Before I became a serious poker player, I loved to watch poker on TV. Now, I can hardly stand it. I did watch a few episodes of this year’s WSOP broadcast, mostly from the days I expected to be on there and for the final table coverage. It’s clearly increased in sophistication over the years, jettisoning the “rules of NLHE” segment and adding features like VP$IP statistics. I’m assuming this reflects an audience that understands the game a lot better than it did several years ago.
Nevertheless, I feel like they still cater too much to the lowest common denominator. I realize there are (hopefully) tons of people watching who aren’t going to care one lick about table dynamics or anything like that, but I don’t see how it hurts them to include some information that is slightly beyond their understanding. I feel like that’s generally how sports are covered. Presumably football commentators sometimes talk about plays or factors that are beyond the understanding of some appreciable chunk of their audience, but they get away with it.
Given that they are making some effort to speculate as to why players are playing hands the way they are, I believe that they ought to try to get it right. On the 2+2 Pokercast recently, Lon Mceachern said something to the effect of, “There are 100 different ways to play a hand, so no matter what explanation you’re going to give, you’re not going to please everyone.”
That strikes me as a total cop-out. I remember seeing a hand once where UTG raised with 88 and a good player in early position called with A4s. The flop comes down A72, both players checked, and the commentator said something like, “He’s checking the Ace to set a trap for his opponent.”
I don’t see why it would be so difficult to say instead, “He’s flopped top pair, but he’s got to play it carefully. He’s only got a 4 for a kicker, and if too much money goes into the pot, he could be in big trouble.” There’s nothing particularly complicated about that explanation, and it’s far more accurate.
The hand that really disappointed me from this year’s final table was Cheong’s infamous 6-bet with A7 into Duhamel’s QQ. This was such a critical hand that I feel like it deserved more explanation than it got. Basically they just made it look like Cheong’s head exploded or he made some atrocious play or something, and while I do think it was probably a mistake, I’m sure his reasoning for it was a lot more complex than 99% of the audience could intuit for themselves. At the very least, I feel it deserved some explanation such as the following:
“Cheong’s made excellent use of aggression this whole final table, and now it’s really time for him to turn up the heat. Duhamel has Racener outchipped nearly 3:1. If he can outlast Racener, he stands to earn an extra $1.5 million, which means that he shouldn’t be looking to tangle with chipleader Joseph Cheong. Here we see Cheong trying to leverage his chip lead with an aggressive move, and unfortunately for him, he’s run into one of the few hands that is simply too good for Duhamel to fold.”
Over time, this kind of commentary would probably raise the audience’s sophistication and improve their ability to appreciate the strategy behind the hands that they see. We’ve already seen this effect in the first few years of serious WSOP coverage, as they are now comfortable presuming a level of knowledge that they couldn’t take for granted back in 2005. I believe they owe it to their audience to keep raising the bar, and hopefully we’ll see more of that in future years. If we do, I might even start watching again.
I agree about the WSOP commentary (and much of the other televised commentary) and I’m just an average recreational player/viewer. I find a lot of it really insulting, so I can only imagine how high stakes professionals must view it. To be honest, I’ve stopped watching the ESPN highlight shows, and basically stick to the live streaming when I’m around for it.
As a photographer, I see much of the same condescending tone in shows about photography, as they try to appeal to the average viewer who only understand the basic automated functions of their cameras. I really get frustrated, because using terms that the average person doesn’t understand should inspire them to learn more and get better, but (in photography’s case) it seems to reinforce their laziness and lack of curiosity.
Have you tried watching “The Big Game?” Jimmy Fricke provides the poker strategy writing (delivered through color commentator Joe Stapleton) and while I’m sure some professionals disagree with some of the commentary, it is well above what you see on ESPN, PAD, HSP, etc, and probably wouldn’t seem so condescending. I know it’s all way above the heads of the nut jobs I play with at local card rooms, who rave about the great content on the WSOP coverage.
Maybe they really think things like “he’s setting a trap with his flopped pair of A’s” – if that’s the case then they need to hire someone who understands poker at a deeper level. (Send them your resume Andrew :))
I was trying to explain something to the effect of your point to one of my co-workers who watched the program religously but only has cursory knowledge of the game. He just thought it was a crazy move. I would have thought so a few years ago as well and would have appreciated a more advanced comment like yours.
Sunday night football (what used to be Monday night FB) is the worst. Al Michaels has nothing to offer but drivel that even non-fans would usually know. Hard to listen to.
They need to decide if they are covering a sporting event, or staging a reality show.
I would much prefer the former to the latter. But propping up lies about staging, not calling out personalities who are poor players and creating the illusion of a linear time progression when they’re just showing scattershot hands certainly point more to reality show.
As often happens with TV, they’re not willing to take a hit in the short term to gain in the longterm. By trying to please channel flippers with lots of yelling and constant cuts, they are throwing away the chance to create a real fan base who would actively seek out the show and be plenty entertained by the drama of the game itself- if they actually let it unfold.
It takes some time to build a knowledgeable fan base, but once you put the effort in people will be hooked. Instead they keep playing the short game of heavy marketing and gimmicks to keep people tuned in for one half-hour at a time. Fail.
Spot on commentary. Which is why I have watched very little of the coverage. I followed most all the main event online up to the final 9 so I know/knew what happened in most big hands/situations before it was aired, however Andrew is right with this. Very basic/rudimentary commentary and it would enhance the shows if they took time to have a pro like Dunst is for the WPT, give some insight/commentary on hands and why they mave have been played the way the were.
I agree for the most part except for the notion that the level of commentary they do now is a bad business strategy. The less sophisticated viewers eat up the reality show style programming, and while they might be less intelligent they are no less loyal. It’s much more interesting from their point of view to have Cheong’s play portrayed as a blowup/meltdown then just some deep-level math that the viewer has no hope of understanding leading to his decision to shove. There are poker shows with (somewhat) better commentary on TV, like the Big Game, HSP, and PAD. The WSOP is always going to cater to a wider audience and frankly I’m okay with that.
You make some good points. I guess I just don’t see why these have to be mutually exclusive. They don’t have to put EV calcs on the screen to explain that players have extra incentive to be aggressive from late position/blinds or when three-handed at the final table. Deliberately misrepresenting the hand in order to squeeze entertainment value out of it is borderline unethical IMO.
You are probably right about them not being completely mutually exclusive, although past a certain point they might be. However, I think you give Norm to much “credit” if you think he is deliberately misrepresenting hands. Norm is not a poker player yet as a commentator he kinda has to speculate as to why people are doing things. They could switch him for someone who knows what they’re talking about but then they’d lose the weird chemistry him and Lon have going, and risk things getting bogged down in analysis (the horror!). Him out-and-out calling plays terrible is maybe a bit over the line, I certainly die a little inside whenever he does that and the play was good or fine. Still, I’m happy just doing my own analysis of hands most of the time, don’t need a commentator to do that for me.
I don’t mean to say that it’s deliberate on his part; I was just responding to your comment that whether it’s true or not, there’s more entertainment value in portraying it as a meltdown. It’s one thing to say, “We’re just going to show what happened and not try to provide analysis at all.” I wouldn’t watch it, but that’s there prerogative. Likewise if they want to provide minimal analysis. What I don’t think is OK is to provide analysis that is flat-out wrong. As some commenters have mentioned, other shows have people like Fricke or Dunst to supply some level of analysis that’s accurate and also appropriate to the audience. Granted it would have to be at a lower level for the WSOP broadcast, but I just can’t endorse portraying a play as “terrible” without making any attempt to explain how and why it may have happened.
Lon Mceachern and Norman Chad aren’t exactly poker gods – there’s a good chance their descriptions reflect at least in some way their approach to poker as opposed to someone ‘good’.
I mean your analysis requires a certain level of sophistication, and over the years I’ve really heard or seen anything from Lon and Norman to suggest they’re actually sophisticated poker players.
It’d be interesting to take a few top 2+2ers like Galfond, Dwan, Cole South, David Benefield, etc and have them do commentary.
I understand your argument but I think that, as hinted Bond2King earlier, that is not a bad business strategy. Tv poker relies on a different set of dream/fantasy than sports (the same way poker is different than chess or video game) : you are supposed to include the audience in the fairy tale, make everyone believe that they too can make it big somehow or at least make a buck easily.
In sports you can rely on patriotism or local loyal fans, but nobody would dream of achieving the same level of skill. Anyone can start talking about sport without feeling like a loser, sharing the victory of your team by talking about it the next day is the whole point right ?
Regarding the Main Event, ESPN has to keep it low to play nice and keep telling everyone ‘It could be you’ ! Anything higher than the lowest common denominator would be a constant reminder that the audience is not that good.
I agree WSOP has a unique chance to play up the everyman aspect, and the fact that it’s such a unique opportunity for amateurs to play at the same table as top pros- something you just find in any other sport ESPN broadcasts. But I think that doesn’t negate talking more strategy. You just have to emphasize that strategy brings edge, but luck plays a factor too, so it’s anybody’s game. Lord knows they’ll still be able to show plenty of hands where luck beats strategy, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend it’s all luck.
As far as business strategy I would argue that it’s not that you can’t be profitable in the reality niche, it’s that it’s not the better road to profitability for the good of the game. It means you are forever competing to keep viewers, spending alot on marketing and having to be more outrageous and flashy than the competition. By relying on fans that enjoy this style, you’re forced to focus on Phil Hellmuth and anyone else being obnoxious and dramatic, rather than on the game.
The tougher road initially, but with more payoff long term is building viewers knowledge of technical aspects over time by making maybe 20% of the commentary above the heads of some. I don’t think this turns off folks who enjoy the WSOP on TV but aren’t competitive players. Look at NASCAR TV coverage, they got more and more complex in explaining what goes on behind the scenes, and its popularity has skyrocketed. Fans get more hooked when they’ve learned something, they feel like they can predict outcomes, pundit the plays themselves, and show off this knowledge to others. The game is intrinsically more interesting when you understand more of what is going on.
I disagree with Bond2King that less sophisticated viewers are just as loyal as those who would appreciate more poker talk and less x-wife talk. I think more sophisticated coverage only turns off the most casual of viewers- the channel flippers, and maybe some of older folks who might feel like their old familiar game has outgrown them. But young viewers are where the advertising money is, always, and even moreso when your advertisers are bound to be online poker sites(!) It’s worth it to me to possibly turn off some nostalgia viewers to create new young, engaged enthusiasts. More invested viewers will actively seek out broadcasts, pay for premium watch opportunities, patronize sponsors, cheer on players etc (again, see NASCAR).
Human interest stories will always play a role, especially at the WSOP, and I’m all for that. Just nice if the human interest stories can focus on some of the interesting, and somewhat relateable folks who play and not just those who make the biggest scene. This balance has certainly improved over the years, but it’s still not to where I’d like to see it yet. And choosing to show footage of people being obnoxious (with no other point), and then have the commentators complain about it is just the worst. Either don’t show the clip, or embrace it: “This is what our channel-flipping viewers love to see Lon, a grown man barking like a dog”
You’re smart.