So Let\’s Talk Poker TV

I\’m curious what y\’all thought about the big-hype show last night. I enjoyed the hands we did see — because really, this final table probably featured some of the best pure poker of any main event sit-n-go I\’ve seen since I started following poker five years ago. Not sure how well that came across.

The Craig Marquis bustout hand really was incredible … that woulda been a good time for ESPN to show the audience, not just the players … because really, the whole audience was on pins-and-needles. Even we cynical media types temporarily forgot about our jobs and became true fanboys, just waiting for that devestating river card. (To some extent, poker fans are a little bit like NASCAR viewers, not wanting to see but kinda sorta waiting for an amazing crash.)

Overall, I thought ESPN did a better job covering the whole of the World Series better than any year prior. But the final table was a little disappointing … I give it a B-. But hey, I\’m always very forgiving the first go-round … you learn so much from doing something once. I look forward to seeing what they come up with next year.

A few more random thoughts about the whole experience:

  • Penn & Teller Theater was an awesome venue. Woulda been a better experience, however, had the whole set-up been rotated 90 degrees, so the MBL Lounge wasn\’t blocking so much of the view.
  • ESPN seemed to have difficult lighting the crowd for such shots. I will give them my secret for free: set your cameras to \”Auto\”.
  • Two hours was not long enough for the show. Had they made it three or four hours — or fuck, the whole shebang on pay-per-view — it woulda been more interesting and more of an event. The promotion woulda been easier, too, because it woulda stood out as something different … but two hours? That\’s just an NBA game. What\’s special about that?
  • The heads-up was way over-edited. ESPN reduced it pretty much to the key hands, but these hands lost all their context because you didn\’t see at least a few folds on bets after the flop (or even more importantly, on the turn) that gave the final heads-up some ebb and flow. For example, it really looked for a while like Ivan Demidov was shifting the momentum … but little did we know that Peter Eastgate was still in control.
  • Where were the telling, colorful back stories? Not only had Demidov and Eastgate become friends during the main event … they also played a lot together on the EPT in the interim, and from what I understand really got to know each other\’s play. This shoulda been a two or three-minute side story, as opposed to a two sentence explanation from Norman Chad.
  • A reality-show lead-up might have worked nicely — akin to that Ultimate Fighter show that always culminates in a real match-up.
  • The structure for the Obama infomercial also could really work well for poker … with some pre-recorded profile stuff of WSOPeople, flash to some recording of the action in the Amazon room, and then close with something very close to live. Naturally a slight delay to prevent cheating is more acceptable in poker than it is in politics.
  • Another possible improvement would be to flip-flop the delay … what I mean is had the final table been delayed just two weeks, as opposed to four months … and the winner was crowned/shown then … well that might serve as good promotion for the season, as people tune in to see how these guys actually got there. Using one episode to promote 20 would probably work better than using 20 episodes to promote one.
  • I really liked the new percentages they added — showing what percent of all the chips in play each player had. Really made Dennis Phillips\’ falter and short stack more visible for what it really was.

The question I walk away from all this with really is: How many more years til we see truly live (with a slight delay, of course) tournament action? Golf manages to take a four-day event with almost no actual action — lots of walking and staring — and turn it into coverage that people tune into week after week. Though the logistics aren\’t yet in place, there\’s theoretically not much reason this shouldn\’t be something worth working towards in the medium future.