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Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Last Week in TV Poker...

Thoughts from last week's ESPN WSOP broadcasts:

Best accidental (?) needle of the week: Ed Moncado, after winning a big pot near the end of the NL Hold'em tourney: "Can we take a break so I can stack my chips?"

Speaking of breaks: In the other event, PL Omaha, Josh Arieh had to go running off to the bathroom during a hand because he was gonna piss himself. Of course, the cameras chased him to, but thankfully not into, the bathroom. Great footage ESPN.

ESPN actually had a quote of Marco Traniello (Jen Harman's husband - the Italian hairdresser) saying, and I swear I am NOT making this up: "We were having dinner at Macaroni Grill..." Come on... SERIOUSLY! Marco Traniello eats at Macaroni Grill? Is THAT authentic Italian food? Holy Cow. Even more shocking, is that he finishes the sentence by explaining that that's when he decided to propose to Jen... I can see it now... "Theesa linguini eesa fantastico! I wanna to marry you Bellisima!" In any case, Marco is apparently playing some quality poker - he has several World Series cashes this year!

Finally, ESPN is doing a great job with many parts of their poker broadcasts: Norman Chad, as much as I hate to admit it, beats Vince Van Patten's ass on the off beat commentary - and the Milwaukee's Best Hold'em or Fold'em segments with Chris Ferguson hiding in the fridge are some of the best on TV. However, they NEED to add a little more detail for the real poker fans out there - like stack sizes or raise amounts. At the end of the PL Omaha event, Josh Arieh had about 850k to Chris Ferguson's 350k. They show Chris double up. Then, on the next hand they show Chris double up again! When they show the new stack sizes, they haven't changed: Josh 850k, Chris 350k! Obviously they can't show every hand, but please, tell us BEFORE the hand that Chris is still way behind - I'm thinking "Wow - I can't believe Arieh just gave away all those chips," only to find out that in the context of the actual stack sizes, it makes more sense.

And hey - World Poker Tour - get your ass in gear! I'm a shareholder after all now (that one is in the Kid Dynamite capital depreciation fund - I think it's gone down 3% every fucking day since I bought it). Who the fuck is running this company? Why don't they have more episodes on TV? ESPN is going to eat their lunch...
Outside of poker: in my NFL slate from the weekend I was 4-4 going into Monday night, when I somehow decided to bet on the unstoppable Donovan McNabb and the Eagles. Donovan's ONE yard rushing was unable to salvage the game, and I ended up down 1 unit and 4 vigs.

until next time.
KD

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