The New WSOP TV Format: Yay or Nay?

Posted on November 14, 2008 
Filed Under General

By now you’ve probably at the very least seen some highlights from last Tuesdays ESPN WSOP Final Table event. I was able to watch the whole thing from beginning to end in my cabin aboard the Norwegian Star during my WPT poker cruise that I was on all last week. From the opening moments to the end credits it was obvious that ESPN was trying to go for something very different here and take a chance at doing the impossible, making poker a spectator sport.

Personally, I didn’t really get a good vibe from the whole production. Having an auditorium full of screaming fans didn’t exactly seem appropriate when you realize that the only action any of these spectators are going to see (since they can’t see the player’s hole cards) are the poker players pushing in chips or folding their hand. Not very exciting in its own right, in fact it’s down right boring. Poker in its nature is a very laid back activity, played for the most part in silent card rooms with few distractions. It’s not quite as mentally taxing as say chess, but there are numerous comparisons between the two that you can draw, and try to imagine a chess match that was televised with the same amount of over-the-top voice over and hype that the WSOP Final Table was. It just doesn’t make for a good fit.

Part of the reason I don’t believe this idea will ever be used again is because the players themselves were almost painfully boring. Despite the WSOP’s best intentions, these guys were not the all-stars that we were made to believe they would become in the months leading up to the final table event, and much like any other pro sporting event, without having someone to root for, and without having a great personality to watch (like a Phil Hellmuth or Daniel Negraneau), it was hard to stay emotionally invested with the show.

You can’t blame the poker players either, they were placed in a impossible, emotionally charged situation that was light-years different from any previous final table experience they may have had, and many of the “November 9” were too busy sweating bullets and worried about looking dumb on TV instead of providing compelling table talk or showing any kind of emotion at all that was worth watching.

For me, the final nail in the coffin was when Peter Eastgate finally eliminated Ivan Demidov in heads up play. The 22yr Eastgate had just won $9 million in cash, became the youngest player to ever win the WSOP Main Event, and he didn’t even crack a smile. Imagine watching the Super Bowl and when the winning team’s kicker makes a last minute field goal to secure the victory, he just walks off the field without celebrating. It would quickly ruin millions of viewer’s experience of the event, and Peter Eastgate’s zombie-like expression served as a cherry on top of why poker just shouldn’t be treated like a UFC type sporting event.

We have yet to find out just how many viewers tuned in to watch the final table, but regardless of the numbers I highly doubt that the production which was months in the making lived up in ESPN’s eyes to all the hype and time and money they spent trying to turn poker into something it isn’t. Here’s hoping that for 2009 we can look forward to the return of classic poker television.

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