its $10,000 buy-in price — remains the signature tournament, there are currently 74 different events taking place, representing an array of different poker styles and play levels. Winners of each individual tournament win a “bracelet” and a monetary prize based on the number of entrants and buy-in amounts. Entrants in the World Series, held each year in June or July in Las Vegas — number in the thousands, a far cry from the original seven players at that inaugural event.

But it’s the Main Event that remains the biggest draw, and it is the winner of that event’s bracelet that is crowned the World Champion of Poker (and is expected to serve as an ambassador for the game across their championship year, a “duty” that winners have achieved with varying degrees of success). Though the tournament is open to anyone who can produce the buy-in amount (or gain an entry slot by winning a separate “satellite” tournament), winners were traditionally professional players — a logical expectation, given that these were the people most likely to develop the skills to beat such a large pool of opponents.

That all changed in 2003, when an unknown amateur player named Chris Moneymaker (a man with a name that would be considered too on-the-nose in the world of narrative fiction) took home the top prize. Not only was he not a professional player, but he had earned his seat by winning a $39 satellite poker tournament in an online game room. Suddenly, the floodgates were opened — amateur players the world over saw not only that an amateur could take on the best in the business and win, but that online poker was a viable way to play. The number of players in the main event jumped from 839 that year to 2,576 in 2004, 5,619 in 2005, and a whopping 8,773 in 2006 — a tenfold increase in just three years. (The number of entrants has since stabilized, now typically hovering around the 6,500–7,500 level.)

As an interesting side note, the Main Event tournament that Jimmy Harmon mentions as the first he saw on television was mine as well — the 2005 tournament in which Joe Hachem beat out Steve Dannenmann, and in which Hachem’s signature call-and-response to the crowd (“Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” “Oi, oi, oi!”) became immortalized.

~William R. Coughlan, writer/director of Quorum