Fifth Street Journal

Poker After Dark Cash Game Next Two Weeks, Plus Newsbites

2010-03-15T10:37:00.001-04:00

Poker After Dark has a new $50,000-buyin cash game over the next two weeks. The players are Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Brandon Adams, Todd Brunson, and Mike Matusow. Dennis Phillips and David "Viffer" Peat joined after players left. See also NBC's preview or you can read some spoilers if you like.

Next Sunday's High Stakes Poker is from day two of the taping, which included Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, Barry Greenstein, Dennis Phillips, Lex Veldhuis, and Andrew "good2cu" Robl.

Our WPT TV schedule now includes links to previews of the TV tables. The currently-running show is the Festa Al Lago, featuring Freddy Deeb, Tommy Vedes, Shawn Cunix, Jason Lavallee, Craig Crivello, and Jason Burt.

This week's newsbites:

G4 didn't renew 2 Months $2 Million. Read about it at Poker News Daily and Krantz's blog.
73% of people think High Stakes Poker would be better off without Kara Scott's interviews. There's also been a lot of support for bringing back AJ Benza, and he said he had a great meeting with GSN executives. Personally, I think they should get rid of almost everything that isn't a poker hand.
The WSOP tweeted about what sounds like another of their experimental made-for-TV tournaments: an All-Star game.
ESPN has a good article on how John Duthie created the European Poker Tour. It also discusses how online qualifiers have led to good turnouts for the North American Poker Tour.
A network is seeking young poker pros for a documentary.
Shuffle Up and Deal, a poker-themed game show to be hosted by Mike Sexton, is looking for a sponsor and a channel.
Brandon McSmith's lawsuit claiming he came up with the idea for Face the Ace was dismissed.
Mori Eskandani talked about the criteria for choosing players for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship on the Hard Core Poker Show, March 2, segment 2.
Call the Floorman, a poker-themed game show being shopped to TV channels for possible syndication, shot a pilot.
Poker News Daily ran an article on how real poker is different from what's seen on TV.
Poker News Daily summarized the evolution of poker TV shows and editorialized that Poker Game Shows Need Fixing.
World Team Poker, with teams from various countries, will tape their first event May 19 and stream it live over the internet.
ESPN and Harrah's executives talked about the WSOP and the growth of poker on TV, but it's a rather boring article.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

Have you tried Rush Poker yet? It's the fastest form of poker there is. You're never waiting for a hand: as soon as you fold one, or click the prefold button, you're dealt another hand at a new table. It's only available at Full Tilt Poker. Try it today.

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From Busto To Robusto Espisode 2 One Day Sneak Preview

2010-03-14T10:10:00.005-04:00

The second episode of the poker documentary series From Busto To Robusto is up on the internet for a one-day sneak preview. This one is about Andrew "good2cu" Robl. It will disappear at 3 AM Eastern tonight (it's gone now) then return permanently in a couple of weeks when their website is finished. The first episode was well regarded, but I don't think the new one is as good.

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Poker2Nite Moves To Versus

2010-03-04T04:36:00.001-05:00

Poker2Nite, the weekly talk/news show sponsored by UB.com, has moved to Versus for its second season. It will maintain its old time spot: Wednesday nights at 11 PM. During NHL playoffs its airtime may be pushed back slightly. The first episode just aired and reruns today (Thursday) at 5:30 PM. The show is also available on UB's site.

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High Stakes Poker Season 6 Premieres Sunday

2010-02-12T03:23:00.002-05:00

High Stakes Poker season 6 premieres Sunday at 8 PM on GSN. They'll be starting off with day 1. It will be preceded by an 8-hour marathon of the best episodes from previous seasons, starting at noon.

The WSOP Europe continues on Sunday nights.

The current WPT episode (schedule) is the Legends of Poker from the Bicycle Casino in California. The players are Prahlad Friedman, Kevin Schaffel, Toto Leonidas, Todd Terry, Sam Stein, and Mike Krescanko. Its official premiere isn't till Sunday night, but in many areas of the country episodes start airing earlier in the week.

Poker2Nite has finished its run.

This week's newsbites:

Poker News Daily interviewed Brandon McSmith about his lawsuit claiming Face the Ace was his idea.
Poker News Daily did an interview with Kara Scott about her HSP 6 hosting duties and other things.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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High Stakes Poker Season 6 To Show Fewer Hands?

2010-02-12T03:19:00.011-05:00

High Stakes Poker season 6 will add at least two new non-poker segments, presumably resulting in fewer hands being shown:

As previously mentioned, Kara Scott will be doing interviews.
Each episode will also include a segment called "Did You Know?" where Daniel Negreanu will give a brief lesson about the game. For example, in the first episode he's expected to explain the origin of the term "Dead Man's Hand."

I think anything that results in fewer hands being shown will likely harm the show. They're already showing just a selection of the most interesting hands; some shows like Poker After Dark show most of the hands. The shtick between Gabe and AJ presumably won't be replaced, but I doubt that will save as much time as will be spent on the new segments.

The Las Vegas Sun has a preview promising a big hand between two players I won't mention here.

Card Player has a preview video:

Below is GSN's teaser video:

See High Stakes Poker season 6 for full information about the new season.

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Poker on TV Update, January 22, 2010

2010-01-22T00:29:00.001-05:00

The EPT Deauville streams live on PokerStars.tv at 6 AM Sunday (TV table) and Monday (final table).

If you haven't caught the new season of the World Poker Tour yet, its official premiere is Sunday night at 11 PM on Fox Sports Net. Check out the WPT's Channel Finder to verify when it's airing in your area. The first tournament shown this season is the Bellagio Cup V. Details are in our last update.

The next new show will be the WSOP Europe on January 31.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Poker on TV Update: World Poker Tour Premieres This Week

2010-01-16T00:50:00.000-05:00

World Poker Tour season 8 starts airing this coming week in certain areas of the country. Although the official premiere date is Sunday, January 24 at 11 PM, Fox Sports Net is a collection of regional networks which can run the show whenever they want. Some of them, including my affiliate, are starting the new season on Monday the 18th. WPT's Channel Finder is a good way to find out when it's airing in your area. The first tournament shown this season will be the Bellagio Cup V. Erik Seidel, Justin "Boosted J" Smith, Alec "traheho" Torelli, Alexandre Gomes, Faraz "The-Toilet" Jaka, and Christoffer Sonesson made the TV table. I've heard of all but the last of them, so it's an impressive TV table.

Poker After Dark will be in rerun until March 15.

This week's newsbites:

Two more unnamed NAPT stops will be added to the three already announced.
Kara Scott signed to represent Party Poker and will be hosting their TV shows. I hope this doesn't mean that we won't see her on American shows after her work on the upcoming High Stakes Poker season 6 and WSOP Europe airs.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Poker on TV Update: New PAD, $Million Cash Game S4, PCA Live Streams

2010-01-08T18:58:00.006-05:00

Next week's Poker After Dark is a tourney, "Nicknames," featuring Annette Obrestad, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Erick Lindgren, Phil Laak, and Phil Hellmuth.

The Full Tilt Million Dollar Cash Game season 4 is airing in the UK and becoming available for downloading or streaming. The production quality is much worse than HSP or PAD (e.g. poor onscreen graphics), but it's a big game ($300/600 blinds) with great players that features the biggest pot in TV poker history.

As mentioned previously, the PCA live streams are underway. The Main Event is one of the biggest tournaments in the world, and its final table streams Monday at noon on PokerStars.tv.

The Windy City Poker Championship is coming to Bright House Sports Network in Florida and Cox Cable's CST.

This week's newsbites:

Someone talked to Sam Farha about why he no longer plays on High Stakes Poker: ... now that people can see his hole cards and figure out how he plays, the game has gotten harder. So, as he put it (and I quote) "It's bad for my game to be on TV."
Hellmuth and Negreanu say that ESPN is filming the PCA. It could be a mistaken assumption based on the same production company that does the WSOP filming the PCA, but it looks likely to me right now that ESPN will be the NAPT's broadcast partner.
We've written many times about how cash games are more popular with viewers than tournaments. The latest poll on 2+2 shows the widest margin I've seen so far: 91% prefer watching cash games vs. 9% for tournaments.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Launches

2010-01-08T10:27:00.002-05:00

PokerStars announced the long-rumored (see our September 2008 article) North American Poker Tour (NAPT). The initial stops are the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (underway now), the Venetian in February, and Mohegan Sun in April. Two more events will be announced later. Joanna Krupa will be the hostess. Television production company 441 (the same group that produces ESPN's WSOP coverage) will be producing the NAPT series. PokerStars's Jeffrey Haas says "We do have a first tier broadcast partner that will hopefully be announced in the next two weeks."

This is PokerStars's 9th tournament series (see the list). Their European Poker Tour is the world's leading poker tour, having long ago passed out the World Poker Tour.

Below are an interview with and picture of hostess Krupa.

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PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Live Streams Start Today

2010-01-08T09:30:00.004-05:00

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is one of the biggest tournaments in the world, with the Main Event paying $1 million or more to the top four places. PokerStars.tv is streaming several events this year, and three of the events (Main Event, Charity, and High Roller) are being filmed for later airing on TV.

The streaming schedule:

Friday, Jan. 8 at 6 PM: PokerStars Charity Event
Sunday, Jan. 10 at noon: PCA Main Event – TV Table
Monday, Jan. 11 at noon: PCA Main Event – Final Table
Wednesday, Jan. 13 at noon: World Cup of Poker Final (with hole cards)
Thursday, Jan. 14 at noon: PCA High Roller – Final Table

All the events are streaming at PokerStars.tv.

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WSOP Europe TV Schedule

2010-01-08T08:55:00.001-05:00

The Caesars Cup and WSOP Europe begin airing January 31 on ESPN2. The Caesars Cup is a made-for-TV poker show with an odd format which pits America against Europe. It was shot during the WSOP Europe. The WSOP Europe Main Event has one of the toughest fields in poker and it had a terrific final table. Kara Scott will be the WSOP Europe sideline reporter.

Caesars Cup:

Sunday, January 31st: 11:00 PM
Monday, February 1st: 12:00 AM

WSOP Europe Main Event:

Sunday, February 7th: 10:00 PM
Sunday, February 7th: 11:00 PM
Monday, February 8th: 12:00 AM
Sunday, February 14th: 11:00 PM
Monday, February 15th: 12:00 AM
Monday, February 15th: 1:00 AM
Sunday, February 28th: 9:00 PM
Sunday, February 28th: 10:00 PM

All times are on ESPN2.

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World Poker Tour Season 8 Schedule

2010-01-05T00:35:00.010-05:00

World Poker Tour season 8 airs on Fox Sports Net at 11 PM on Sunday nights (in some markets episodes start airing earlier in the week). Episodes will be one hour long and in HD. Full Tilt Poker will continue as the WPT's sponsor this season. The schedule is below:

1/24/2010 Bellagio Cup V – Part 1
1/31/2010 Bellagio Cup V – Part 2
2/7/2010 Bellagio Cup V – Part 3
2/14/2010 Legends of Poker – Part 1
2/21/2010 Legends of Poker – Part 2
2/28/2010 Borgata Poker Open – Part 1
3/7/2010 Borgata Poker Open – Part 2
3/14/2010 Festa Al Lago – Part 1
3/21/2010 Festa Al Lago – Part 2
3/28/2010 World Poker Finals – Part 1
4/4/2010 World Poker Finals – Part 2
4/11/2010 World Poker Finals – Part 3
4/18/2010 Bellagio 5 Diamond – Part 1
4/25/2010 Bellagio 5 Diamond – Part 2
5/2/2010 Southern Poker Championship – Part1
5/9/2010 Southern Poker Championship – Part 2
5/16/2010 LA Poker Classic – Part 1
5/23/2010 LA Poker Classic – Part 2
5/30/2010 Celebrity Invitational – Part 1
6/6/2010 Celebrity Invitational – Part 2
6/13/2010 Bay 101 Shooting Star - Part 1
6/21/2010 Bay 101 Shooting Star - Part 2
6/27/2010 Hollywood Poker Open – Part 1
7/4/2010 Hollywood Poker Open – Part 2
7/11/2010 WPT Championship – Part 1
7/18/2010 WPT Championship – Part 2

You can use WPT's Channel Finder to find times on your local Fox Sports Net affiliate.

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Poker on TV Update: Million Dollar Challenge Today, Face the Ace Saturday

2009-12-27T00:46:00.002-05:00

The last Million Dollar Challenge airs at 4:30 on Fox today. Note that it may run late as it's on after football. They're already running qualifiers for the next season.

The last Face the Ace runs on Saturday the 2nd at 2:30 PM on NBC.

The next season of Poker After Dark begins Monday the 4th with a tourney called Commentators featuring Howard Lederer, Gabe Kaplan, Joe Sebok, Ali Nejad, Mark Gregorich, and Kara Scott. New episodes will be in HD. The show airs at 2:05 AM on NBC.

CNBC has been running a special called CNBC Investigates: The Big Business of Illegal Gambling. Upcoming airings are Friday the 1st at 9 PM and Sunday the 3rd at 11 PM. It's also available for downloading or streaming from the usual places. The mainstream media rarely does a decent job with gambling, but you may find the middle and later parts of it worth watching. They include Jay Cohen at the 26-minute mark, the WTO decision at 33 minutes, the Absolute Poker/UltimateBet scandals at 40, and the prohibition vs. regulation debate at 50 minutes.

This week's newsbites:

Montel Williams and his International Team Poker League are being sued by an investor.
Poker After Dark was voted the 9th best show of the year by Baltimore City Paper.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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World Poker Tour Season 8 Premieres January 24, Plus More WPT News

2009-12-27T00:25:00.004-05:00

World Poker Tour season 8 premieres Sunday January 24 at 11 PM on FSN.

The WPT added Paris's Aviation Club back to its schedule. They last played there in 2006 for legal reasons. The tournament will take place at the end of season 8 in 2010, and will be filmed for television.

Other WPT newsbites:

Card Player talked to some of the WPT people about the tour's future. Expect more international events, the WPT to keep its own brand (it won't be labeled PartyPoker), and for them to encourage other online sites to run satellites to their events.
The WPT announced another non-TV event: WPT Bucharest.
Poker News Daily summarized the WPT's 2009. Alternatively, you can click our WPT label for all of our stories.

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Pokertronic Automated TV Production Equipment

2009-12-26T21:38:00.002-05:00

Pokertronic's equipment generates poker video with hole cards and winning percentages on the fly, for live-to-tape or streaming video productions. OCR is used to recognize the hole cards. Pokertronic found RFID recognition of bets to be too expensive, so bets must be input manually (see however our previous coverage of RFID solutions: 1, 2). Pokertronic's system isn't available for sale yet, but it will be available for long-term lease (at least one year) in the first quarter of 2010. Currently they offer taping in their German studio or travel to clients' locations (about 8,000 Euro for a one-day show with travel). Below is a screenshot from their live stream of WPT Venice.

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High Stakes Poker Season 6

2009-12-26T21:26:00.011-05:00

High Stakes Poker season 6 premieres on GSN Sunday, February 14 at 8 PM. Reruns will air at 11 PM and 2 AM. 13 episodes will air. Gabe Kaplan will do commentary (AJ Benza is gone) and Kara Scott will do interviews from the floor. Each episode will include a new segment called "Did You Know?" where Daniel Negreanu will give a brief lesson about the game, e.g. in the first episode he'll explain the origin of the term "Dead Man's Hand." Blinds will be $400/800 with a $200 ante and a $200,000 minimum to $500,000 maximum buyin. Prop bets will not be allowed.

We know the starting lineups from the three days of taping in November. Known replacement players are also mentioned below. The episodes will be shown in the same order.

Day 1:

Phil Hellmuth
Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Phil Ivey
Daniel Negreanu
Gus Hansen
Antonio Esfandiari
Dario Minieri
Andreas Hoivold

Eli Elezra, Jason Mercier, and Phil Laak replaced players later.

Day 2:

Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Phil Ivey
Daniel Negreanu
Patrik Antonius
Barry Greenstein
Dennis Phillips
Lex Veldhuis
Andrew "good2cu" Robl

Phil Laak replaced a player later.

Day 3:

Phil Ivey
Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Daniel Negreanu
Doyle Brunson
Mike Matusow
Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier
David Benyamine
Eli Elezra

Phil Galfond and Phil Laak replaced players later.

There may be other replacement players that haven't been revealed. Dwan, Ivey, and Negreanu played all three days.

More details on High Stakes Poker season 6:

Gus Hansen, Phil Galfond, Lex Veldhuis, and Andrew "good2cu" Robl blogged about their experiences playing.
Logos will be allowed for the first time.
PokerStars is reportedly sponsoring the show.
Barry Greenstein is expected to do another one of his charitable fundraising drives for saying a poker phrase on the show. This time it's "bing blang blaow."
Tom "durrrr" Dwan was going on little sleep at the day one taping, as he'd been busy losing millions to Isildur1 online just prior to filming.
Greg Raymer talked about why he consistently refuses his invitations to play on High Stakes Poker (he's not bankrolled for the game).
Card Player interviewed Kara Scott and Mori Eskandani at the day one taping (video).

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2010 WSOP Schedule Released

2009-12-24T01:17:00.010-05:00

The 2010 WSOP schedule was released (press release). The major change is converting the $50,000 HORSE event into an 8-game Players Championship which adds NLHE, PLO, and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball to the HORSE games. The final table will be no-limit hold 'em only, as it was in its first year, and it will be televised again. There's long been a battle over whether poker should be modified for TV, and the $50,000 HORSE event's final table was one of the battlefields. The "poker is for TV" crowd (e.g. Daniel Negreanu) won this time. The additional games at least make the tournament worthy of the title "Players Championship," as it now includes most of the serious poker games.

Other than the Players Championship and the Main Event, we don't yet know what will be televised. Two televised events from 2009, the $40,000 no-limit hold 'em tournament and the Champions Invitational, aren't on the schedule for 2010. One major addition, a $25,000 shorthanded no-limit hold 'em event, seems like a likely candidate for television. The other major change to the schedule is the addition of lots of $1,000 no-limit hold 'em events with two starting days to accommodate large fields.

Televised events will be broadcast on ESPN starting in late July 2010.

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Poker After Dark Schedule

2009-12-24T00:08:00.003-05:00

Week of January 4, tourney, "Commentators:" Howard Lederer, Gabe Kaplan, Joe Sebok, Ali Nejad, Mark Gregorich, and Kara Scott.

Week of January 11, tourney, "Nicknames:" Annette Obrestad, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Erick Lindgren, Phil Laak, and Phil Hellmuth.

Weeks of March 15 and 22, cash game: Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Brandon Adams, Todd Brunson, and Mike Matusow. Dennis Phillips and David "Viffer" Peat joined after players left. The buyin was $50,000.

Week of April 19, tourney, "My Favorite Pro:" Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, and online qualifiers Jens Voertmann, Craig Ivey, James Ashby, and Steve Bartlett.

Week of April 26, tourney, "He Said, She Said:" Erica Scoenberg, Jean-Robert Bellande, David Grey, Karina Jett, Mike Matusow, and Annie Duke.

You can find player biographies and the lineups for rerun weeks on NBC's web site.

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Poker on TV Update: Amazing Poker After Dark Cash Game Lineup

2009-12-07T00:05:00.001-05:00

There's an amazing cash game lineup on Poker After Dark for the next two weeks. For the first week it's Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Gus Hansen, and Phil Hellmuth. David "Viffer" Peat appears during the second week. The blinds are $200/400 with a $100,000 minimum buyin. You can read more about it on NBC's site. The show airs at 2:05 AM weeknights.

The next Face the Ace airs Saturday at 3 PM on NBC.

The next Million Dollar Challenge airs Sunday at 3 PM on Fox (the time may vary by region).

Vanessa Rousso will be a judge on Bank of Hollywood, which starts airing on E! at 10 PM Mondays on the 14th.

This week's newsbites:

The second episode of From Busto to Robusto will be about Andrew "good2cu" Robl. There's a teaser available now.
The US Poker Championship is expected to air in January.
Million Dollar Challenge is available on the web. The October 13 2+2 Pokercast was mostly about it.
Poker 2Nite is available on UB's site.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Final Thoughts On The 2009 WSOP

2009-12-05T18:33:00.005-05:00

This year I succeeded in avoiding the results of the WSOP Main Event final table until it aired (last year I tried and failed), but I had to go to great lengths to do so. Some others succeeded as well, but lots of others failed. Among the leading spoilers were Yahoo, PokerStars, and people who knew you were interested in poker. 2+2 and ESPN, on the other hand, were reportedly better about not spoiling it this year. Still, if ESPN wants to maximize ratings, I think they'll need to film the show on Monday for airing on Tuesday. This year they started filming it on Saturday, one day earlier than last year, which may be one reason the ratings declined this year.

There was one really awful editing choice on this year's broadcast: only showing a 90-million chip AA vs. KK pot from the point when the players were all in. I appreciate the move from two to two and a half hours this year, but I think three hours next year would be better. If they really want to do it right, however, they'll have a live stream on one of their secondary channels (like ESPN 2 or Classic) in addition to the edited broadcast. Plenty of people manage to watch all the "boring" hands on Poker After Dark each week (they show most of the hands played), so plenty of people would be willing to watch every hand of the WSOP too (even without the hole cards it's worth watching).

I recently editorialized about how ESPN should change their target audience from people who aren't interested in poker to poker fans. A look at the numbers makes that argument clearer. For comparison purposes, football's championship, the Super Bowl, gets about 40% of US households to tune in. The important fact about that is that it's clearly more than the number of football fans. Poker's world championship, the WSOP Main Event, on the other hand, doesn't even get nearly all the poker fans to tune in. How many poker fans are there? It's hard to say, but the following numbers will give us a ballpark range. 55 million Americans play poker. 15 million of them play real-money online poker and an indeterminate number of others play real-money live poker. Not all of them are going to be what I'd call "poker fans," however. Some smaller groups are mostly poker fans: the Poker Players Alliance alone has 1.2 million members and 2+2, the leading poker forum, had one million unique visitors last month. Plenty of poker fans and regular players have never heard of either of those, so it would appear that the number of poker fans lies somewhere between one million and the 15 million real-money online poker players. If just 1/3 of the real-money online poker players (or 9% of all poker players) are "poker fans," then we'd have five million poker fans in the US. The WSOP Main Event final table got 2.2 million viewers, and the average WSOP broadcast got 1.2 million. While football's championship event gets far more viewers than there are football fans, ESPN's broadcast of poker's world championship isn't even getting nearly all the poker fans to watch. If they aren't even getting the low-hanging fruit why do they think getting the non-fans to watch is the best strategy? Many of us poker fans just don't watch the WSOP any more (for example). Not only is ESPN losing the poker fans, they're also not converting the non-fans to fans because ESPN simply doesn't focus on the poker.

Regular readers will recall that ESPN/ABC plans to apply their poker broadcasting model to football in the future. I recently learned they've added another element to their plan. As you know, ESPN has been reducing the number of WSOP events they air every year. It was down to two of 57 events this year: the Main Event and one preliminary event. They do that because the preliminary events have lower ratings than the Main Event. They'll now be applying the same theory to football: in the pros they'll air only the Super Bowl and one playoff game; in college football they'll only air the national championship game and one regular-season game. I'm kidding of course, but it's another way to make clear how ESPN cuts their own throats by broadcasting hardly any of the world championship they have broadcast rights to. As I explained in ESPN's WSOP Monopoly Must End, they don't even have to broadcast the other events themselves: other cable networks would be glad to broadcast WSOP events, and could do so profitably with lower production costs than ESPN. ESPN's WSOP ratings would benefit from the broadcasts in the same way that regular season games contribute to the Super Bowl's ratings.

See also Michael Craig's interesting take on watching the final table live and how it can sometimes be better than edited poker on TV.

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Beyond the Felt: Poker Documentary Series

2009-11-28T13:43:00.004-05:00

Beyond the Felt is a series of 13 poker documentaries that were shot in 2003-2005, aired in the UK about 2005, and recently appeared on YouTube. I think some of them are worth watching, and my favorites are below.

Episode 10: Daniel Negreanu

Episode 7: Antonio Esfandiari

Episode 2: 2003 WSOP, featuring Dutch Boyd

Episode 3: 2003 Showdown at the Sands, featuring Daniel Negreanu

Episode 8: Women in Poker, featuring Jen Harman, some Karina Jett, and a little bit of Evelyn Ng.

It's hard to describe the episodes since each covers multiple subjects, but some hints about the other ones are below.
Episode 1: "Meet the Players"
Episode 4: The old road gamblers like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim juxtaposed with The Crew.
Episode 5: Money management; Joe Bartholdi leaving The Crew after blowing a large portion of their bankroll.
Episode 6: Phil Hellmuth
Episode 9: Phil Laak
Episode 11: Psychology, like reading people and tilt; Jen Harman on Andy Beal vs. The Corporation.
Episode 12: Will they ever get out of poker? reading players; how the game's image has improved; online poker.
Episode 13: How they learned the game; cash vs. tourneys; staking.

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Poker on TV Update And Newsbites

2009-11-24T09:49:00.004-05:00

The NHL Charity Shootout airs on ESPN Classic the next four Tuesdays at 10 PM.

In the Fold Equity episode of Lie to Me the team heads to Las Vegas to search for a missing World Series of Poker finalist. It airs next Monday on Fox at 9 PM.

The next new show will be a fabulous Poker After Dark cash game lineup on December 7.

This week's newsbites:

They cracked down on prop betting during the filming of High Stakes Poker season 6.
More information about the players on High Stakes Poker season 6, including the additions of Phil Laak, Phil Galfond, and Jason Mercier, plus various players blogging about their experiences.
Poker After Dark updates: details of the drama at the taping emerged, Gus Hansen talked about how he fared, and they'll start airing the episodes at the beginning of next year.
Poker 2Nite news: the initial run is 13 weeks, Sebok and Huff did an interview about the show, I was bored with it, and PokerNews.com opined on whether it will survive or not (a split decision).
WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack stepped down. There are no plans to replace him, leaving Harrah's Interactive Entertainment CEO Mitch Garber (formerly PartyGaming's CEO) in charge. Harrah's will soon open an online gambling site (no US players allowed).
The World Poker Tour people talked more about their plans (I wouldn't expect any changes to the TV side).
Shuffle Up and Deal updates: Mike Sexton, Chad Brown, and Brandi Williams are on the team for this poker-themed game show, and 13 episodes have been ordered to air on MyNetworkTV.
I found a couple more good articles about 2 Months 2 Million.
Shark Out of Water is an 18 minute poker film with cameos by Phil Hellmuth and Brad Booth. You can order the DVD for $10.
I found out what Kimberly Lansing is up to now: doing the Moviefone Minute.
More technology to automate poker TV production: Gaming Partners International's RFID chips and counters.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Poker’s time in the sun may have come and gone, if recent ratings are any indication

2009-11-23T01:32:00.002-05:00

Steve Friess had an interesting editorial on Las Vegas Weekly. The highlights:

If there were ever a year when the World Series of Poker should have enjoyed a renewed boost, it was 2009. The stars had aligned in every conceivable way, and grandiose predictions seemed warranted.
“This is going to be the most-watched Final Table in history,” legend Phil Hellmuth predicted to me before it took place in two spurts on November 7 and 9.
And I believed him. It certainly made sense. Alas, he was wrong.
.... virtually nobody bothered to report the outcome that actually mattered. TV ratings for the two-hour Final Table broadcast on ESPN on November 10 were actually down from the 2008 broadcast. (Ed.: see our ratings article)
.... Skeptical journalists have long been taking note of poker’s relative weakness versus its white-hot years, 2003-2006, when poker TV shows were all the rage and Internet poker blossomed into one of the universe’s all-time most profitable enterprises. In 2006, when 8,773 players entered the World Series of Poker’s Main Event and the top prize hit $12 million, there seemed nothing that could slow the game’s stampede into the hearts and minds of American popular culture.
Poker overlords like to note that Congress put the kibosh on poker’s growth by passing a law in the fall of 2006 severely restricting the ability of most Americans to easily put money into their online poker accounts. This certainly is true and did result in a dramatic drop the following year in WSOP Main Event entrants. In fact, in the three years since, that figure has yet to top even 7,000.
That’s all well and good, but that does not explain the waning interest in watching poker on TV, and it is only via TV that tournament poker can become anything more than a peripheral part of mainstream American culture. Why would one’s inability to play online reduce one’s interest in following the pros? If poker wants to be compared to the big sports leagues, don’t they know that the vast majority of people who watch the NFL or NBA don’t actually play football or basketball? Most people watch sports to see other people do things they can’t do or can’t do that well.
The ratings stall is particularly stunning given the radical lengths to which the World Series of Poker and ESPN have gone to reverse a ratings decline that first became evident in 2006 and 2007. “Radical” is the only word that can describe the decision in 2008 to bifurcate this tournament, to play the bulk of it in July but pause play once the nine finalists emerge and wait until November to play out the rest.
This was a decision undertaken solely to increase TV viewership.
.... The trouble now is, 2009 should have been a banner year for this event and its TV show. Network TV viewership is up, reflecting that Americans want to be entertained and distracted from the ponderous, endless health-care debate. And, as WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack rightly noted, the Final Table contenders this go-around were directly out of central casting.
.... this piece is about the limits of poker’s prominence, and a ratings stagnation, given these favorable conditions, gives us a sense of where those limits are.
.... the WSOP folks would be wise to stop predicting or striving for a resumption of the unnatural poker boom of the earlier part of this decade. That was a great run of luck, but it’s over now.

ESPN executives still talk about "mainstreaming" poker. But are there any ESPN viewers left who haven't seen poker yet? Believing that poker will go on growing indefinitely is a pipe dream... which means it's time for ESPN to start treating poker like it's a real sport (whether it is or not is irrelevant). The days of creating poker shows for people uninterested in poker, as has been done, should be over. That strategy has just minimized the number of converts and return viewers. What price a serious poker broadcast?

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Live Streaming Poker With Hole Cards Sunday: Partouche Poker Tour Final

2009-11-21T11:20:00.001-05:00

The Partouche Poker Tour Final streams live with hole cards and English commentary Sunday from 8 AM. First prize is one million Euros ($1,486,000). The chipleader and most well-known player is Michael Tureniec (player bios).

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Video Profile of a Professional Poker Player

2009-11-21T05:15:00.000-05:00

This is a 7-minute video profile of Yan Chen, a poker pro who plays online and at the Commerce Casino.

That's Billy Baxter saying "As good as they come." Freddy Deeb is at Chen's table as well.

There are a couple more interesting videos at Videos About Online Poker Stars.

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