Steve Lipscomb ’84

The king of the World Poker Tour on Americas newest sport

"If your definition ofsports is football, baseballand basketball, you're definitelybehind the times. I call poker a sport because every time someone sits down and plays in one of our major events they're spending five to seven days, eight hours each day, in a competition where they could lose everything in any hand. That to me is a phenomenal endurance test."

"You can have a great experience watching the Super Bowl but you're not a better football player. Watch a two-hour WPT episode and you're actually a better poker player."

"Poker is the new American dream for generations X, Y and Z. Their dream is not to just sit on the couch and watch and learn but to come out and play for life-changing money."

'The World Poker Tour was just so clear in my mind thatevery time someone said it wouldn't work, the morecertain I was that it would. In the same way part of the NBAs mission is to take basketball around the world, we're exporting excitement and finding new place for it to ignite."

"John Rassias calls the WorldPoker Tour modern Greektragedy. He's nailed it. You watch our show and see a poker savant who is clearly king of the land, married to the queen, with only one card that can take him down. One card later he's gouged his eyes out and he's sleeping with his mother."

"The best poker players in the worldare supremely intelligent and greatwith numbers, but their real skill is that they're psychological profilers."

"Women are much better at poker than men. Men still have that male bravado, hunter-gatherer baggage that can kill you in poker. Women play completely outside of the emotional realm. They also have the huge advantage of still being underestimated in the game."

"There is no better way than poker for guys to get together andhangout, because men are not capable of just sitting in a room and talking. My poker game with my buddies is dealer's choice: nickel, dime, quarter with fruit-and fizzy-water drinks. Not exactly the old image of smoke-filled rooms and a gun on every table."

"When most parents are asked how they feel about their kidsplaying poker they say, 'Yeah, isn't that great? I know where they are.' The government is being its usual hypocritical self when it worries about kids playing online. It has the means to make it regulated and not an issue as far as kids are concerned."

"All of my important decisions have been based on the exactopposite of money. The success of people who work for me is more rewarding than looking up at the Jumbotron at the NASDAQ, in Times Square and thinking, 'Wow, we're a public company.' "

"The worst thing about business is having to fire people when it doesn't work out. You learn it's better to do it fast than to wait."

"This has been an extraordinary ride. It feels like I've caught the ultimate wave and managed to stay on the board and enjoy a view I never imagined."

"The lesson I've learned as a parent has paralleled the one I've learned seeing my business baby grow. If you ever thought you had control, you were simply wrong."

"Advice to would-be tourplayers? Keep your day job"

CAREER PATH: Lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Los Angeles, 1989-1991; partner with lawyer referral firm, Beverly Hills, California, 1991-1995; documentary filmmaker/television producer, 1995-2001 NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS: His film Battlefor the Minds, about Southern Baptist fundamentalists' opposition to women in the clergy, won critical acclaim and the attention of Norman Lear, who got him into TV production; performed at Second City improvisational theater while in law school; as senior class president at Dartmouth instituted a lottery, which he does not recall, to raise money for senior week EDUCATION: A.8., philosophy (class president); J.D., University of Chicago, 1987 (Greenberg Scholar) FAMILY: Wife Miranda; children Zoe (5) and Henry (3)