Celebrity Poker Showdown (Bravo)
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Among the strangest spectacles available these days is the
televised poker tournament. How is this possible? Ten
strange-looking guys sitting around a table and staring at
each other doesn't seem the stuff of compelling television.
And yet somehow, it is.
High profile programs are now regularly aired on ESPN
(The World Series of Poker), Bravo (Celebrity Poker
Showdown), the Travel Channel (The World Poker
Tour), and Fox Sports. The major broadcast networks have
also started picking up on the trend. For instance, this year
NBC produced its own poker event -- the National Heads-Up
Poker Championship -- to counterprogram against the Super Bowl
pre-game shows on Fox. ESPN even has its own drama,
Tilt, fictionalizing the world of high-stakes poker in
Vegas. Poker is, suddenly, serious business.
If we want to get all deconstructionist about it, the
reasons for this surge in popularity are pretty
straightforward. Televised poker effectively combines aspects
of three TV staples: the sporting event, the game show, and
the "reality" program. You get to watch real people (and
sometimes celebrities) play a game in which the winner is
richly rewarded with cash and prizes. It helps, too, that
poker is actually one of the great games. Scholars rank it
right up there with chess and backgammon. It's well-balanced,
easy to learn, and rewards strategy, skill, and discipline (see
this introduction). The most popular variant of poker (and
by far the most televised) is Texas Hold 'Em, which is poker
distilled to its basic alchemy of skill and luck, cards and
chips.
Like millions of others, I got hooked on the poker shows
and their weird hybrid charm. But after a year of steeping
myself in all things poker for my book, Deal Me In! Internet Cardrooms, Big-Time
Tournaments, and the New Poker -- and playing about
10,000 games and tournaments online and off -- it's clear to
me that the TV poker shows are ultimately deceptive. Not in
any sinister sense, but in the way they make the game look so
easy, so simple. The new players watching these shows are
flooding casinos and online cardrooms, and getting chewed up
by experienced poker players.
A typical tournament program features six to 10 players
squaring off for a million dollar prize. What the TV shows
don't show you are the thousand or so players who bust out of
a tournament early. Cash prizes are generated by the "buy-in"
fee posted by all players in each tournament. For example, the
main Hold 'Em tourney at the World Series of Poker requires a
buy-in of $10,000. Last year, 2,577 players ponied up. By the
end of the tourney, 2,311 players had lost everything. Even
ESPN's extended coverage of the 2005 Hold 'Em event showed
only a fraction of the tables and games.
This selective editing applies to individual hands as well.
When watching a World Poker Tour final table, the impression
is that a six- or even 10-person game is resolved within an
hour. Not so. For every dramatic hand you see played, 10 other
hands have been played in which virtually nothing happens:
Someone raises the pot, and everyone folds. Tenacity and
discipline are mandatory for winning poker. But they're not
that fun to watch.
Most troublesome is the TV game's use of hole-card cameras
that allow the viewing audience to see exactly what kind of
hand a player has. That is to say, the viewer can see what the
players themselves cannot. Because poker players trade heavily
in deception and bluffing, this aspect -- specific to TV --
adds a whole new dimension to the experience of watching
poker. It's a reliable narrative device. Whenever the viewer
knows something that the characters (or in the case, the
players) do not, drama and tension are heightened.
It makes for great TV, but as an instructional model for
new players, it's crippling. When all the cards are on the
table, as it were, poker seems like simplicity itself. Why is
that idiot calling $40,000 on a straight when the other guy
has a flush? Because he doesn't know about the flush, that's
why. New players weaned on the TV poker shows come to the
tables with a skewed idea of the game. They're used to having
a lot more information than you get when playing.
The poker shows are designed, first and foremost, to be
entertaining television. And that they are -- the best
programs are produced by professionals who know a good thing
when they see it. And that is, the suggestion that people can
win obscene amounts of money for sitting around and playing
cards. This is the "money-for-nothing" American fever dream
that drives lotteries, day trading, and gambling in general.
It's no coincidence that the games on TV have millions of
dollars at stake -- nickel-dime neighborhood cash game are
unlikely to make primetime rotation. Again, there's a critical
distinction here for the player seeking instruction from these
shows. No-limit poker played at ultra-high stakes is a
fundamentally different game than the poker new players are
likely to get involved in -- low-stake games with betting
limits. Bluffing and aggressive wagering are premium weapons
in the high stakes games, but they are all but useless in
small limit games.
Poker, as depicted on various TV shows, sure looks like a
lot of fun. But the programs are selectively formatted,
heavily edited, and depict the game in a fundamentally
artificial fashion. None of which would be a problem if it
weren't for the fact that the poker shows are driving new
players into the casinos and online cardrooms, high school and
college students in particular. It's a familiar pop culture
dilemma, part of the discussion about protecting consumers
from media influences. The poker trend is cresting right now,
and we're likely to be flipping past guys in sunglasses
shuffling chips on TV for a good long while. But if the TV
poker shows are good television, they're lousy instructional
tapes.
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