The old shows with studio guests playing the main event were brilliant. But just the coverage from start to finish of the main event was perfect. Following players from the start right down to the FT.
I'd also go back to having a whole night dedicated to mastercash.
I used to watch the shows from the start and before i knew it, a few hours had flown by. Now I find it hard to watch 20 mins without turning over. That's nothing to do with presenters/analysts, it's purely down to the format and content of the shows.
Last night i thought it was superb when we had the cards covered:i would like to see this more often.Splashie's suggestion of a night dedicated to mastercash would be a winner.
Try to make Sky Poker TV less amateurish because it really is!. The time has come to replace most of them ie, Tikay the man is out of touch with the modern game,Fowler what can you say,Hartigan with his rather silly voices and gestures which have nothing to do with poker whatsoever. T B H, the whole format needs a makeover.
I really feared when this thread started that someone would say: "Shorter dresses for Anna and Sarah!", or "More cleavage!"... Amazingly, it seems that only grown-ups have posted on this thread.
Anyway, I seem to be in a minority of one in saying that I don't want to see more hands. I think it's pretty tedious to rush from one hand to the next. I'm not the biggest fan of just watching someone else do something silly/clever but I do enjoy the full analysis of the hand afterwards. It's only appropriate that, after three or four minutes of poker jargon, something a little less heavy is discussed to break things up a bit. A bit of fun and banter is always nice.
With that said, I do have some suggestions:
1) Chat Box - There aren't enough interesting things happening in a week to make up an hour long show. Nobody cares about "Poker player you've never heard of wins poker tournament you've never heard of." I don't think the show should be scrapped altogether but an hour is just far too long. You end up scratching around for something to talk about and it's just dull. Cut this show in half and use the extra time for Mastercash tables.
2) Poker School - In order to distinguish the Poker School from the Poker Clinic or Ask The Experts, you try to stick to particular types of play and discuss the pitfalls of these. The problem is that the topics are either too wide-ranging (Such as the recent "multi-way pots") so there can be no specific advice given or they're too narrowly defined (Such as "Squeeze play" or "Kicker problems").
The problem with these narrowly defined topics is that either i) the person picking the hands doesn't have the expertise to distinguish what a squeeze play is or what genuine kicker problems are, or ii) you don't have the ability to filter the hands well enough to pick out these hands from all those available to you. These problems led to a farcical Poker School on squeeze plays without a single squeeze play being shown and then the situation being repeated a week ago with the kicker problems program. Nobody's blaming a TV producer/editor for not being an expert in poker terminology but there is a simple way that these problems can be overcome:
Determine what the topic will be a week or so in advance and invite contributions on the topic from the more experienced players. Then before the show is aired you can have the analyst run through some of the hand histories and filter the ones that correctly illustrate the desired issue...
3) Poker School again - I appreciate that usually the Poker School is produced for newer players and therefore some of the topics are fairly basic. I would like it if, just once in a while, a more advanced topic was discussed in more technical terms. A program on Independent Chip Modelling or a more intricate description of Expected Value would be nice. (Though EV is a basic topic but one not fully understood by many experienced players) A repeat of the Squeeze Play show would be welcome, this time with actual squeezes.
4) Poker Clinic - Recently the Poker Clinic has become almost identical to Ask The Experts. Hands used to be taken directly from the clinic section of the forum and shown along with quotes from the forum contibutors. I was no fan of that as it led to forum advice being butchered into a few sentences, frequently leading to the meaning being lost and occasionally making some of us look a bit dim. However, since this element was dispensed with the Poker Clinic is indistinguishable from the Ask The Experts section and is merely about people sending in their hands on the night, asking for advice. There are a couple of things that could be done to see the return of the forum contributions without upsetting people:
It would only require you to prepare the hands you intend to show one or two days in advance, then invite the contributors themselves to sub-down their original thoughts into a few sentences based on their initial advice. Alternatively, you could specifically request that some of the sites better known players take a look at particular hand histories and they could offer their opinions in advance of the show. So the hand would be shown then two or three displays of "DOHHHHHHH's thoughts" or "TommyD's thoughts", in the manner that clinic posts were once used. Surely the show isn't thrown together on the night, is it? lol
5) Read out fewer posts from BorinLoner... nobody cares what he thinks and he's not that funny either.
Last night i thought it was superb when we had the cards covered:i would like to see this more often.Splashie's suggestion of a night dedicated to mastercash would be a winner. Posted by Spikelad
I believe it is planned to do this again on Tonight's Show.
i would agree on the chatbox section. To me it seems most weeks to be a rehash of sorts from the week previous and i have to question how many people who are interested in who won the german poker open a week ago? (if they are interested they almost certainly would have followed the tournament live) I agree with loner i just dont think there is enough news or relevant information to last an hour of live programming (i also note this section very very rarely gets any forum posts) I feel a monthly show on this lasting half an hour woud be better suited and could probably be pre recorded to leave more time for hand analysis/banter/ forum interaction.
Saturday night show reinstated and as Splashies said dedicate it to cash only. One thing that has changed with the programming is less hands reviewed and more what appears to be idle chat to fill the gaps. More hand reviews equals more education for the community.
I'm not sure what the viewing figures are but I would expect more people would watch on saturday than tuesday, is there anyway of verifying this?
Agree with Bugaloo that the Chat box section would be better shown once a month and this hour could be used to show more hands from Mtts or cash because as someone said above this really is the main attraction of the sky poker channel.
I myself enjoy the banter between the guys on the show whatever the subject because it is always done in a lighthearted way and gives the show a more friendly appeal.
Would love to see the old mastercash format brought back with a full night dedicated to cash and all levels of play shown even if this was only to happen once a month.
Also really enjoyed the section the other night where one players hole cards were hidden.
Massive +1 to some of the guests sky have had on the shows though and imo this part of the channel can not be improved
i think the shows can be a bit choppy & agree with many that the main attraction in the past was playing the main event & following it in real time on the telly.
i also think one evening per week dedicated solely to cash games would be good, just like the old saturday show.
I think the main arguments against a monthly Chat Box show would be:
1) Just as nobody really wants to hear about an unknown player winning an unknown tournament, people don't really care about something that happened three-and-a-half weeks ago.
2) If something noteworthy does happen it's inevitable that it will be discussed on the regular shows. If Full Tilt re-launched tomorrow, it would be absurd for the presenters and analysts to ignore it for another couple of weeks so they can make a Chat Box show of it.
I think Chat Box, if it is to continue, must be a weekly show for it to remain relevant. An hour is far too long though.
I can't agree with AceGooner that more people would watch the show on Saturdays than Tuesdays. People like to go out on Saturdays and there is a great deal more competition on other channels on Saturday anyway. Match Of The Day or one of those Ant and Dec shows would be examples. People are far more likely to stay in on a Tuesday. I much prefer the Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday schedule.
Finally, I would not want to see the return of celebrity guests playing in the studio. Back in ye' olden days when this was a feature it was always a bit tedious. Most of the guests were either not very good players or not very interesting characters. In fact many were neither good nor interesting. The understandable reluctance of the presenters and analysts to be truly critical of the mistakes these players were making and the inabilty of these players to explain their thought processes made for pretty unedifying viewing.
Besides this; bringing these people onto the show, only to shove them into the corner for all but five minutes of every hour didn't make alot of sense to me. If they're not knowledgable enough to make a full contribution, then why bring them onto a poker show at all? Soccer Saturday doesn't need cameos from Daniel Negreanu or Phil Hellmuth. Why should Sky Poker bring on Kenny Dalglish or Jimmy Armfield?
Looking at it the other way; if you get the chance to have a fantastic poker mind on the show, why would you want them sitting quietly, clicking mouse buttons?
BoringLoner i have to agree with almost every word you've said. To be honest i hate the Chatbox. Thats my bath time now. I hink someone was talking about German Nationalists Chamionships the other day and it ended up with Stuart Rutter basically seryotyping every nation in poker. I have no interest in some guy i've never heard of winning a competition i've never heard of before.
Yes i would have interest in some player i've never heard of who is British and won a WSOP event, and i do have interest in whos won SPTs, UKIPTs and EPTs(only when held on British or Irish soil or a Brit wins).
Insead of Chatbox maybe these topics could be used slowly throughout the entire night as the break up between hands when their not doing the competition at that point.
The poker clinic i used to love, but i believe theirs leagal issues regarding 99% of clinic hands not being from a tv table. The only other option is that Sky make every table a tv table.
Fwiw i'd like to see another dedicated cash show on a Saturday night but imo it would have to work slightly different.
Hour 1 is NL10 Hour 2 is NL20 Hour 3 is NL50 Hour 4 is NL100(or 200) Hour 5 is Top of the Pots.
Keep it simple and fair to all bankrolls in my opinion then. I know recently NL10 has been shown alot but i always did feel in previous the big names got too much tele time. Which is good because we can see how they play but i think even the experts sometimes struggle because often a hand is leveled or reads based, which of coarse makes life dificult for the expert and will always confuse a new player watching for the first time to learn the basic principles of poker.
Just so it's clear that I'm not just trying to be contrary; I agree that it would be nice to revisit more frequently the old format of following a single tournament all the way through. However, I do also enjoy the current segmented format. The old format excluded hands from being requested from other events and meant you had to fork out a significant amount to play the main event to even have a chance of seeing your play. I wouldn't want a return to that as the norm.
Although it's hardly an original idea, I would suggest a monthly Super-Roller type event could be a good solution. There are still repeats of the Jubilee Super-Roller being shown so obviously it is possible.
Again, though, I'm forced to say I wouldn't agree with bringing back a full Mastercash night. There's enough Mastercash action in the shows as they are: Mastercash on Tuesdays, Top Of The Pots on Thursdays and on Tonight on Sky Poker on both Tuesdays and Sundays. That's four hours a week - the same as the old Saturday Mastercash shows.
You have a point on the whole TV table issue for the poker clinic, Don. Though, since they only show four or five hands a week in that segment, I think they could probably manage. If there weren't enough TV hands posted in the clinic, I'm sure they could stick some hand requests in there too. Shouldn't be a big problem.
Of course, I doubt that much of this will actually be implemented anyway. We can but hope. lol
on reflection i would probably prefer if chat box was just ditched as borin loner states the important news is implemented into existing shows anyway Posted by bugaloo
Maybe you could replace this hourly slot with 60 minutes of steelrods bad beats!!!
Comments
Anyway, I seem to be in a minority of one in saying that I don't want to see more hands. I think it's pretty tedious to rush from one hand to the next. I'm not the biggest fan of just watching someone else do something silly/clever but I do enjoy the full analysis of the hand afterwards. It's only appropriate that, after three or four minutes of poker jargon, something a little less heavy is discussed to break things up a bit. A bit of fun and banter is always nice.
With that said, I do have some suggestions:
1) Chat Box - There aren't enough interesting things happening in a week to make up an hour long show. Nobody cares about "Poker player you've never heard of wins poker tournament you've never heard of." I don't think the show should be scrapped altogether but an hour is just far too long. You end up scratching around for something to talk about and it's just dull. Cut this show in half and use the extra time for Mastercash tables.
2) Poker School - In order to distinguish the Poker School from the Poker Clinic or Ask The Experts, you try to stick to particular types of play and discuss the pitfalls of these. The problem is that the topics are either too wide-ranging (Such as the recent "multi-way pots") so there can be no specific advice given or they're too narrowly defined (Such as "Squeeze play" or "Kicker problems").
The problem with these narrowly defined topics is that either i) the person picking the hands doesn't have the expertise to distinguish what a squeeze play is or what genuine kicker problems are, or ii) you don't have the ability to filter the hands well enough to pick out these hands from all those available to you. These problems led to a farcical Poker School on squeeze plays without a single squeeze play being shown and then the situation being repeated a week ago with the kicker problems program. Nobody's blaming a TV producer/editor for not being an expert in poker terminology but there is a simple way that these problems can be overcome:
Determine what the topic will be a week or so in advance and invite contributions on the topic from the more experienced players. Then before the show is aired you can have the analyst run through some of the hand histories and filter the ones that correctly illustrate the desired issue...
3) Poker School again - I appreciate that usually the Poker School is produced for newer players and therefore some of the topics are fairly basic. I would like it if, just once in a while, a more advanced topic was discussed in more technical terms. A program on Independent Chip Modelling or a more intricate description of Expected Value would be nice. (Though EV is a basic topic but one not fully understood by many experienced players) A repeat of the Squeeze Play show would be welcome, this time with actual squeezes.
4) Poker Clinic - Recently the Poker Clinic has become almost identical to Ask The Experts. Hands used to be taken directly from the clinic section of the forum and shown along with quotes from the forum contibutors. I was no fan of that as it led to forum advice being butchered into a few sentences, frequently leading to the meaning being lost and occasionally making some of us look a bit dim. However, since this element was dispensed with the Poker Clinic is indistinguishable from the Ask The Experts section and is merely about people sending in their hands on the night, asking for advice. There are a couple of things that could be done to see the return of the forum contributions without upsetting people:
It would only require you to prepare the hands you intend to show one or two days in advance, then invite the contributors themselves to sub-down their original thoughts into a few sentences based on their initial advice. Alternatively, you could specifically request that some of the sites better known players take a look at particular hand histories and they could offer their opinions in advance of the show. So the hand would be shown then two or three displays of "DOHHHHHHH's thoughts" or "TommyD's thoughts", in the manner that clinic posts were once used. Surely the show isn't thrown together on the night, is it? lol
5) Read out fewer posts from BorinLoner... nobody cares what he thinks and he's not that funny either.
Great thread, nice & constructive, & I particularly liked Borin's Post.
I myself enjoy the banter between the guys on the show whatever the subject because it is always done in a lighthearted way and gives the show a more friendly appeal.
Would love to see the old mastercash format brought back with a full night dedicated to cash and all levels of play shown even if this was only to happen once a month.
Also really enjoyed the section the other night where one players hole cards were hidden.
Massive +1 to some of the guests sky have had on the shows though and imo this part of the channel can not be improved
1) Just as nobody really wants to hear about an unknown player winning an unknown tournament, people don't really care about something that happened three-and-a-half weeks ago.
2) If something noteworthy does happen it's inevitable that it will be discussed on the regular shows. If Full Tilt re-launched tomorrow, it would be absurd for the presenters and analysts to ignore it for another couple of weeks so they can make a Chat Box show of it.
I think Chat Box, if it is to continue, must be a weekly show for it to remain relevant. An hour is far too long though.
I can't agree with AceGooner that more people would watch the show on Saturdays than Tuesdays. People like to go out on Saturdays and there is a great deal more competition on other channels on Saturday anyway. Match Of The Day or one of those Ant and Dec shows would be examples. People are far more likely to stay in on a Tuesday. I much prefer the Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday schedule.
Finally, I would not want to see the return of celebrity guests playing in the studio. Back in ye' olden days when this was a feature it was always a bit tedious. Most of the guests were either not very good players or not very interesting characters. In fact many were neither good nor interesting. The understandable reluctance of the presenters and analysts to be truly critical of the mistakes these players were making and the inabilty of these players to explain their thought processes made for pretty unedifying viewing.
Besides this; bringing these people onto the show, only to shove them into the corner for all but five minutes of every hour didn't make alot of sense to me. If they're not knowledgable enough to make a full contribution, then why bring them onto a poker show at all? Soccer Saturday doesn't need cameos from Daniel Negreanu or Phil Hellmuth. Why should Sky Poker bring on Kenny Dalglish or Jimmy Armfield?
Looking at it the other way; if you get the chance to have a fantastic poker mind on the show, why would you want them sitting quietly, clicking mouse buttons?
Yes i would have interest in some player i've never heard of who is British and won a WSOP event, and i do have interest in whos won SPTs, UKIPTs and EPTs(only when held on British or Irish soil or a Brit wins).
Insead of Chatbox maybe these topics could be used slowly throughout the entire night as the break up between hands when their not doing the competition at that point.
The poker clinic i used to love, but i believe theirs leagal issues regarding 99% of clinic hands not being from a tv table. The only other option is that Sky make every table a tv table.
Fwiw i'd like to see another dedicated cash show on a Saturday night but imo it would have to work slightly different.
Hour 1 is NL10
Hour 2 is NL20
Hour 3 is NL50
Hour 4 is NL100(or 200)
Hour 5 is Top of the Pots.
Keep it simple and fair to all bankrolls in my opinion then. I know recently NL10 has been shown alot but i always did feel in previous the big names got too much tele time. Which is good because we can see how they play but i think even the experts sometimes struggle because often a hand is leveled or reads based, which of coarse makes life dificult for the expert and will always confuse a new player watching for the first time to learn the basic principles of poker.
Although it's hardly an original idea, I would suggest a monthly Super-Roller type event could be a good solution. There are still repeats of the Jubilee Super-Roller being shown so obviously it is possible.
Again, though, I'm forced to say I wouldn't agree with bringing back a full Mastercash night. There's enough Mastercash action in the shows as they are: Mastercash on Tuesdays, Top Of The Pots on Thursdays and on Tonight on Sky Poker on both Tuesdays and Sundays. That's four hours a week - the same as the old Saturday Mastercash shows.
Perhaps I do enjoy being contrary.
Of course, I doubt that much of this will actually be implemented anyway. We can but hope. lol
That's enough from me now.
Even if it is for just 1 night a week.
I liked watching the primo on the Sunday, and the Thursday bounty hunter.
I don't see why you cant blend some of the new shows into the previous format so everyone is happy????
Also bring back the guests grinding cash or the main events.