Henry Orenstein Leaves Poker Legacy After Death
He is the reason that poker is a watchable game. Henry Orenstein developed the hole card camera, the small piece of technology that changed the game of poker forever. And this week, the Holocaust survivor, inventor, and businessman died at the age of 98.
A Survivor
First and foremost, Henry Orenstein was a survivor. Born Henryk Orenstein in 1923 Poland, he grew up in a Jewish household. He and his three brothers tried to escape the Germans when he was a teenager, but they and their father returned to Henry’s mother and sister to try to hide at home in Hrubieszow. However, the Nazis did finally take them to a concentration camp. At one point, he and his brothers volunteered as scientists and mathematicians to save their own lives. They served as researchers. “Just gambling for time,” Orenstein once told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It turned out to be a good gamble.”
While his parents, sister, and one brother perished at the camps, Orenstein and two brothers survived.
After traveling to the United States to find work and start a new life with an uncle already in America, Orenstein worked at a factory, but his ingenuity and creativity soon took him to new heights.
A Creator
Henry began making toys, ones that resembled high-dollar items he saw in stores but ones that were affordable for more families. From his factory job, he created a job as a toy manufacturer. His first toys were dolls, one of the carryovers to his new company called Topper Toys in the 1950s and beyond.
That company, also known as Deluxe Reading, called New Jersey home. Over the decades, Orenstein and his employees created the famous Dawn Doll, Johnny Lightning, and Suzy Cute Doll. He was also the man behind the idea for the Transformers toys, an idea he sold to Hasbro.
Among Orenstein’s hobbies was poker. He started playing in the 1960s, competitively but mostly recreationally. Television broadcasts of poker tournaments were minimal, and what did make it to television was hard to watch without knowing players’ hole cards in games like Texas Hold’em. His passion for the game led him to develop a way for audiences to see the complexities of the game. As players considered their actions, the audience needed to see the cards with which they were making decisions.
Orenstein believed that cutting some holes in a poker table and putting cameras underneath would solve the problem. He created and patented (in 1996) the hole card camera.
Many poker pros at the time were not thrilled with the invention. They felt that their cards and decisions were personal and contributed to their abilities to win. Orenstein, on the other hand, felt that putting watchable poker on television would garner more positive attention for the game. Players would want to compete on TV, and that would win over the players to his idea.
The first poker production to use the camera was Late Night Poker on the BBC in 1999. That success led to the World Series of Poker incorporating hole card cameras to spice up their broadcasts. The World Poker Tour used it to create a series of television shows for new audiences, and that tour continues strong 20 years later because of the hole card cam.
A Poker Game-Changer
Henry Orenstein wasn’t a household name with poker fans. Most audiences didn’t know that he was the reason that they could watch exciting poker on TV. But poker players knew it.
Working with longtime friend Mori Eskandani, Orenstein created and worked on production for several shows during the poker boom, most notably Poker Superstars Invitational and High Stakes Poker.
It was never all business for Orenstein, though. His love for poker continued to take him to the tables. He played at the WSOP during the 1990s and sometimes in the 2000s. He even won a WSOP title in 1996 in the $5K Seven-Card Stud event. That $130K win comprised the majority of his poker winnings, but his cash game play and recreational tournaments were off the record.
In 2008, the WSOP Poker Hall of Fame recognized Orenstein by voting him in. He was and is one of the few members of the Hall of Fame honored for his contributions to the game rather than his play. Most nominees and inductees have extensive poker accomplishments to point to, but Orenstein met the non-player criteria. He “contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.”
The hole card camera revolutionized the game of poker. It was one of the main reasons that the poker boom even happened and that poker became the global phenomenon that it is today.
A Giver
Orenstein became a millionaire early in life, financially solid already by the 1960s. The New Jersey resident wanted to give some of his earnings to help others. Devoted to his Jewish faith, he contributed significant amounts of money to organizations like the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty in New Jersey.
In 2017, he founded his own nonprofit organization called the Orenstein Project. The goal was to ensure that Holocaust survivors in Israel never experienced food insecurity. That also meant helping provide food and other forms of support to all families in need, including housing for Holocaust survivors. And as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world in 2020, Orenstein expanded his group’s focus to address food needs for thousands of families every day – from Israel to New York.
Orenstein died in his New Jersey home on December 14. His wife, Susie Orenstein, survived him. He was 98 years when he died.
We in the poker world knew Mr. Orenstein for his revolutionary hole-card camera and for being in our Hall of Fame.
He lived through and accomplished so much more in his long life.
A special man.
Here's his obituary in Hebrew (use Google Translate) https://t.co/xFS7TG83eC https://t.co/YBGLl8vXrF
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) December 15, 2021
