I'm a poker fan, and enjoy DVR'ing and watching the World Series of Poker Main Event coverage that ESPN puts together every year. But this year, and last year as well was ruined by ESPN. For some strange reason, they have decided to show the Final Table on live TV for the previous two years.

This is terrible for two reasons:
1. Watching Poker live is incredibly dull. The normal episodes that ESPN shows are edited, and they choose the best hands and moments to highlight throughout the tournament. When they are showing it live, you are sometimes sitting through 3-5 minutes of just silence as the player decides whether to call a bet or fold. Many hands don't even make it to a flop. These live telecasts must be a ratings disaster. Also, since it's Live, they can't show the player's cards until the hand is complete. This means all the analysis given is just guess work, and most times the announcers are proved to be completely wrong once the hand is decided.

2. There is no way to predict the time it will take to make it through the entire final table. Last year, the final two participants played heads up for hours, and the recording I made on the DVR cut off, so I didn't even get to see the end. This year, the final table was played in two parts. 9th-4th place finishes were played on Monday night, and the top 3 played for the Grand Prize the following night. Both nights I set my DVR to record, with two extra hours recorded to make sure nothing was missed. On both nights, the time ESPN allotted to their programming schedule (2 hours each night) wasn't even close to being enough. With the two hour extensions on both of my recordings, I still wasn't able to see the outcome. For the Top 3 on the second night, I didn't even see an elimination. After 4 hours of play, all 3 players were pretty much even.

I'm glad I waited almost a month after the tournament was decided to watch these final table episodes on my DVR. Now I get to just read the spoilers anyway, since I have no idea who won the damn thing.

How about ESPN just shows the edited broadcast like they used to do? Stupid assholes....

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Agreed.

The casinos in Vegas still allow smoking, so why wouldn't it be allowed at the poker tournaments?

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Smoking is the greatest unqualified evil of modern times; you don't suggest that you would be okay with blatant displays of such reprehensible activities of environmental rape on ESPN, do you? Won't somebody think of the children watching these events .....

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

DB, I don't think you can smoke in the poker rooms. I have never seen anyone smoke in the poker rooms.

I liked the live action. What I always hated about TV poker is that it makes it seem like every hand is an all in. Showing it live makes the game the become the slow grind that poker actually is.


For my money, High Stakes Poker is the best of hold em programming.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I played a little on my last trip to Vegas @ The Rio, and I'm pretty sure smoking was still okay in the poker room.

The slowness of the game didn't bother me as much as the time ESPN devoted to it in their schedule. They only allotted 2 hours to the final 3 players, but those 3 ended up playing for over 12 hours that night. They had the same problem last year too. I just believe they need to rethink their scheduling of this. Maybe stream it live over the internet, and broadcast the edited version of the "best of" moments.

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Just give it the picture-in-picture or Redzone treatment.