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June 01, 2006
Celebritar Poke Poke!
It's usually a bad sign when any kind of activity begins televised events featuring celebrites. Remember Network Battle Of The Stars? Oof. Forget jumping the shark - when you're added to a Rock & Jock softball team, that's when you know it's done.
For the most part, watching Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown has been engaging for one reason and one reason only. While the "celebrities" they invite can generate a moment or two of laughter from quips, it's mostly akin to watching a monkey hump a doorknob while a bus filled with schoolchildren drive over a cliff and destroy every Bald Eagle nest on the way down before crashing to a bloody halt in a grocery store giveaway box of cute little beagle mix puppies wagging their tails. The play is almost universally bad and, while I don't claim to be an expert, I routinely watch people move in with, for example 9c-6h with a board of Ah, Qc and 10d on the chance that they just might make a pair.
They play poker like Luke Skywalker.
So what's engaging about that?
Simple.
Phil Gordon's running commentary.
Maybe I'm a contrarian, but Phil's constant, hand-by-hand analysis made me want to bitch-slap Dave Foley until he was incapable of speech because Phil's insight essentially provided a detailed tutorial of what not to do at a poker table and also provided a significant glimpse into how people are playing now that NLHE is so visible. Rags? Call your raise and re-raise. 9-6 is good, right? Yeah, it's gotta be good. These are the absolute nuts.
Phil, meanwhile, is holding his head in his hands as he watches the disaster unfold before him.
He was never mean about his comments, but he was direct and dropped nuggets of wisdom about every hand like a card-playing version of Robert Fulghum.
For whatever reason though, Phil isn't calling this season and has been replaced with Phil Hellmuth. So far, the only reason to watch is Dave Foley's cracks and the off chance that someone will do something entertaining at the table.
That's really no reason to watch people play bad poker. You can get that on ESPN and the Travel Channel. I'll reserve judgment until I've watched another episode or two. Perhaps Phil is just shy about appearing on camera. Maybe he'll be a little less camera shy and a little more talkative as he gets used to being on camera and sitting next to a star as big as Dave Foley.
In the meantime, I miss Phil Gordon because his commentary was incredibly useful to anyone starting out. If you get a chance, you might want to record the old episodes. They were actually worth watching.
Posted by puckett at June 1, 2006 10:21 AM
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