Fifth Street Journal

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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Joe Cada on Letterman Tuesday

2009-11-16T07:38:00.000-05:00

Joe Cada will be on the Late Show with David Letterman Tuesday at 11:35 PM on CBS.

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Poker on TV Update And Newsbites: Poker 2Nite and Face the Ace

2009-11-13T16:29:00.004-05:00

There's another episode of Face the Ace at 3 PM Saturday on NBC.

The new poker news show Poker 2Nite starts airing at 11 PM Wednesday on Fox Sports Net. Fox Sports Net is a collection of regional channels, so you'll need to search a programming guide to find the day and time it airs in your area, which may change from week to week.

Other upcoming shows: Million Dollar Challenge airs two Sundays from now, the 22nd, at 4:30 PM on Fox; and NHL Charity Shootout starts airing Tuesday the 24th at 10 PM on ESPN Classic.

This week's newsbites:

Logos are allowed High Stakes Poker for the first time in season 6, as you can see in a recent video.
Greg Raymer says that he's invited to play on High Stakes Poker each season and explains why he doesn't play (not bankrolled for it).
There was some drama at the recent Poker After Dark taping (spoiler).
Brief TV appearances: Daniel Negreanu bought an appearance on the next season of Entourage for charity. Erik Seidel appeared on the last episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (picture), reportedly from a charity auction. Yevgeniy Timoshenko plays a few hands of cards on an upcoming Millionaire Matchmaker (he's not the millionaire).
$12 million has been raised so far to turn the book Life on Tilt: Confessions of a Poker Dad into a movie, with Shannon Elizabeth committed to the project.
Vanessa Rousso will be a judge on a new E! show called Bank of Hollywood, where the judges choose who to donate their own money to.
Tom "durrrr" Dwan, newly signed Team Full Tilt member, will film a live version of his challenge to air on UK TV.
Call the Floorman is a new poker-themed game show being shopped to TV channels for possible syndication.
Christina Lindley is working on the script for a TV series about online poker players.

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

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Poker Table Automatically Generates Video And Onscreen Graphics

2009-11-12T23:24:00.001-05:00

From Hobbyist Beats Hollywood At TV Poker Technology last year:

In three months of his spare time a hobbyist built a combination of poker table and software that beats most professional TV poker systems. It uses RFID chips and cameras to televise the game in real time, with hole cards and winning probabilities.

I was excited at the prospect of cheaper production of poker TV shows, perhaps with more information onscreen. Now the hobbyist, Andrew Milner, has upped the ante with touchscreens replacing cards and chips.

You can buy your own at VideoPokerTable.net.

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High Stakes Poker Taping Day 1 Video: Interviews With Kara Scott, Mori Eskandani

2009-11-12T22:19:00.003-05:00

Kristy Arnett interviewed Kara Scott and Mori Eskandani.

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WSOP Final Table Ratings Down 7%

2009-11-12T02:49:00.006-05:00

The WSOP Main Event final table had 2,199,000 viewers, down 7% from 2008's 2,364,000 viewers, but still substantially higher than the pre-November Nine 1,552,000 viewers in 2007. I find the decline surprising given that Phil Ivey made the final table and the players got more publicity than they did last year (e.g. Steve Begleiter in Time). On the other hand, there was one more day this year for people to hear the results before the final table aired.

ESPN's statement:

The telecast earned a 1.8 household coverage rating in an average of 1,806,113 households, a slight decrease from the 1.9 rating earned for the 2008 finale.

ESPN’s 15-week schedule of World Series of Poker coverage in 2009 included 31 telecasts averaging a 1.0 rating, even with last year. However, averages for households (1,024,901) and viewership (1,228,008) increased nine and seven percent, respectively, from 2008, and the important Male 25-54 demographic saw a 13 percent jump from 2008.

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High Stakes Poker Season 6 Lineups

2009-11-12T02:15:00.014-05:00

High Stakes Poker season 6 is taping from the 11th to the 13th. We'll update this post as the lineups are known.

Day 1:

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

Phil Laak and Eli Elezra replaced players later.

Tom Dwan will be going on little sleep, because he's been busy losing millions to unknown new online player Isildur1 in the big games on Full Tilt over the last few days. From their chat:

Isildur1: dunno how much longer i can play,
durrrr: 8hrs
durrrr: =)
Isildur1: lol
Isildur1: nah im so tired
durrrr: im gonna be awake for 30hrs straight
Isildur1: arnt u ?
Isildur1: ur like machine lol
durrrr: least u can do is 8
durrrr: ya
durrrr: i have this amazing drug
durrrr: called coffee
durrrr: works wonders
....
Isildur1: getting tired
durrrr: lets play until i have to play highstakes
durrrr: need to leave in 8hrs for that
durrrr: and then cant play 3days
Isildur1: how lonmg is that ?
Isildur1: how many more hours ?
durrrr: 7-8
durrrr: and then cant play for 3day
durrrr: s
durrrr: maybe 1-2hrs at night

High Stakes Poker will actually be a step down from the online games they've been playing ($400/800 blinds vs. $500/1000), but they buy in deeper ($200,000 minimum) at High Stakes Poker.

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.

Jason Mercier played an unknown day. There are also other replacement players that haven't been revealed, though we've been promised that some of them have never played on High Stakes Poker before. Dwan, Ivey, and Negreanu played all three days.

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Poker After Dark Lineups From Latest Taping

2009-11-11T16:57:00.002-05:00

The latest Poker After Dark taping finished November 7. 13 weeks were taped, six weeks of cash games (two from each lineup) and seven of single-table tournaments. Two weeks of the previous taping have yet to air. The lineups are:

$50,000 Buy-in Cash Game:

Brandon Adams
Todd Brunson
Chris Ferguson
Mike Matusow
Antonio Esfandiari
Phil Hellmuth
Dennis Phillips
David "Viffer" Peat

The last two played part of the session after a player left.

$100,000 Buy-in Cash Game:

Phil Hellmuth
Doyle Brunson
Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Phil Laak
Eli Elezra
Gus Hansen

$150,000 Buy-in Cash Game:

Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Patrik Antonius
Eli Elezra
Allan Meltzer
Gabe Kaplan
David "Viffer" Peat

Single-table tournament "Nicknames:"

Annette Obrestad
Mike Matusow
Phil Hellmuth
Phil Laak
Erick Lindgren
Antonio Esfandiari

Single-table tournament "Commentators:"

Ali Nejad
Joe Sebok
Kara Scott
Mark Gregorich
Howard Lederer
Gabe Kaplan

Single-table tournament "He Said, She Said:"

Erica Schoenberg
Jean-Robert Bellande
Annie Duke
Mike Matusow
Karina Jett
David Grey

Single-table tournament "Lonesome Shark:"

Erick Lindgren
James Akenhead
Antonio Esfandiari
Mike Matusow
David Williams
Brad Booth

Single-table tournament "UFC Theme:"

Bruce Buffer
Erick Lindgren
Randy Couture
Howard Lederer
Dan Henderson
Patrik Antonius

Single-table tournament "Charity in Mind:"

Andy Bloch
Annie Duke
Phil Gordon
Howard Lederer
Chris Ferguson
Jennifer Harman

Single-table tournament "My Favorite Pro:"

Phil Hellmuth
Chris Ferguson
4 online qualifiers

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Poker 2Nite: Poker News Show To Air On Fox Sports Net

2009-11-11T04:17:00.003-05:00

Joe Sebok (poker player, founder of PokerRoad.com, and son of Barry Greenstein) announced:

We... will be launching a new poker-based news show that will air on FoxSports television (!) nationally every week. It's called "Poker 2Nite" and we are going to try and bring as much of the PokerRoad sensibility to the show as we possibly can. We shoot the first show on 11/17, with episodes to air Wednesdays at 11pm starting the next day, the 18th, and then being rebroadcast throughout the weekend.

The initial run of the show is 13 episodes.

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PartyGaming Reveals Plans For World Poker Tour

2009-11-11T03:17:00.000-05:00

PartyGaming revealed some of their plans for the newly-acquired World Poker Tour:

Our plans also include using the ClubWPT subscription platform to leverage our 12 million-strong US player database via a Party-branded website and the launch of a European WPT-branded poker and casino site. We are excited about the opportunities that WPT, a proven marketing channel for the Group, will create for PartyGaming, particularly if the US regulates and licenses online gaming.

I think they seriously overestimate the chances of online poker being regulated in the United States, and the chances of any regulatory system not being protectionist.

Adam Pliska, formerly World Poker Tour's General Counsel, is the new President.

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ESPN's WSOP Monopoly Must End

2009-11-09T23:56:00.016-05:00

As recently as 2007 ESPN aired 10 of 55 WSOP events, comprising HORSE, Omaha, Stud, and multiple forms of hold 'em. In 2008 they aired 7 of 55 events, including HORSE, Omaha, and multiple forms of hold 'em. This year they only broadcast two of 57 WSOP events, both no-limit hold 'em. ESPN simply isn't covering the WSOP any more. The solution is simple: end their monopoly on WSOP broadcasts. Let ESPN broadcast whatever it wants (the Main Event gets the highest ratings, and it's the only event they've broadcast every year), but let others bid to broadcast the other events.

Everyone would benefit from this solution. Harrah's would get more airtime for the WSOP. ESPN would get more people interested in watching the Main Event. Poker would garner new fans. We'd get to watch the events we want to see, like the $50K HORSE. Games other than no-limit hold 'em would gain in popularity. Remember the early years of the poker boom when every poker show explained hold 'em at the beginning (Celebrity Poker Showdown's explanation started with "it's a simple game really...")? People would learn other games from TV (PLO is regarded as most likely to succeed) just as they once learned hold 'em.

Companies like Windy City Poker Championship and Heartland Poker Tour produce competent broadcasts on a shoestring compared to what ESPN spends, and manage to make profits without even being on national channels. If they can do that, there's no doubt that every single WSOP event could be broadcast profitably on a national channel. There are plenty of national TV channels with young, male audiences that would be excellent venues for poker on TV. ESPN is the most popular one, of course, but Spike, G4, Versus, and many others fit the bill as well. If necessary, the shows could settle for late-night time slots like Poker After Dark did.

There's another reason that ESPN's WSOP monopoly should end: as I've written about extensively over the course of several years, I believe the company with the contract to broadcast our most important event is the worst major poker broadcaster. Not only would we likely get better WSOP broadcasts from companies other than ESPN, but we'd probably also see improvements at ESPN due to competition and the comparison with different broadcasting models.

ESPN's broadcasts this year were pretty much the same as always (other than the Ante Up For Africa event, which may have been a new low), so I won't provide a full review. A few things that I did notice this year, however, all frustrating:

The hole-card cam created the poker boom back in 2003, but ESPN seems to have forgotten that: for many hands they choose not to show the hole cards until the players turn them over.
They're the only broadcaster I've ever seen get the "show only one player's hole cards" hands backwards.
There were the usual array of errors, suggesting that Norman Chad and the people who review his work don't understand poker: mixing up 4- and 5-bets, getting the breakeven probability on a 3:1 decision wrong (it's 25%), etc.

I've previously suggested a couple of ideas for the WSOP that I think bear repeating:

Film a cash game. The entire poker world is in Vegas during the WSOP each summer, and the biggest cash games are already taking place. Why not film one? There's plenty of evidence that cash games are more popular than tournaments (e.g. downloads, forum posts, poll, poll). The show could either be a "WSOP Cash Game," or another company could produce it without using the WSOP brand.
If ESPN is going to follow the early and middle tournament (the worst part of their broadcasts: they don't screw up the final few tables as badly), follow one player at a time through the tournament, ignoring everything else. It's a model that's never been tried before, but deserves a chance. As it is, ESPN doesn't show anything long enough for us to get to know and root for players, see how a table plays, or even follow the course of the tournament. Replace the soundbites that they pass off as "compelling stories" with an actual compelling story: the progress of one player through the tournament, allowing us to get to know and root for him (and also allowing us to follow table dynamics plus the changes in the tournament: rising blinds, the bubble, etc.). If ESPN used this model I'd guess they would have followed Phil Ivey on one of their hole-card-cam tables (they run two) this year, and they would have had a blockbuster on their hands when he made the final table. Regardless of how featured players fare, however, I believe this model would help solve the basic problems with ESPN's early-mid tournament coverage. I previously wrote out my best arguments for this model, so you should read that if you're interested in hearing more about the idea.

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WSOP Main Event Final Table Viewers' Guide, Plus How To Follow It Live

2009-11-07T09:44:00.001-05:00

The WSOP Main Event final table airs Tuesday, November 10th, at 9 PM on ESPN. The major change this year is that they'll have the freedom to run over two hours at the producers' discretion. This will hopefully eliminate the major criticism of last year, that they spent so little time on the heads-up battle.

Chip counts:
1 – Darvin Moon 58,930,000
2 – Eric Buchman 34,800,000
3 – Steven Begleiter 29,885,000
4 – Jeff Shulman 19,580,000
5 – Joe Cada 13,215,000
6 – Kevin Schaffel 12,390,000
7 – Phil Ivey 9,765,000
8 – Antoine Saout 9,500,000
9 – James Akenhead 6,800,000

When play resumes Darvin Moon will have the button and Ivey the big blind. 7:16 remains in level 33, which has 120/240/30k blinds/antes. Blind levels are 2 hours long, with 20-minute breaks at the end of each level except the first one, since it only has a few minutes left. Future blind levels are:
Level 34 - 150/300/40k
Level 35 - 200/400/50k
Level 36 - 250/500/50k
Level 37 - 300/600/75k
Level 38 - 400/800/100k
Level 39 - 500/1m/150k
Level 40 - 600/1.2m/200k

Brief bios of the players. My favorite analysis/prediction is DogFace's. Wicked Chops also has an interesting article.

Payouts:
1st $8,547,042
2nd $5,182,928
3rd $3,479,670
4th $2,502,890
5th $1,953,452
6th $1,587,160
7th $1,404,014
8th $1,300,231
9th $1,263,602

The final table will be taped in two segments over the preceding three days:

They'll play down to heads up on Saturday, November 7, starting at about noon (3 PM eastern).
The heads-up match starts on Monday, November 9, at about 10 PM (1 AM eastern).

That's one more day than last year, when it started playing on Sunday.

If you're trying to avoid the results till the final table airs, that will be difficult. ESPN will cover the results beforehand, despite coming in for a lot of criticism over that last year, as will other media outlets.

If you prefer to follow the final table live, Bluff will have a live audio stream with graphics and PokerNews.com will have their usual web updates.

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PokerStars Sponsors High Stakes Poker Season 6, Logos Allowed?

2009-11-05T23:29:00.010-05:00

High Stakes Poker will have a sponsor for the first time in season 6, according to Dennis Phillips: PokerStars. Historically, PokerStars left US TV-show marketing mostly to Full Tilt Poker, but with Million Dollar Challenge, and now High Stakes Poker, it's clear that PokerStars has changed their strategy.

There's a hint that there may be another major change for High Stakes Poker in season 6. Andreas Hoivold, who's expected to play the season, wrote in his blog (in Norwegian): "I should mention that there have been a few inquiries regarding sponsorship. But here I can not write anything until everything is in the bag." Players have never been allowed to wear logos on High Stakes Poker in the past. There have been a few hints (e.g.) that High Stakes Poker was having a hard time putting together a field for the upcoming season, however, and sponsorship would make it easier for players to afford it.

Given that PokerStars pulled their sponsored players from Full Tilt-sponsored Poker After Dark, some people worried that we'd only see PokerStars-sponsored players on High Stakes Poker. Fortunately, several Full Tilt-sponsored players showed up on the High Stakes Poker season 6 player list... a good thing because Full Tilt sponsors many of the best players in the world, and that's where all the "nosebleed-stakes" online games take place. PokerStars, on the other hand, sponsors only one prominent high stakes player: Barry Greenstein. They're more likely to sponsor players that are known for tournament success.

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High Stakes Poker Season 6 Players Announced

2009-11-05T12:17:00.007-05:00

High Stakes Poker season 6's expected players are:

Phil Ivey
Daniel Negreanu
Phil Hellmuth
Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Doyle Brunson
Mike Matusow
Patrik Antonius
Antonio Esfandiari
Barry Greenstein
Dennis Phillips
David Benyamine
Eli Elezra
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Allan Meltzer
Lex Veldhuis
Sammy George
Andreas Hoivold

The show will tape 13 episodes at the Golden Nugget from November 11th to 13th. They will air on GSN Sunday nights at 8 PM starting February 14. Gabe Kaplan will do commentary alone, and Kara Scott will do interviews. As in the past, blinds will be $400/$800 with a $200,000 minimum buy-in and no prop bets will be allowed. GSN promises "a brand-new look and feel for the show that puts viewers in the thick of the poker action." Note that the above list isn't purported to be complete, and player lineups are never certain until they sit down to play.

Some popular past players not listed:

Sammy Farha
Phil Laak
Todd Brunson
Jennifer Harman

Bios of the players are in the comments below.

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US Poker Championship Returns To TV, With PLO

2009-11-05T03:21:00.001-05:00

The United States Poker Championship, broadcast annually through 2006 on ESPN, will return to TV this year. The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City signed a five-year deal with Compass Entertainment to produce the show, and it will be broadcast on Spike this year. They will be televising the $5,000 no-limit hold 'em and $2,500 pot-limit Omaha events (schedule). Compass CEO Greg McDonald's other poker-related work includes producing the poker film Deal and publishing Rounder magazine.

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World Poker Tour Rejects Mandalay Offer, Sells To PartyGaming

2009-11-05T00:56:00.003-05:00

The board of World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) rejected Mandalay Media's last-minute offer and the shareholders approved WPTE's sale to PartyGaming. The sale has already closed . WPTE retained the company's cash, and will become a "blind pool" named ante4, Inc., which is expected to buy an unrelated business.

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Poker on TV Update: Face the Ace Saturday, Ivey Tuesday

2009-10-30T06:48:00.002-04:00

Face the Ace runs another episode Saturday at 5 PM on NBC.

Phil Ivey is on ESPN's E:60 Tuesday at 7 PM.

The 2009 World Heads-Up Poker Championship is streaming live from the Victoria Casino in London through Saturday.

Million Dollar Challenge is off till November 22. Poker After Dark is in rerun till December 7.

An English-language version of Million Dollar Cash Game season 3 has finally become available for downloading or streaming. The production is poor, particularly the onscreen graphics, but it's a huge cash game so I'm sure some of you will want to watch it.

This week's newsbites:

PokerNews.com did a comparison of Million Dollar Challenge and Face the Ace and concluded that Million Dollar Challenge is the better show, which I think is the consensus view.
Poker After Dark started filming another 13 weeks of programming Thursday.
The 2 Months $2 Million cast did some more interviews, one of which includes a much more interesting story of the Viffer match than the one on the show.
Kara Scott will be the sideline reporter for the WSOP Europe.
Windy City Poker Championship is now also airing on Bright House Networks.

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

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Money Added Tournaments Start This Weekend At Bodog

2009-10-30T05:49:00.005-04:00

Bodog (review) is adding $2,500 to $25,000 to the prize pool of every tournament in the Bodog Poker Open, which starts Sunday:

Date	Time	Event	Buy In	Type	Added
Sun Nov 1	16:00 ET	1	$100 + $9	NLHE	$15k Added
Mon Nov 2	20:30 ET	2	$250 + $20	NLHE	$5k Added
Tues Nov 3	20:30 ET	3	$300 + $25	NLHE 6-Max	$5k Added
Wed Nov 4	20:30 ET	4	$50 + $5	NLHE (Rebuy)	$5k Added
Thurs Nov 5	20:30 ET	5	$150 + $12	Pot Limit	$5k Added
Fri Nov 6	20:30 ET	6	$150 + $12	Limit	$2,500 Added
Sat Nov 7			Satellite Sat
Sun Nov 8	16:00 ET	Finale	$470 + $30	NLHE	$25k Added

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World Poker Tour Gets Another Purchase Offer

2009-10-30T02:06:00.004-04:00

World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) got a $35 million offer from Mandalay Media for the company. PartyPoker had previously offered $12.3 million for WPTE's operating assets, topping an even earlier offer. Mandalay has asked WPTE to postpone the shareholder meeting, scheduled for today, at which they were to approve the sale to PartyPoker.

Mandalay Media is a small, unprofitable company that distributes entertainment, including video and games, over cell-phone networks. Hollywood legend Peter Guber is co-chairman and 13% owner.

The price difference isn't as much as it seems: Party offered to buy the operating assets of the World Poker Tour from the company for $12.3 million. Mandalay is offering to buy the whole company from the shareholders for $35 million ($25 million in cash and $10 million in Mandalay stock). By getting the whole company Mandalay would also get the approximately $14 million in net current assets (cash and such) that WPTE holds. They say that their offer is 23% better than Party's and 54% above WPTE's current share price.

Mandalay claims that they'll add value by putting the World Poker Tour on cell phone networks, but I'm skeptical. Online poker room sponsorship of poker tours and TV shows is proving to be the winning model in the field, so I think Party would get more value out of WPTE than Mandalay.

Update: Mandalay has already increased their offer, to $36.5 million with a greater proportion of cash.

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Kara Scott New High Stakes Poker Hostess

2009-10-27T03:45:00.008-04:00

AJ Benza blogged twice (1, 2) lately about losing his High Stakes Poker gig. On the October 26 Mediocre Poker Radio podcast he added that Kara Scott will be the new hostess for High Stakes Poker season 6, doing interviews from the floor while Gabe Kaplan does commentary alone:

I heard it's going to be Kara Scott who's going to be down by the tables. She'll work three days 'cause the game's a three day game. And then Gabe will do all the commenting alone, which is kind of lonely: there's nobody to play off of, there's nobody to joke with. I know Gabe, he's a comedian, he's got great timing, and I know he's going to miss that (indistinct) but.. GSN just... they got into this price-slashing mode. And a lot of people took a lot less money. I offered to take less money to keep the job but they said they didn't care about that.

Really what they're doing now is that they have Kara Scott doing tableside interviews and Gabe announcing alone you're basically just doing Poker After Dark.

I think adding a hostess is a step in the wrong direction. 90% of the interviews on Poker After Dark aren't as good as watching the game, and that show airs most of the hands. High Stakes Poker only shows a selection of interesting hands, so the poker that's sacrificed for interviews is likely to be a greater loss.

Kara Scott is attractive and well-liked, however, and they could do much worse. She's most well known to most of us for being the European Poker Tour hostess. She's also the girlfriend of Brian Townsend, one of the best poker players in the world, and has had some good tournament cashes lately.

Some more tidbits from the AJ Benza interview:

Mori took a pay cut like you guys wouldn't believe.

I don't think right now that High Stakes Poker is having an easy time putting poker players together to play season 6.

Poker After Dark... it should be on at two o'clock in the morning because it really is like Valium, it's like a Xanax, it's the most boring, slow-paced show. And World Poker Tour the banter between those two guys is so phony and false and fake... it should be Poker After Death.

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2 Months 2 Million Likely To Return, Plus My Thoughts On The Show

2009-10-26T23:06:00.007-04:00

KRANTZ was on Episode 41 of the Deuce Plays podcast. If you want to know how the show was made you should listen to it, since it's the most detailed description I've heard. Some of the interesting points:

G4 has 90 days after the first run to decide if they want a second season. Ratings have exceeded expectations, so Jay is confident it will get renewed. 2 Months 2 Million is the most expensive show G4 ever produced. It's gotten strong word of mouth, so viewership has increased week after week. New G4 viewers also came to the network just to watch it. This is the first reality show for G4, a division of Comcast. The show has been heavily pirated, which surprised them, but they policed it pretty actively. They can't stream 2 Months 2 Million or offer it internationally until 90 days after the first run because of contractual arrangements (there have been a lot of complaints from people unable to watch it). Some viewers have suggested changing up the player lineup, but Jay doesn't like the idea: they've all been friends for years, and they might not even want to do it if the lineup was changed. Jay didn't want the show to be called 2 Months 2 Million because they didn't know if they could achieve that goal (though they had done so the previous two summers). Big no-limit hold 'em games didn't run too much over the summer, which hurt their earnings. Pot-limit Omaha ran more often, but they aren't big PLO players. They'll probably spend time learning PLO and mixed games before next summer's show. Additionally, the four of them are well known to their opponents now, so it's hard for them to get action. KRANTZ was new to UltimateBet, so he was able to get good action there. They didn't actually stumble upon Erica Schoenberg at a pool and set up a match, as the show suggested: it was a reality-TV setup. There was a process of coming up with episode ideas, like going dune buggying. There were arguments over what the players wanted to do, and producers' ideas that they didn't want to do. In the club scenes there would be signs up saying that filming was going on, and people would have to sign release forms. The stuff around pools generally wasn't set up, but sometimes the girls were miked up. The players weren't allowed to talk about the cameras, so they came up with stories like Emil being a prince from Dubai. Jay says the single guys pulled mad tail over the summer, but the producers chose to portray them as a lot dorkier than they are, e.g. showing Dani being shot down by his Connect Four date when in reality they dated for a while. Jay described a typical day while shooting the show and the process of making the show, e.g. the cameras weren't there continuously: they arrived late each morning. The four of them went to a lot of places where the cameras couldn't get in to film them, e.g. nightclubs. 2 Months 2 Million was more documentary style than other reality shows according to the staff that worked on it. They had one day off a week, though that could still be dominated by show work like G4 publicity. They were often drained by the end of the day.

They did talk about some non-show things as well. The guys would like to play live more often because of the weaker competition, but they would have to get used to the deeper stacks. Jay hasn't put a lot of work into his game in the last year since he's been working on his business DeucesCracked, the show, and writing a screenplay. Without working at poker constantly he can't remain at the top.

My thoughts on the show:

I love online poker so I anticipated it eagerly, and after the first episode I said it was the most exciting poker show I'd seen since the first episode of High Stakes Poker, maybe ever. My enthusiasm for it quickly waned, however, as it proved to be all short-attention-span theater, no meat. My favorite comment on it from the message boards was "ooh, shiny things!" I've seen brilliant reality shows before, and each of them was great because I got to know and root for a favorite character to win a competition. With 2 Months 2 Million, however, we don't get to know the characters at all, and the show isn't a competition format. Editing in slurping sounds over pictures of Emil drinking through straws seems to be the producers' idea of character development. As mentioned above, they even showed Dani being blown off by a girl he actually dated in order to keep up their preselected characterization of the four guys as nerds. The best character development I remember from the show was when they briefly delved into a guest star's debate about whether to go to college or be a poker pro. Despite all that, I enjoyed the show, am sad the season is over, and look forward to seeing it again. I've seen much better-made reality shows, however, and if it weren't about a subject I love I wouldn't have kept watching 2 Months 2 Million.

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Million Dollar Challenge "The Highest Rated Poker Show in US History"

2009-10-22T02:39:00.001-04:00

Daniel Negreanu wrote about Million Dollar Challenge's ratings in a recent blog:

I am SO very happy with the show. Wow, just amazing numbers in terms of viewers and I really think the show hits a demographic that is mostly totally new to poker and likely doesn't watch shows like PAD, High Stakes Poker, or even the WSOP. The whole point of creating the show was to introduce people to poker in a format that they are more comfortable with: a game show format.

We retained 15% of the NFL audience with ratings of 2.1 million households and estimates at around 4 million viewers. That makes the show officially the highest rated poker show in US history. I'm still in a bit of shock!

As I mentioned in my preview blog about the show, as a poker player, when watching the show, you have to think about the bigger picture here. The target audience is NEW players. That's really good for ALL of you! It's certainly good for poker.

The poker is fast paced, but again, what that does is give the contestants a real chance at winning big money. If you have a deep, slow structure, they'd have a tough time getting through three players. The faster structure increases the luck factor, but there still is enough skill involved to make the play interesting- especially to players who are new to the game. The response as a whole has been overwhelmingly positive.

In contrast to Million Dollar Challenge's 4 million viewers, Face the Ace pulled in 1.6 million during its premiere, and that was during prime time.

The next episode of Million Dollar Challenge airs November 22.

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