Another Poker Blog

In the last entry, I discussed the best poker TV personalities. This entry will focus on the worst. It’s worth noting that someone with a bad poker TV personality is probably making more endorsement money than someone with no poker TV personality, so while I’m ripping on these guys, I’d also trade places with them in a heartbeat in regards to the amount of exposure they get:

Howard Lederer: Can you say “yawn”? ‘The Professor’ is about as boring of a poker TV regular as it gets. His personality is like that of, well, a boring professor, so maybe that’s a good nickname for him.

Annie Duke: Lederer’s kid sister takes after her brother in regards to how interesting she is to watch on TV. Annie Duke scored points for her runner-up finish on ‘The Apprentice’, but she’s still painfully boring to watch on poker programming. Annoying, pretentious, entitled, and worst of all, not that attractive, Annie Duke makes me change the channel faster than a commercial break.

Peter Eastgate: I like Peter Eastgate. I really do. But the 2008 Main Event champion simply doesn’t make for very exciting TV. The young Dane’s English is not so great, so he mostly keeps to himself at the table. Following his Main Event win, he actually rejected all offers to appear on talk shows like Jay Leno. While it’s understandable that he doesn’t want to embarrass himself over language-barrier issues, it’s kind of a shame he couldn’t have appeared on a couple of shows for the sake of poker.

Allen Cunningham: Like Eastgate, I really like Cunningham. He’s a very likable guy. But he’s just too soft-spoken to make for entertaining TV. It’s a shame, too. There aren’t more than a small handful of players in the world better than Cunningham.

Poker TV personalities fall into one of three categories: great (entertaining), transparent (easily forgettable) and downright bad. Here are some of the best poker TV personalities. I’ll cover the worst ones in an upcoming post:

Phil Hellmuth: This guy is the crack cocaine of poker TV personalities. Love him or hate him, he’s completely addicting. There’s no one more self-absorbed or emotional than this guy. What people don’t realize is that Hellmuth’s shtick is, well, not a shtick! That’s really just the way he is! He has the mind of a rich, spoiled, arrogant 22 year old in the body of a towering 45 year old man. Grab the popcorn because damn is it fun to watch!

Mike ‘the Mouth’ Matusow: Mike Matusow gained fame in 2004 for trash talking eventual WSOP champion Greg Raymer. It would be Raymer who had the last laugh though after winning a huge pot against Matusow with a flush and going on to win the $5 million first place prize. Since that time, “the Mouth” has been a regular fixture on televised poker events thanks to his entertaining ramblings and ability to wear his emotions on his sleeve. At one point he was nearly universally disliked, but over the years most people have come around to appreciate Matusow and now he is a huge fan favorite.

Daniel Negreanu: The Canadian who goes by “Kid Poker” is on the very short list for best poker television personalities. Quirky and light-hearted with a tenacious poker game, Negreanu is perhaps the most well-liked poker player in the world. He always maintains a mostly-friendly demeanor at the tables and never shows any ugly personalities that turn fans away.

Phil Ivey: The guy who most consider to the best poker player in the world also makes for great television, but not because of what he says but because of how he looks. For the most part, Ivey remains quiet at the tables and lets his patented “death stare” escalate things to a new level for fans. Dubbed the “Tiger Woods of poker”, Ivey’s results make you wonder if Woods should be called the Phil Ivey of golf!

Gus Hansen: Once named one of People magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive, Gus Hansen has turned himself into a fantastic TV personality mostly for two reasons. First, he’s a good looking guy. He’s European so, you know, he’s not fat like us Americans. Second, he has one of the craziest and most aggressive approaches to poker that help him stand out for making plays that leave his opponents scratching their heads or talking to a therapist!

Here are my favorite tournaments in the US. What do I like about these? Soft competition, that’s what:

World Series of Poker Main Event: Yes, it is amazing, especially with what they did to the structure last year. The event is still soft thanks to hoards of celebrities and satellite qualifiers. The structure gives the skilled players an edge too. A++

Oklahoma State Poker Champsionship: This $3k event in Tulsa is a true gem. Soft competition, a no-name tournament, but a decent sized buy-in (filled mainly with satellite winners) means juicy ROI. Solid A.

Harra’s WSOP New Orleans: This tournament almost always overlaps with some WPT event in California or Nevada, so the out of state pros don’t come out on mass. The soft competition and the enjoyment of New Orleans charm is a plus. Having to have Louisiana income tax withheld and then haggling to get it back, makes this tournament a B+.

If there is one thing there is too much of in the poker world, it is live poker tournament circuits. How many $5k-$10k events can people afford to buy-in to these days? Notably, the amount of fish in these tournaments will dwindle, as rich people have lost so much money in the stock market and such. That leaves the satellite winners and the pros, and there are only so many satellite winners. The pros will eventually see the tournaemnts they are playing are sharkier and will bust out or quit and move off to finer pastures.

Anyhow, here are a few predictions:

World Series Of Poker: The WSOP Main Event (and the other events) will remain strong. Perhaps not as strong as last year, but they will always attract a large gathering.  However, the circuit events will continue to suffer. They will likely continue to scratch some of these events, since they won’t be worth having with 60-70 players playing.

World Poker Tour: Are they even still around? As indicated by their stock price, the WPT is suffering. Americans are saving up for the WSOP. Europeans enjoy playing the EPT. Who cares about the WPT and their super-large buy-in tournaments? No one, that’s who.

European Poker Tour: The EPT will continue to be strong. Most of the buy-ins are reasonable- around $5-$7k and poker is just getting more and more popular in Europe. Europeans don’t want to travel all the way to the USA for poker tournaments,  no matter how much they enjoy playing no limit poker.

WSOP Europe: A grand idea by Harrahs, but so far it is falling flat on its face. They need to lower the buy-in, though the British Pound’s continued decline is kinda doing that for them anyways. All things being equal, the EPT looks like it will crush WSOP Europe, but don’t count it out just yet.