All You Can Eat, Baby

[permanent4]

Of course, just because I've stopped playing poker online doesn't mean I've stopped watching poker.

ESPN's coverage of the 2004 World Series of Poker began last night, and despite the fact that the DVR was set for it, I couldn't stop myself from watching it. That's going to change, though, for a number of reasons:

1. By cramming a nine-seat No Limit Hold 'Em final table into one hour, ESPN had to edit out a lot of hands, thus robbing viewers of a lot of the strategy involved in the game. The first half-hour felt like a constant barrage of all-in bets and races, which grew tedious after a while. It wasn't until the last 20 minutes or so that the program started to obtain any of the drama that the World Poker Tour usually puts into each two-hour episode.
   
   
2. By the time we knew the names of most of the players at the No Limit Hold 'Em final table, they were gone. All I remembered from this final table were the top three finishers -- winner James Vogl, runner-up Shawn Rice and David Chiu. WPT at least introduces us to all the competitors before they disappear. Getting to a final table should mean something. Again, expediency took something away from the drama of the event itself.
   
   
3. Norman Chad's jokes about his first marriage got very old very quickly. If you're going to talk about the game, talk about the game.
   
   
4. Seven-card stud does not make for good television. The only thing that made the stud game remotely interesting was the presence of Men 'The Master' Nguyen, a notorious talker who can be fun to watch when he's on his game. Still, 7-Stud looks pretty boring on TV next to Hold 'Em.

Of course, ESPN cut these final tables down to an hour to make it easier to fill holes in their schedule. By doing that, however, they have taken some of the excitement out of watching the best players play, which is why televised poker got so big in the first place. Perhaps that's why a lot of people think the recent poker boom will fall off a few years from now.

ESPN should have stuck to covering just the main event like they did last year, or just the tournaments designated as World Championships with a few high stakes No Limit Hold 'Em tourneys thrown in for good measure. Last year's main event final table was spread out over two hours and had plenty of drama for repeat viewings. These abbreviated final tables were not nearly as interesting. ESPN better hope it doesn't lose too many viewers before its main event coverage begins on August 17.