Would You Like To Write About Poker On TV?

Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008

I'm looking for one or more people interested in writing about poker on TV. Position(s) may be paid or unpaid, and involve editorial or non-editorial content. Please email me if you're interested.

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ADHD Onscreen (A WSOP Europe Review)

Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008

* The World Series of Poker Europe is one of the worst poker broadcasts I've ever seen. Consider my experience watching the first episode. The episode was mostly about Phil Hellmuth, but when they did show some poker... what was I watching? They didn't tell me (it turned out to be day 1a of the Main Event). They also never told me who the players at the featured table were, what their chip stacks were, or how much the blinds and antes were.

The show has perhaps the worst case of ADHD I've ever seen. Sit still for a minute! They're constantly flitting from table to table to show bustouts or the end of big hands. It's impossible to cover an entire tournament well: the number of hands off the featured table they show should be zero. When they're not flitting, they're interrupting the poker with non-poker content. I don't watch a poker show to hear Dave Ulliot telling jokes or Robert Williamson telling me how to fold. The number of nonpoker segments they show should also be zero (I might make an exception for brief biographical bits). This show is more a collection of unconnected clips than it is the story of the featured table.

Occasionally they do show a hand from the featured table, and it usually involves one or more high pocket pairs. They don't show the action onscreen, and there isn't competent play-by-play to make up for it. You may not even know if a player raised or called, let alone the amount. They don't show most of the hole cards either.

I've written extensively about the problems with WSOP telecasts in the past, and this show pretty much fits the mold. The production has no redeeming feature, other than that it covers an important event. If you feel the need to watch it, I recommend you watch only the last two or three episodes, which feature the eventual champion.

You can download or stream the World Series of Poker Europe from the usual places.

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World Poker Tour and Players Settle Lawsuit

Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008

The World Poker Tour and a group of players have settled the players' lawsuit over the WPT's release form. The players objected to the WPT's expansive release form, which gave the WPT rights to the players names and images. The lawsuit was settled after the parties agreed on a new release. We can once again expect to see plaintiffs Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Phil Gordon, and Howard Lederer participating in WPT events.

WPT Press Release
PokerNews.com Article
WPTLawsuit.com

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Tell Us How To Make This Site More Useful To You

Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008

Please tell us how to make this site more useful to you by taking our survey. It's just six questions on one page, so it should only take a minute.

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Aussie Millions Tournament Coverage Starts

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008

This weekend's Aussie Millions coverage is the first episode of the tournament.

The next World Poker Tour is the North American Poker Championship featuring Barry Greenstein, Jonathan Little (FieryJustice), Jeffrey Garza (Action Jeff), Scott Clements (BigRiskky), David Cloutier, and Kofi Farkye.

Poker After Dark is still in rerun. The NHUPC and I Bet You are running new episodes.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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Review Update: Poker After Dark

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008

Poker After Dark didn't change a lot for season three. I still consider it to be the best of the major poker shows on TV. It retains the strong **** rating I gave it in my last review. A few notes about this season:

• Doyle's litany of wisdom in the opening segment seems contrived to me, as do the times when Ali clearly talks to "cover up" silence at the table.
  
• Marianela Pereyra is the first poker hostess that has held her own in the peanut gallery's comparison with Shana Hiatt, and I'm one of the many that prefer her. I'm sorry that she won't be back next season. Doing interviews during hands is still a bad idea when she does it, however.
• They seem to have changed the blind structure or editing this season: it seems that players last a long time, then it becomes a series of coinflips for the win in the last episode. There was at least one week this season where five players made it to the final episode.
• The most troubling episode this season was when Eli Elezra busted out on the first hand of the "Jam Up" tournament, then they let him rebuy. Changing the rules after the fact is troubling, but more troubling is that they presented it as if it had been a rule all along. That, and the episode of High Stakes Poker where they pretended that Daniel Negreanu left the table to do live commentary, makes me think that POKER PROductions is honesty-challenged.
• Pretending that the show is filmed over a week and using cash in a tournament are still offensive.
• There are still problems with the sound, e.g. too much background noise, and Ali's level is too high relative to the players.'
  

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Review Update: Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008

This is a brief update of last year's review of the Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational, for the 2008 edition.

I'd reprioritize my criticisms of last year's show: not having onscreen graphics for the action may be a bigger problem than not showing all the hole cards. The show is partially rescued, however, by decent commentary: Barry Tompkins and Howard Lederer do a lot of play by play, audibly indicating much of what should be onscreen. And at least the show has pot sizes onscreen. The position of the hole-card graphics is confusing, as with most shows; this time I didn't bother to figure out any hidden logic to the card graphics' order. The lack of stack-size information is a serious weakness of this show. I'm not even sure how deep this game is playing in general, which significantly affects playing style. It impedes the analysis of individual hands as well. As with last year, the show spends far too much time on non-poker content.

The Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational is neither the best cash game I've seen (The Game), nor the worst (I wasn't a big fan of Million Dollar Cash Game or Poker Den). Compared to the universe of poker shows, however, Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational is still above average, deserving something in the range of the **** I gave it last time.

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Poker After Dark Season Four Details

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008

POKER PROductions released details of season 4, which will start airing in July. Some excerpts:

...the filming of the 4^th season of NBC’s hit late-night program Poker After Dark will conclude on Friday, April 18 in Las Vegas. Ten new episodes will be aired beginning in July...

Perhaps the biggest change to PAD4 will be the introduction of two new formats. All shows in the past have been 6-player winner-take-all freezeouts, but that won’t be the case this season. Viewers will now also be able to witness heads-up play and cash games on Poker After Dark...

One week will feature a double elimination heads-up battle between the four winners of NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker Championship; Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forrest, Paul Wasicka, and Chris Ferguson, who will put up $50,000 each and compete for the $200,000 winner-take-all prize.

Also, look for two weeks of a $200/$400 no-limit hold’em cash game to be aired next season. The 12 players participating will be Howard Lederer, Dee Tiller, Gabe Kaplan, Patrik Antonius, Doyle Brunson, and Eli Elezra during one week, and Guy Laliberte, Phil Hellmuth, Tom Dwan, Allen Cunningham, Mike Baxter, and Antonio Esfandiari in the other.

One of their many match "themes" will be:

“Nets vs. Vets,” a match featuring three highly successful young Internet players in Tom “drrrr” Dwan, Brian “sbrugby” Townsend, and Andrew “good2cu” Robl against veteran pros and former World Champions Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Huck Seed.

See also our articles:
Leeann Tweeden Replaces Marianela Pereyra On Poker After Dark
The Case For Running Poker After Dark as a Cash Game

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Poker After Dark Films a Cash Game and Various Other Formats

Date: Wed, Apr 16, 2008

Poker After Dark is filming one of next season's shows as a cash game (see previous article The Case For Running Poker After Dark as a Cash Game), and shooting various other formats, according to Phil Hellmuth's blog:

I'm in Vegas, and I just finished playing in four "Poker after Dark" shows. I cannot reveal my record in them as per my contract with NBC. On Friday I play another "Poker after Dark," but only three of the five that I play are normal $20,000 POD's, the other's are "Special" and have different formats. One is a heads up tournament between Chris Ferguson (2008 NBC Heads up Champion), Paul Wasicka (2007 NBC Heads up Champ), Ted Forrest (2006 NBC Heads up Champ), and me (the 2005 NBC heads up champ). The other is a cash game.

... I need to get some sleep for the $100,000 cash game on POD Friday.

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Heartland Poker Tour Review

Date: Sun, Apr 13, 2008

**-*** I'd heard that Heartland Poker Tour was a bad show, especially its commentary, before ever seeing it. When my regional Fox Sports affiliate started carrying it (check a programming guide to see if it airs in your area) I watched it and found that I liked it more than I expected.

Heartland Poker Tour's format is like that of the World Poker Tour: they show the final six players of multi-table tournaments. The production values and tournament buyins are lower, however. They take two hours per event, though it's split into two shows. The commentary is indeed weak, sometimes showing a poor understanding of poker theory, and they talk over the table talk too much. The onscreen graphics are notably poor: they don't show the action, pot size, or all the hole cards. Like many poker shows, they don't indicate position clearly, and they don't show the chip stacks often enough. They don't do play-by-play well enough to make up for the lack of onscreen graphics. It's hard to tell who is who among these unknown players, and they only put their first names onscreen. The structure insures that the second episode of each event is coinflips.

So why do I like this show as much as I do? I think it's because it seems real. Too much poker on TV these days is made for TV, overproduced, too much like reality TV, and features the same cast of "TV pros." Heartland Poker Tour, on the other hand, just seems like real people playing a real local poker tournament that just happens to be filmed. I'm not sure if you'll like this show or not; all I can say is that I liked it more than I expected. I suggest you watch it for yourself and decide.

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National Heads-Up Poker Championship Airs Sunday

Date: Fri, Apr 11, 2008

The National Heads-Up Poker Championship starts airing Sunday at noon on NBC (full schedule; review of previous season).

This week's World Poker Tour episode is the Legends of Poker featuring Dan Harrington, David "The Dragon" Pham, Tom Schneider, Thu Nguyen, Mike McClain, and Jack Liu.

EPT Live streams the EPT Grand Final from Monte Carlo on Wednesday the 16th and Thursday the 17th. It's one of the most important tournaments in the world.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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National Heads-Up Poker Championship Schedule

Date: Fri, Apr 11, 2008

The National Heads-Up Poker Championship airs on NBC. The brackets are here.

Sunday, April 13th, noon – 2 PM
● Chris Ferguson vs John Juanda
● Mike Matusow vs Joe Hachem
● Patrik Antonius vs Gabe Kaplan
● Tom Dwan vs Phil Hellmuth
● Chris Moneymaker vs Jerry Yang
● Phil Ivey vs Alisha Kunze
● David Williams vs Johnny Chan
● Don Cheadle vs Gus Hansen

Sunday, April 20th, noon – 1 PM
● Paul Wasicka vs Freddy Deeb
● Ted Forrest vs Orel Hershiser
● Shannon Elizabeth vs Andy Bloch
● Jennifer Tilly vs Clonie Gowen
● Jason Alexander vs Huck Seed
● Sam Farha vs Doyle Brunson
● Daniel Negreanu vs Michael Mizrachi

Sunday, April 27th, noon – 2 PM

Sunday, May 4th, noon – 2 PM

Sunday, May 11th, noon – 2 PM

Sunday, May 18th, noon – 3 PM

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Leeann Tweeden Replaces Marianela Pereyra On Poker After Dark

Date: Thu, Apr 10, 2008

Leeann Tweeden will replace Marianela Pereyra on the fourth season of Poker After Dark, which is about to film. She did a good job as hostess of PokerDome. As previously mentioned, she is the sideline reporter for the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship.



Press release

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World Poker Tour Canada

Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2008

... the inaugural Coast to Coast Poker Championships taking place May 5 thru 13, 2008 at the River Rock Casino Resort, featuring 7 events over 9 days, with an estimated 2,650 players and $2.4 million prize pool. The main event offers a top prize of $377,300 based on a sell-out.

The Coast to Coast Poker Championships will be the first stop for World Poker Tour Canada.

WPT Canada, a licensed product of WPT Enterprises, will film four one-hour episodes of the Championships to air nationally in Canada late August 2008.

Source: PokerPages.com

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