Late Night Poker 2008 Schedule on C4

[Chili]

My biggest gripe was also why the hell this was only an hour show?  Sadly it obviously was reflected on the limited hands shown, you can't help thinking either about the $5,000 that people/sponsors forked out and maybe had their exit hands shown only!

1) Why use Vicky Coren for the various talk overs? I thought that the Shauna Hyatt eye-candy thing was behind us, but no, the dumbing down continues, & it's seemingly obligitary to have a Female involved just for the sake of it. She may as well have commentated the thing properly - she commentates absolutely fine - but the role they gave her demeaned her talent, & demeaned women. Grrrr......

Tikay, not 100% but pretty sure Vicky was supposed to do ALL the lead commentary but unfortunately her father had died just before the filming of LNP.  She did come in towards the end and recorded the last heat, Semi Final & Final.

[Tragic]

First one i've missed this week thank god for poker tube. Enjoy them usually one of the better shows out there. Bit annoying the majority of the show being standard pushbot sit n go poker; the interesting hands are towards the beginning! I guess for mainstream TV the big all in coups work better though. Would definitely have helped to be over 2 hours!

[bobby1]

Wow, why on earth did they play so fast? I know it's Edited, but with plenty of chips, an all-in with J-9 called by Q-7, what's that about? And the Final Hand, as far as I could see, they were level on Chips, & it all went in with A-9 v A-6! Maybe that's why I'm so crap at Heads-Up! All I saw was biff-baff stuff, not much subtlety or flop play.

The camerawork was excellent, & the Commentary Duo of Mother Hen & Joe Beevers was as good as it gets, both of them very sharp & concise, well done them. I hope they get paired together in more commentary stuff, they made the Show for me.

Only two downsides.

1) Why use Vicky Coren for the various talk overs? I thought that the Shauna Hyatt eye-candy thing was behind us, but no, the dumbing down continues, & it's seemingly obligitary to have a Female involved just for the sake of it. She may as well have commentated the thing properly - she commentates absolutely fine - but the role they gave her demeaned her talent, & demeaned women. Grrrr......

2) I've already said that Simon & Joe commentated just beautifully. But we DO want to hear the table chatter & banter, & via the wonders of an Editing Suite, we could have had both. Instead, we strained to hear the Table banter over the Commentators, with the voices merging over each other. Plain daft.

That apart, excellent viewing, & almost as good as TV Poker gets these days. I'm sorry to say that the Yanks do it better, with the WSOP & WPT coverage etc, but this side of the water, LNP continues to rule. It's not easy, filming "made for TV Poker" I guess, but I much prefer the real thing to artificial studio poker. I guess it's horses for courses, & many enjoy that sort of thing. I could actually enjoy it, if we could just hear the Table Chat properly. I just hope Matchroom take note with their upcoming stuff - we want to hear the players chat - please!

Thats the frustrating thing Tkay, the set, commentators and field were great and I agree that Vicky was very underused but Chilli has explained why. It was the level of poker that let the show down badly, all in after all in, no idea what the chip stacks were, players having 2k swings in chips without the viewer knowing why. The original LNP was the absolute daddy of poker shows but this was v bad in comparison, as I said before it looked like something that was made in the US 5 years ago.

I dont want to get stuck into Presentable because you dont know what they were asked to do re edit and style. The fact that its an hour show is bound to be restrictive but even still this left a lot to be desired for me.

[tikay]

Wow, why on earth did they play so fast? I know it's Edited, but with plenty of chips, an all-in with J-9 called by Q-7, what's that about? And the Final Hand, as far as I could see, they were level on Chips, & it all went in with A-9 v A-6! Maybe that's why I'm so crap at Heads-Up! All I saw was biff-baff stuff, not much subtlety or flop play.

The camerawork was excellent, & the Commentary Duo of Mother Hen & Joe Beevers was as good as it gets, both of them very sharp & concise, well done them. I hope they get paired together in more commentary stuff, they made the Show for me.

Only two downsides.

1) Why use Vicky Coren for the various talk overs? I thought that the Shauna Hyatt eye-candy thing was behind us, but no, the dumbing down continues, & it's seemingly obligitary to have a Female involved just for the sake of it. She may as well have commentated the thing properly - she commentates absolutely fine - but the role they gave her demeaned her talent, & demeaned women. Grrrr......

2) I've already said that Simon & Joe commentated just beautifully. But we DO want to hear the table chatter & banter, & via the wonders of an Editing Suite, we could have had both. Instead, we strained to hear the Table banter over the Commentators, with the voices merging over each other. Plain daft.

That apart, excellent viewing, & almost as good as TV Poker gets these days. I'm sorry to say that the Yanks do it better, with the WSOP & WPT coverage etc, but this side of the water, LNP continues to rule. It's not easy, filming "made for TV Poker" I guess, but I much prefer the real thing to artificial studio poker. I guess it's horses for courses, & many enjoy that sort of thing. I could actually enjoy it, if we could just hear the Table Chat properly. I just hope Matchroom take note with their upcoming stuff - we want to hear the players chat - please!

Thats the frustrating thing Tkay, the set, commentators and field were great and I agree that Vicky was very underused but Chilli has explained why. It was the level of poker that let the show down badly, all in after all in, no idea what the chip stacks were, players having 2k swings in chips without the viewer knowing why. The original LNP was the absolute daddy of poker shows but this was v bad in comparison, as I said before it looked like something that was made in the US 5 years ago.

I dont want to get stuck into Presentable because you dont know what they were asked to do re edit and style. The fact that its an hour show is bound to be restrictive but even still this left a lot to be desired for me.

Well, I hope Vicky is used properly, or not at all, in future Episodes. She's a fine commentator, but giving her 30 seconds of VO made no sense, but perhaps Chili had the answer. Hopefully, we'll hear her Teamed up with either Simon or Joe next time. The doubles work, the treble does not.

Too many all-ins? For poker players, obviously, it goes without saying. But these Shows are made for the general public, not poker players, & they are designed to appeal to them, not us. In that respect, they are stunningly good.

[George2Loose]

Have to agree with Tikay the Yanks are leading the way with their TV coverage.

My fave poker show at the moment is poker after dark. They show EVERY hand. Not much commentary at all, all you hear is table talk and banter from the players

[Acidmouse]

I agree, this is an excellent show, great commentary let down by the 1hr length. Virtually straight away El blondie is out and someone else is down to £1k after two hands.!?

[kenjude]

I just hope Matchroom take note with their upcoming stuff - we want to hear the players chat - please!

And we want them to have room to play please Matchroom.

Check out the William Hill TV thingy from 18 months or so ago that was on Sky, with Johnny Lodden and Esfandiari playing some great poker. It created in this viewer a feeling that the players had room to play as well as a sense of changing dynamics through the heat. 8 handed tables I suspect had something to do with that.

The made-for-TV stuff is becoming horribly dull for poker enthusiasts. Too much of each show is wasted by showing the same old playing guides, player profiles and other "colour" stuff. It's what the red button is for!

To be fair, the first episode of the Matchroom 24 hour cash game DIDN'T actually show the official poker hand ranking ladder last week, and what a refreshing change.

[77dave]

How strange to see the retro late night poker section  showing Joe Beevers smoking at the table how times have changed

[tikay]

How strange to see the retro late night poker section  showing Joe Beevers smoking at the table how times have changed

Yes, that looked so odd, eh? How fast times change.

Great commentary by Mother Hen & Joe, though, that's my memory. And Joe has aged pretty well, too, he looks younger now then he did then.

[AndrewT]

Check out the William Hill TV thingy from 18 months or so ago that was on Sky, with Johnny Lodden and Esfandiari playing some great poker. It created in this viewer a feeling that the players had room to play as well as a sense of changing dynamics through the heat. 8 handed tables I suspect had something to do with that.

It was also the fact that particular tournament had proper deepstacks and long clocks for a sit and go. There was plenty of play. They only filmed one game a day (which may have gone on for hours). Look at the Matchroom Party schedule Tikay posted on another thread - you'll see they play two games a day...

The original LNP was the absolute daddy of poker shows

You do yourself a disservice sir. LNP may have been the daddy, but you raised its greatest son.

[Longy]

I like the current version of LNP, its alot better than alot of the poker we get on tv including matchroom rubbish with nobodies and celeb rubbish.

My recollection of the original appears to be different to most, it was groundbreaking and influential. Yet the structure was very similar to the current version, no? Just at the time we knew no better, maybe someone like ACES may correct me.

The programme isn't long enough but with it being on terrestrial, schedules are tighter and you simply just can't show all the hands. For continuation purposes you have to show exit hands, which tend to be shoveaments. The Mr Cool vs Padraig hand was a bit of a wow moment but i think Mark had less than 10bb's and shoving j9s there is fine, the call by Padraig was very questionable imo.

The original LNP was the benchmark in Poker TV for a long time, but the now defunct William Hill Grand Prix has superseded it and we have been spoiled by this and are expecting LNP to match it, unlikely with Party Poker involved me thinks.

Any chance we will see WHGP resurrected, please?

[Padraig]

THE CALL LOOKED VERY QUESTIONABLE TO ME TOO.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED WASN'T HALF AS MUCH FUN.mARCS BET WASN'T  THE FIRST RAISE AS ADVERTISED.iD ALREADY DONE THAT

[booder]

it was a standard Padraig call..........long may your glass be full sir.


      

[Longy]

THE CALL LOOKED VERY QUESTIONABLE TO ME TOO.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED WASN'T HALF AS MUCH FUN.mARCS BET WASN'T  THE FIRST RAISE AS ADVERTISED.iD ALREADY DONE THAT

Really, wow thats interesting. Thats a cruel bit of editting as it totally distorts what actually happened.

[bobby1]

THE CALL LOOKED VERY QUESTIONABLE TO ME TOO.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED WASN'T HALF AS MUCH FUN.mARCS BET WASN'T  THE FIRST RAISE AS ADVERTISED.iD ALREADY DONE THAT

Then its a deffo value call for sure and that was a terrible piece of editing.