Watching the WSOP Final Table Live
My friends, this is so great, I wish you were here with me. I’m sitting here in front of my computer watching the live broadcast of the 2006 WSOP championship event final table. How amazing is that! Kudos to Espn.com who streams the final table broadcast over the Internet for anyone to tap.
For sure, there are no hole card cameras this time, as we’ve been getting used to from the WPT shows. The broadcast is live and so showing the hole cards on national television would obviously change the rules of the game quite considerably. It is a “matter of security”.
You don’t get to see the players’ cards, but believe it or not – I like it. Of course it’s fascinating to know what they hold and study how they handle themselves as the hands develop. But like this there’s another kind of fascination, possibly a more pristine one. We get to see poker more like poker is. This is what poker is like; you don’t get to see much of any player’s cards.
This gives you the opportunity to follow the betting and making your own judgments as to the hands that are out there. And, what’s more, since the scissor-hands of the production company don’t get the opportunity to cut down the broadcast into a series of Keno like all-in situations, in a live broadcast you get to see the naked truth. Players folding. Folding, folding, folding. Once in a while a flop. Very rarely a showdown. This is what all the eager newbies out there ought to be watching. It gives a more correct image of poker.
Now the game has been going on for ten hours, and five out of nine players still remain. It’s an incredible struggle. It’s a marathon. A triple marathon. You must give these guys respect for being able to continue fighting after all the countless hours of top notch poker competition they’ve been through the last week.
Oops, the break is over. Cards are flying. Catch you later!
/Spinner
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