Celebrity Poker Showdown

Unfortunately i only caught the last two episodes of this show (including the championship game), but it was pretty entertaining. It was nice to see the celebrities candid in their demeanor. Hopefully this show has done moderately well (although almost no posts here is an ominous sign) and there will be at least a second season at some point this year.

For all the poker purists, I would say "get over it!" The average person doesn't want to watch Stoneface, the Unabomber and Robot-Man play poker. It may be realistic, but it just isn't all that exciting. The purpose of this show is entertainment! More important - I like it. I am fond of watching the various celebrities behaving in a more natural, less-scripted venue. It's sort of like a sitcom reality show. And I think I've even learned a little about poker - though I don't play.

I started watching this for Dave Foley and stayed for the poker fun. I've recently seen reruns of Season 1 with Kevin Pollak (who is he?) and I can see that the later seasons are clearly more polished and more fun. Kevin didn't seem like a bad guy, just rather dull. His interaction with Phil Gordon was not very dynamic. And Phil, himself, seemed VERY wooden. With the new episodes, we get better commentary as the bidding happens on-screen, rather than simply pointing out what a given player did wrong after the fact. This improved continuity shows good editing skills. (You didn't really think this is played in real-time, did you?)

The only thing I might like to see different is, perhaps once during a tournament, they could give some brief recognition to Robert Thompson and the dealers. I was surprised to learn that some of the dealers are well-accomplished players and professionals in their own right, yet they are generally treated as robots.

I love this show and have learned a lot about poker from watching it. The celebrities are entertaining and some of them actually have skill and don't just base their game on luck. Plus they are doing it for charity so that is always good. I would recommend watching for a good laugh and some interesting poker play. I love Phil Gordon he is so cool and funny and his tips from the lounge are of course always helpful.I love it when the tournament director says "Shuffle up and deal" I always laugh a little when he says that. Sometime the real action in the losers' lounge though depending on who is in there. I would love to see Phil play with some of them sometime.

Anyone who watches this show thinking they're going to gain some great insight into playing poker is fooling themselves but from an entertainment standpoint the show is definitely worth the time. It's kind of unfair to slam the celebrities for not being expert poker players (even though several of them, including Mimi Rogers, James Woods and Ben Affleck have moneyed in big name events). Some of them play like boneheads (Bobby Flay, I'm looking at you!) but overall the level of play is at least as good as you'd expect from journeyman-level players. While you won't become an expert player from watching, if you pay attention to what Phil Gordon has to say you will pick up some good tips.

I LOVED this show and when I was starting to play Poker, there was no better method by which to learn the basics of the game. The reason for this is that most of the celebrities play horrifically on Celebrity Poker Showdown and it provides plenty of opportunities for Phil Gordon to explain where they went wrong and why. Viewers also get a great chance to see how a smart poker player can easily dominate play when they have good cards and when they don't. While I enjoy High Stakes Poker and WSOP shows very much too, you simply don't get the chance for beginner lessons like you did with Celebrity Poker Showdown (and, really, it's worth the price of admission to see Scott Stapp of 90's band, Creed, "play." It's AMAZING). I really wish that they would release it on DVD!