Has Televised Poker Really come to this?

On Saturday I stumbled across the worst televised poker tournament I have ever seen. I know what you're thinking, worse than "Celebrity Poker Showdown" or "Poker Royale - Battle of the Sexes"?

Ultimatebet.net's World Poker Challenge is totally devoid of anything interesting. It basically pits 6 amateurs, who qualified on Ultimatebet.net, trying to win $10k and advance to a final table worth $200k. Seems like an Ok idea, but the players, announcers and production values are all bad.

One announcer even said, "you know, if he really thought about it...he probably has the best hand", when one player was on a draw versus a made hand. Where do they find these guys?

Basically this show is just one long commercial for Ultimatebet, I wonder how many emails you get once you sign up with the .net version to entice a move over to the "dark" side and start playing for real money. I'd put the over/under at 3 a day....

Grinding it out...no thanks.

So I signed up with Noble Poker to get their $700 - 100% deposit bonus, yes I am a sucker for the signup bonuses, and decided to play $1/$2 limit hold'em to grind out the bonus. You basically get 3 points per hand at $1/$2 and higher and once you have 500 points you get $10 of your bonus. So to get the full $700 would take approximately 11,620 raked hands...ouch.

I played for about 20 minutes and was so bored I had to switch to No-Limit Hold'em. To get the full bonus playing limit would take me about 260 hours, forget about it! How anyone can play the extremely low limit limit hold'em for hours at a time, I'll never understand. You can't make any moves at a pot whatsoever, you can't bluff, you can't semi bluff, you may as well just be a robot and play several tables at a time. No one is going to be bluffed out of a decent pot for $1 or $2...I felt like boring old Joey Knish from Rounders, it was torture. Even if you're a great player and getting 3 big bets an hour that's still only minimum wage...what's the point?

Player Nicknames that really suck

I was watching the WPT last night and one guy had actually given himself a nickname. You don't give yourself a nickname, your buddies give you a nickname, preferably a somewhat derogatory one (Please see the story of why Doyle is called "Texas Dolly"). He called himself "Hurricane" Cain. His real nickname is probably Skidmark or something...

So this got me to thinking about how these poker players all have nicknames. So I decided to come up with list of nicknames that should go into retirement:

E-Dog. Erick Lindgren is a great player but this nickname has no pizzazz whatsoever. He should switch it to Erick "Golden Boy" Lindgren.

MurphDog. John Murphy may or may not be a great player, but this nickname is just pure laziness. It's also too much like E-Dog. He likes those stupid 70's trucker hats so his new name should be John "Rubber Duck" Murphy or John "Convoy" Murphy.

Every time I see the WSOP where they had to call his hotel and wake him up, I can't help but think about the Jean Paul, Jean Paul episode of Seinfeld, "Why separate knob...Why separate knob!".

X-22. "X-22" wtf? The nickname has to do with him playing with himself or something...I think in chess or backgammon. This is the nickname of Paul Magriel, also known as the "Quack Quack" guy, he appears to be insane so I'll cut him some slack, the more I think about it, he kinda looks like an X-22.

Dream Crusher. Randy Jensen is a very aggressive player who likes to quickly build a stack or busts out early and goes on to play the cash games. The name is intimidating...but Randy is not, so the name is a tad off, he should go by Randy "Insaniac" Jensen.

However, there are some nicknames that do make sense:

Thomas "Thunder" Keller, Howard "the Professor" Lederer, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson amongst others.

Let me know which nicknames you like or think we need to send out on an ice-flow.

WPT last night...wtf?

Last night's WPT featuring Men "the Master", Gus Hansen, and a cast of other guys was truly bizarre. First off, Danny Nguyen (no relation to "the Master") played like a PartyPoker.com player who just realized he accidentally entered a limit sit-n-go when he meant to join a no-limit one. He played just about any two cards and called all-in bets with total crap (3-4). This guy played more cards than Hansen, and that's saying something.

Of course, the way the show is edited, you never really know how the tourney really plays out, but Danny Nguyen seemed nuts.

If you haven't seen the show, it's the 2005 Bay 101 - Shooting Stars episode, I highly recommend it for the sick bad beat that Danny lays on some shlub. A 247 - 1 bad beat...ouch!

PokerLizard Descending on Vegas

That's right - in less than a month, the PokerLizard crew will make its appearance at the WSOP. Starting July 5, our site will (should) be filled with daily updates, pics, and podcasts directly from the tables (if I can figure those out in time). Having press passes will make it even sweeter, so get ready for tons more interviews and probably a brush-off or two as we make our way in front of every semi-famous player to grab some face time.

We're already receiving daily updates from the press office, so we're working on getting those posted for you.

Oh, and by the way, if anyone knows Negreanu, E-dog, and/or Arieh, tell them they're WEAK for not officially accepting our 3-on-3 hoops challenge for charity. Josh and Daniel thought it sounded like a good idea, but E has yet to answer. Like they've got anything better to do two nights before the Main Event...