The Downtown Las Vegas area has been picked as the site for a new Tournament Poker Experience, and despite expected hitches along the lines of under what jurisdiction (gaming-wise) playing tournaments for a pile of money under a sort of insulated plexiglass dome might fall, looks set to be The Next Big Thing.
Imagine a sound-proofed box with 200 spectators sat round it, with live feeds from the players’ mikes, heart-rate monitors, and hole-card cameras displayed for the viewers, so no part of the live action will be missed. An interesting project for the team of MANSIONpoker.net and Fox Sports Network (FSN). With the online qualification angle taken care of by MANSION, it’s up to the whiz-kids at Fox to produce a product innovative enough to capture the attention of viewers already spoiled for choice of TV poker programmes.
They’ve selected three theatres located near the heart of Downtown Las Vegas to be remodelled into the state-of-the-art auditorium, which will hopefully revive the Neonopolis mall, much to the delight of Mayor Oscar Goodman. Attracting tourists and business back to the Downtown area (a little hike from the more visible-from-space Strip) is a good idea for Las Vegas as a whole, and this kind of ambitious project could speed up the process.
FSN intend to broadcast 40 live poker events a year, with the inaugural one taking place on the 20th May. Having sat in the Green Room of a televised poker show watching Brian Wilson’s hole cards in real time, I know how interesting that can be. Unedited ‘Speed Poker’ tournaments might be just the thing to bring the buzz back to televised poker. I also think ‘Pokerdome’ is reminiscent of ‘Thunderdome’ and can’t help liking it. Also, if the dome is actually sealed, there are hilarious pranks FSN could pull with helium, laughing gas etc. etc. But let's stick with the poker for now.