Poker at Vince's Place Tonight
A reader reminds us about tonight's episode of E! Hollywood Hold Em, which pits celebs Norm MacDonald, James Woods, Nick Gonzalez (The O.C.) against each other at the home of everyone's favorite poker color man, Vince Van Patten. "Hilton Sisters! Hilton Sisters!" If only they could've gotten the actual Hilton sisters to play, that would've be fun to watch. In any case, I have to admit that the second episode of (Card Player cover girl) Laura Prepon's show was better than the first. (Who knew Macaulay Culkin was actually a very cool guy? I guess the pot bust should've been a clue.) Hopefully, this installment will be better still, and the show will find a groove. If you haven't checked out the show yet, tonight might be a good night. Hollywood Hold Em, Thursdays, 10PM, on the E! cable channel.
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On TV: Doyle Brunson North American Championship
Running a day late on this one, but thanks to the quirks of cable programming you can still catch this week's World Poker Tour stop on Saturday at 6pm (Travel Channel). As usual, I'm doing a little coffee-and-cards this morning, by watching last night's Doyle Brunson North American Championship, which was played last October at the Bellagio. The players at the final table include John Juanda, Erik Seidel, David Pham, Hung La, and former world champion Carlos Mortensen -- a pretty high-powered affair.
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Update Your Tax Returns
Hopefully, you had such a good run at the poker tables last year, you actually turned a profit. If so, don't forget that you owe Uncle Sam his rightful share in about two weeks. I was reminded of this unhappy fact while watching Poker Updates, a great little streaming video show that comes out once a month. March's installment offered Doyle Brunson's comments on ESPN's Tilt ("Hated it."), interviews from the WPT Invitational with Camryn Manheim, Dean Cain, Jennifer Tilly, Mimi Rogers, James Woods and the whole Hollywood crew, as well as an interview with a specialist in taxes and gambling. Eric Rosenberg and Bob Van Court do a great job putting the show together and I wouldn't be suprised to see the whole thing on a cable channel pretty soon, if that's the way they decide to go. Definitely worth checking out.| Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments [0] |
World Poker Tour on DVD
For those of you with DVD players but without the Travel Channel, today marks the first day you have a chance to see the World Poker Tour's second season. The eight-DVD set is available in stores, on Amazon, and via the WPT's own site. Despite the fact that I've seen these episodes many times, I'll probably pick up the set just for the extras. I'm particularly interested in the audio commentaries, which are included for three episodes. In any case, if you haven't already seen these shows, you're in for a treat -- there are a lot of great moments in the Tour's second go-round. My favorite: When Antonio Esfandiari calls for a clock on Bill Gazes after Bill has already said "Raise." Classic. | Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments [0] |
Poker Superstars Steps It Up
This weekend I managed to catch a couple installments of the Poker Superstars Invitational, second series, on my Fox Sports cable station. Overall, I like it. They've broadened the field from 12 to 24, clarified the structure, which is fairly unique, and lengthened the "regular season" portion of the show to two dozen episodes. Not to mention the 10 episodes they'll devote to the seeded "playoff" part of the competition. (Bring on the brackets!) Nice commitment, Fox.
In the early rounds, each hour-long show offers six players vying for a winner-take-all $10k first prize, plus points for rank of finish (10, 7, 5, 3, 1, 0) that are later used to determine which 16 players make the second round. The commentary is by Chris Rose and Michael Konik, and while I miss Howard Lederer, this crew does a good job, even a man down. The latest show faced off Carlos Mortenson, Bobby Hoff, Cyndi Violette, David Sklansky, John Myung, and Mike Sexton (pictured above). My only complaint? The show would've benefitted from some honest segues from the commentators. Anyone watching the chip stacks can see that consecutive hands on TV do not equal consecutive hands in real life, and having the commentators gloss over that fact takes their credibility down a notch.
Still, so far I've liked what I've seen, and I'll happily continue to follow along as the second Poker Superstars Invitational plays out.
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This Week in Poker
What's On in poker both on the tube, and in the casino.- Celebrity Poker Showdown with Brandi Chastain, Camryn Manheim, Colin Quinn, Tom Verica, Kevin Weisman [BRAVO]
- World Poker Tour [Travel Channel]
- World Poker Challenge at the Reno Hilton
- Beyond the Felt [PokerChannel.co.uk]
- The Poker Godfather [PokerChannel.co.uk]
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Tony G. and Surinder Sunar: Heads Up
I'm clearing the TiVo backlog from my vacation and I've gotten to the final match-up from this week's World Poker Tour. The show visits Europe and the Aviation Club for the 2004 Grande Prix de Paris. The field has been winnowed down to cool Surinder Sunar and, um, obnoxious Tony G. I happen to know how this one turns out, so as Tony launches into his trademark haranguing of Surinder, I can't help but think I'm going to really love the next 30 minutes of television.
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Your Boob Tube Poker Fix
The list of poker shows on TV is getting longer and longer. My two fave places for looking up channels & times are Card Player and Las Vegas Advisor. What's the difference? Card Player emphasizes poker, and LVA includes all shows related to Las Vegas like those found on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and Nataional Geographic Channel.One of many that I hadn't heard of was Casino Diaries. Has anyone seen it? Great name. They are showing two back to back episodes tonight. "Bet It All" at 8:00pm PST, and "The Big Poker Game." It sounds like maybe Harold and I should have another joint watch and blog night!
I'm crying without Tivo. That's OK, my birthday is in May.
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Poker on TV: An Editorial
Glenn Michael McDonald, author of Deal Me In, has an article in Pop Matters, a great online culture magazine, detailing the current trends in poker television. He says that the shows make great entertainment, but "lousy instructional tapes," a point that may seem obvious to long-time players (and long-time students of television editing techniques), but remains largely unknown to the TV audience at large. I think McDonald's points are right on the money, and the poker shows are costing new online and bricks-and-mortar players a lot of time, cash, and grief. Still, as most pros would argue, players who make mistakes are very profitable for players who don't make mistakes. If you're one of the latter, you have to love the idea of TV shows as training grounds. Of course, many players I know actually prefer to play with "good players" rather than wildcards, and seek out higher and higher limits in order to stay ahead of the newbie avalanche.
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Jeanine Garofalo to Play a Poker Mom
It looks like the long-rumored Annie Duke TV series is finally coming to life. NBC has tabbed Jeanine Garofalo to star in a sitcom about a single mom who is also a professional poker player. (Okay, so the single mom part is artistic license. Annie is happily married.) Lisa Kudrow has long been attached to this project and the ex-Friends star is slated to produce the show, which will, if all goes well, air on the Peacock network this coming Fall.
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