\”In the works\”, they are saying … but sounds real … real awful, lol, if the new half-hour poker comedy — supposedly about a couple brainiac Vegas grinders chasing the WSOP main event dream — were being done by anyone but the exec prods of the hit Showtime show Weeds.
Of course poker fiction hasn\’t done all that well since Rounders really … we had Lucky You and what was that show on ESPN? Tilt? … not exactly memorable beyond making Norman Chad oddly more palatable. But at the same time, you can kinda see what the production team of Jenji Kohan and Matt Salsberg could be going for, taking on the two biggest issues in the original Barack Obama national suggestion box — poker and pot — but with Ws.
Wonder how much inspiration they\’ll draw from various poker+pot WSOP blog tales we\’ve read before … and how they\’ll portray the Hooker Bar. Will it take place in \’09 or earlier with the Sapphire girls roaming the Rio hallways, or will they keep it in the present tense to stay relevant with current events? Or maybe that\’s where the \”fictionalizing\” comes in! Surely they gotta have the Otis eating a keno crayon story in an episode, right!?! But you have him eat it as part of a prop bet with Ghostface Killah, yeah! Cameo by Daniel Negreanu too much?
Right, right, of course you don\’t want that, because you say yes to Negreanu you gotta say yes to Hellmuth, and then before you know it Gabe Kaplan wants on and then Full Tilt and PokerStars get into a patch war but then you\’ve lost control of the narrative sub-arch double-suit… um creative … you know Hollywood! We can even do the occasional crossover script with Weeds … they\’re in California, right? Of course they are … it\’s pot, where do you think the poker world gets all theirs? It sure ain\’t grown in Panorama Towers … And I know, maybe an episode with a couple chicks from the L-word for the ladies event! Ahh, the ideas are just flowing with this hint of C-list creative talent taking a stab at poker… did I ever tell you my idea for a sitcom — it would be just like Cheers but set in an underground Dallas poker room — virtually the exact same characters only more Asians … trust me, they\’re funny. Maybe we can do a spinoff. Seriously, Weeds-people, how have you not hired me yet to write for this show?
And tell us … who\’s gonna play Oliver Tse?
Salsberg is the creative partner behind Whales with a Hendon Mob database entry. Interestingly, for having a fair amount of tournament cashes — including six 4th place finishes — he has none in WSOP events.
