TV Poker Tournaments
Of late poker has attained such popularity that everybody and their grandpa wants to learn it and be good at it. Though poker itself has a very long history to boast, but it is only recently that poker has been accepted and boasted in the main stream culture.
Those days were a thing of the past when poker was strictly tagged as “gambling”. Now it is more of an in thing to do and boast about. The term poker gives a flashback of those cowboys frequenting saloons, shady characters aggressive to prove their mettle at the bar table or those brave men with guns stuffed in their waists looking to guile and take away the money from anyone brave enough to play against them.
Now things have become a lot different. On an average around 2 million people play poker online and catering to this demand, there are close to 300 sites. It is estimated that around 2.8 billion dollars is spent to play poker in America alone.
The Poker World Series is doing the rounds recently and no wonder that it is riding at par with any other sporting event in terms of money that is shelled out as prize money and the hype surrounding it.
Poker has been a great subject to make films for long, where the central character was set up around playing poker. Many a movies has graced our Television and theatre halls where it was seen as something very common in the elite society. However, down below is a small compilation of ten top scenes that graced our Television sets that have involved the historic game of poker. Though you may not agree with the order of the list, yet I am sure that you would certainly agree that the stated scenes are noteworthy, and are worth a watch again and again.
1. Cool Hand Luke in 1995 where Luke is seen beating an inmate at poker with a hand of practically nothing signifies that it requires a calm head to win at poker.
2. The Sting in 1973, even in actuality the two players were cheating, yet it was one of the best acted and best directed films surrounding the game.
3. The David Mamet’s “House of Games”. Remember the opening card game? The whole film itself is a series of bluffs.
4. Casino in 1995 when Joe Pesci’s character Tommy cut a spider with a shot of lead typifying the comedy element.
5. Also Stephen Hawking’s cameo role at a poker game during the episode of the “Second Chances” of the Famous Star Trek next generation.
I found this old article written by Phil back in 2000. Boy was he right.
Tournament Ranking.
We are on the verge of corporate sponsorship in poker tournaments today, especially with the new ‘under the table camera’ technology that currently is being used successfully in London with the Late Night Poker TV series.
It will be hard for the corporate world to ignore the live worldwide TV broadcast (to more than 140 countries) of the final table at Ladbroke Casinos’ upcoming Poker Million on Nov. 18 (with more than $1.5 million for first place).
Did you enjoy watching Tiger Woods compete against Ernie Els at the British Open this year? How cool would it have been to see Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson playing T.J. Cloutier heads up live on TV, with cameras under the table, at this year’s World Series of Poker?
Imagine, the world’s best poker players playing for history and millions of dollars, all in a format (cameras under the table) that the American public can easily understand. If and when poker implements this, corporations will line up to sponsor poker tournaments.
I have believed for a long time that people in poker, and especially people on the fringes of poker, have had the wrong impression about which tournaments are really important to professional tournament poker players.
It seemed to me that it was time for somebody, or some organization, to rank the top 50 poker tournaments. In this way, we will be able to begin our journey down the path to designating some ‘poker majors,’ much like the PGA Tour has its ‘golf majors’.
It was because of my belief in the need for some form of tournament ranking that I started ‘Phil Hellmuth’s Player Panel’, bringing together 14 of the most successful poker tournament players in the world today. Together, we have rated the top 50 tournaments on the ‘circuit’ we call it the ’50 Most Prestigious Poker Tournaments 2000′. I tried to include every poker tournament in the world that pays more than $50,000 for first place, period (I may have missed a couple of them, but the goal is to get ‘em all in 2001).
This list isn’t perfect, and the 2001 Player Panel certainly will have a more international flavor, but no one can argue with this fact: The Player Panel is highly qualified to rate the world’s ‘majors’.
The Player Panel currently consists of the following 15 players: John Bonetti, Johnny Chan, David Chiu, T.J. Cloutier, Annie Duke, Chris Ferguson, Layne Flack, Ted Forrest, Phil Hellmuth, Tony Ma, Daniel Negreanu, Men Nguyen, Huck Seed, Erik Seidel, and Barry Shulman.
Following is the tournament ranking. The lower the total score of a tournament, the higher its ranking (in other words, the World Series of Poker main event received a ranking of ’1′ from every player on the panel, resulting in the lowest possible total score of 15).
