High stakes cash games on TV

[EvlG]

A high stakes cash game would create interesting opportunities for the "budding reality show contestant" type of person.

If you could just get some money and show up in vegas and put your name on the wait list, you could get a chance to make a splash on TV.

I think that would attract a lot of interesting stories and personalities.

[ClonexxSA]

It is my understanding that the mainstay and most steady source of income for pros are cash games and not tournaments.

Going with that in mind, I highly doubt many pros would agree to hole cameras in a high stakes cash game, it would just reveal too much.

[Lazymeatball]

While many on this board would find high stakes cash games between world class players both entertaining and educational, we are a very niche audience at best.

Watching a single poker game (or a baseball game) may have it's charm at first, but will get increasingly boring with each new episode as there is no beginning, middle and end as has been stated. This is very bad from a tv standpoint trying to market to a mass audience.

The point I was trying to make with my baseball analogy was that tournaments are similar to the playoffs in baseball, or any sport in general. Now there is a reason to play, to find out who the winner is, who the best is.

Now of course tournament poker with it's current escalating blind structure introduces a lot of luck into into it's outcomes. But there has been a lot of luck in sports decisions as well causing the underdog to win.
For example: remember the snowbowl in the 2002 Divisional playoffs between New England and Oakland where Tom Brady was very lucky to get that fumble in the 4th quarter ruled as a forward pass. That lucky break led them to win the game, without it, they're history. Sports teams, just like poker players need to get lucky in playoff situations.

[Knockwurst]

I think watching cash games would be the nuts. I recently heard a story about a heads-up match between Phil Ivey and The Banker (I think it was a consortium of people staking a guy to go up against Phil) playing $50,000-$100,000 limit. Tell me who wouldn't watch that.

But anyways, about the narrative problem, you could have a one table freeze out, very high blinds everyone has to bring a $100,000 to the table and the sponser could match it with another million.

Also, like someone said, the idea of a reality show focused on highstakes poker players would be friggin great.

[klagett]

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But anyways, about the narrative problem, you could have a one table freeze out, very high blinds everyone has to bring a $100,000 to the table and the sponser could match it with another million.

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Uhh... that sounds like a tournament to me.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Knockwurst,

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I recently heard a story about a heads-up match between Phil Ivey and The Banker (I think it was a consortium of people staking a guy to go up against Phil) playing $50,000-$100,000 limit.

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The Banker is Andy Beal, and you have it backwards. The players (Phil Ivey, Doyle, etc.) pool their bankrolls so that one of them at a time can challenge Beal to very high-stakes heads-up action when Beal is in Vegas. The pros divide the winnings (or losses) amongst themselves, sharing both the risk and benefit.

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But anyways, about the narrative problem, you could have a one table freeze out, very high blinds everyone has to bring a $100,000 to the table and the sponser could match it with another million.

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A one-table freeze out is a tournament. The TOC was a one-table freeze out. The PSI is a series of one-table freeze outs. Yes, obviously, a freeze out has a narrative: one person ultimately ends up with all the chips, and the game is over. But that's not a cash game.

Cris

[Knockwurst]

True, it is a tournament, [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img], but it also has elements of a cash game in that instead of a $10,000 buyin, you would be essentially playing for the cash you put up, say $50,000-$100,000, in addition to what the sponsers pitched in.

Sorry if I got the details wrong about the Banker heads-up deal, but I still think it would be very cool to watch it on T.V. and I think other people would watch it too because of the hugh amount of cash money being played for. I heard Phil lost $2 million in the first hour of play but then came back and won something like 8-10 million. Any details you could provide would be appreciated.

Cash Is King. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[PlanoPoker]

Cris,

I believe that many cash games actually have a stronger narrative. We won't have to focus on the tournament bust-outs and races and instead follow a true narrative. For example, lets watch all the hands that show how a player was able to create then spend his table image. Lets watch a battle of wits between two players that doesn't end just because blind escalation forced a play.

I imagine putting a camera on a NL cash game for a couple weeks, finding the story within and then editing around that. Each episode would in fact have some sort of resolution.

Also tournaments let us see one player win millions and everyone else lose a buy-in. I want to see 1 player win 300k and one player lose 300k.

[ACBob]

I am very interested in a High Stakes cash game. Here is how it might be done. The details to be worked out but here are some concept:

1) The network pays pays each player about 50% of a buy in, say $100K. Like an Add On.

2) Game should be "Limit" say $2K-$4K using $500. chips. This plays to a 4 and 8 chip game.

3) Players required to play a minimum of say two hours and can then leave the game(just like cash games). Another player comes into his/her seat with same conditions.

This would incent high stakes players to play as they are getting partially staked and they keep all winnings.

I say "limit" for two reasons:
1) As most all of us have seen and experienced, when it comes to one table, NL, is virtually a shootout with some play but mainly who has the better cards.
2) "Limit" is what we really play in most all cash games.

Bob Lewis

[Sponger15SB]

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1) The network pays pays each player about 50% of a buy in, say $100K. Like an Add On.


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Sure that would be great, give somebody $100,000 for sitting down, then watch them fold 95% of their hands and take the 100K