Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
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Obviously this isn't a newsflash for those who read the online poker blogs that kept up with who wins what each year at the WSOP, but tonight they showed the final table on ESPN. It helped a little to make up for the pretty boring main event.
It was pretty nice to watch Kassem "Freddy" Deeb take down the major title this year. Freddy has shown over the years a great knack for killing tables and I think he deserved to win this year. His play was overall very well metered and he had his wits about him the whole time. It was refreshing to watch a bit of actual action rather than just the same old all-in fest all night.
I think in the years to come TV programmers and even poker tournament directors are going to need to pay more attention to this kind of event to keep the market fresh. There's way too many televised games these days that just show the same thing over and over, with increasingly unknown rosters of players.
Daniel Negreanu was somewhat right in his comment in Card Player magazine where he said the main event needs to be changed because people want to see good play rather than no names. I don't think the main event should be altered because it has been marketed as an "anybody can win this" type event, but I think bigger buy-in tourneys like this HORSE game do a lot to show you what really good players are worth.
Hopefully in the years to come the market with dictate that they can't keep showing the same thing over and over and keep us interested.
High Stakes Poker should be a model for TV programming to come. That show is interesting pretty much beginning to end each time and others could do a lot to note the things that make them better: mainly, a style of play where it doesn't come down to who gets lucky.
Cash games on TV is the way of the future. |
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