Just thought I’d ask, so we can talk about why I don’t like them. I just think they are annoying. Not sure what exactly makes me not like it. Just not sure…
Someone’s watching either Vince Van Patten on the WPT repeat or a repeat of some WSOP coverage with the horrifying Norman Chad…
Depends on the commentator. The aforementioned VVP and Chad are terrible. Mike Sexton is good, Michael Konik is usually pretty good. Gabe Kaplan when he isn’t doing awful schtick is usually pretty good. Howard Lederer is excellent, Chris Rose knows he’s not an expert so contents himself with being a decent sideman. Who else is out there…Chad Brown doesn’t suck but he’s nothing special either.
Now for shitty commentary, try some of the schmucks they have doing blackjack. Matt Vasgersian and Max Rubin are usually pretty good, the dips from the last World Series of Blackjack were an embarrasment but mostly because they were apparently obligated to rference the Burger King Power Chip every other sentence. The not-Max-Rubin guy from the Ultimate Blackjack Tour is pretty bad but that largely I think has to do with the awful format of the program.
The only thing more boring than watching people play poker is lisening to people talk about playig poker.
How dare you! Norman Chad is the man. I maintain that anyone making any money from poker today (which I am) should buy this man a beer. His hilarious and accessible commentary has done just as much to help along the current poker boom as Moneymaker’s big win. Without a guy like Chad, a lot of people today wouldn’t know a big blind from a full house, and so they’d never pick up the game. Norman Chad’s commentary is +EV for players like me.
And beyond that, he’s hilarious. I loved him when he was a guest/substitute cohost on PTI. He was hilarious then, but now that he’s doing poker, he’s really kicked it up. It’s entertaining, and that’s all you can ask for. The way TV poker is edited (ie, an hour broadcast will contain only about 12 hands) there’s no way to understand the context of the big hands, and so inciteful commentary is essentially impossible. So all I ask from TV commentators is that they make some basic observations (enough to let the fish think they’re winning players 
) and keep me entertained. No one does that like Norm.
Beyond Norm, Gabe Kaplan is quite good on HSP, Mike Sexton is the gold standard of class, professionalism, and knowledge, and everyone else sucks.
I forgot to mention that Norm insults jerks better than anyone. At this year’s main event, there was a major young jerk named Eric Molina who criticised everyone one day. (My sources tell me that he was quite drunk at the time.) At one point he said something along the lines of “You called my all-in with King Jack offsuit? What are you doing making that call?” which prompted Norm to ask, “What are you doing unsupervised?” I know funny, and that’s it.
Reading message board posts about how boring listening to poker commentary is, is way more boring than either.
As for Norman Chad, he’s said exactly one funny thing on a poker commentary ever: “I saw the Chris Ferguson bobble head doll the other day. The head didn’t move.” His schtick is so not funny (har har, he was married a bunch of times and his ex-wives hate him, har har har) and it doesn’t get any funnier through its endless repetition. If I hear him talk about an Uno deck one more time I may have to fly to Vegas and slit his throat. Not to mention that he simply blows the calls an inordinate percentage of the time. Norman, pal, you’re recording your commentary weeks or months after the hand was played, if you need to stop to figure out the wins then you can.
Forgot about the PPT commentators, Mark Seif and Matt something, Corbboy? I’ve watched ten episodes of the PPT and I still can’t tell their voices apart.
Well, Otto, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree about Chad.
And I had forgotten just how truly terrible the PPT commentators are. My TV remote needs a “mute Mark Seif and that other guy” button. We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t shut those two up?
Well, I’m with Otto. I can’t stand Norman Chad. There’s nothing worse than somebody that’s unfunny that thinks they’re funny. Maybe if you’re playing a drinking game and doing a shot everytime he mentions a divorce it’d be… tolerable since you’d be passed out. Back when I had a somewhat regular game going everybody else, to a man,hated him too.
Oh Chad’s commentary is inciteful all right. It incites me to punch him in the stomach.
As with any televised event, poker commentary is useful when it illuminates subtleties that the average fan might miss. Phil Gordon was particularly good at this, despite not having great material to work with on Celebrity Poker Showdown.
Bad commentary is simply uninformed yammering about superficial details that have no bearing on strategy or outcome.
Good:
“He’s calling with nothing here so that he can take the pot away if a scare card comes on fourth street.”
Bad:
“There’s the ace of spades, Lon, the most beautiful card in poker.”
Slightly off-topic… I think far and away the most entertaining poker show on TV is High Stakes Poker.
My last three ex-wives didn’t like poker commentators either, Norm.
But seriously,
I also disagree 100% with the OP, and pretty much agree with everyone else…
Though with regard to Norman Chad, I think he adds something intangible, a bit of humor I guess.
Unless you’re speaking of lamo shows like Mansion Poker which is full of rank amateurs, they’re all pretty good IMHO.
Lederer’s a little boring, but he also tends to give more insight than most.
I agree, 100%.
Actually the jerk moved in with QJ and was called by AT… but I agree Molina needed a fucking diaper.
“If I raise $100,000, what are you doing calling with AT?”
Uh, because you’re a dick and constantly raise with crap, and I’m shortstacked, and I know you’re full of shit? Oh yeah, also because I knew had the best hand you little twerp?
He also started shit with Jamie Gold, before Gold folded then immediately called him for “The F Bomb”.
p.s. I’m no Gold fan, though my wife is.
Norm rocks, I probably wouldn’t watch the WSOP if it weren’t for him. Yes his marriage and Uno / Gin Rummy jokes are beyond stale, but he has a nice modest sense of humor. He also doesn’t hesitate to call people out for being asses, which is something Phil Gordon never did. Lon is a good straight man foil for Norm. Their combined schtick, I dunno, what’s the word… “cute.”
Mike and Vince are fun but they get annoying after awhile. Together they’ve come up with some pretty great phrases like “milking him like a holstien.” I always giggle when Mike calls someone out for having incredible heart, as if they were watching gladiators instead of smelly degenerates. The problem with Mike and Vince is they say the same exact crap every episode, line for line.
The worst is the guys on PPT. I could only stand one show before I stopped watching entirely. Is WPT canceled or is it coming back?
Yeah, the Phil Gordon/Dave Foley pairing worked very well because Gordon knew everything and Foley knew nothing, but Foley wasn’t an idiot about knowing nothing. He knew his job was to make jokes and set Gordon up for comments on the play and he did it well. Phil Hellmuth is a much weaker commentator than Gordon was. He spends too much time talking about himself and a lot of times when he’s talking about the players he’s actually talking about himself.
The poker isn’t the best in the Dome, but I think Michael Konik is a good commentator. I think he works better with Barry Thompkins than he does with many of the others who’ve been rotating in and out. As for the level of play itself in the Dome, it’s probably closer to what most of us are actually playing ourselves and what we’re up against so I find it useful to watch.
IIRC Gold also challenged him to a last longer bet, which the baby didn’t take him up on. Not that I would have either since Gold had him outchipped something like 20 or 30 to 1 at that point but then I wouldn’t have opened a mouth the way the baby did either. And I didn’t like Gold either; there were times when he should’ve gotten penalties for his table talk and didn’t and he also got insanely lucky.
True.
True.
I really, really like the format of the PPT, enough so that I don’t mind about the commentary (my feelings on ESPN’s WSOP coverage are almost diametrically opposite). The PPT and High Stakes Poker are by far the best poker shows currently on, in my opinion.
Can’t really agree on PPT almost solely because of the commentary. HSP is great to watch but, again, the commentary too often interferes. I’ve lost track of the number of times that someone in the game has been saying something really interesting and Kaplan especially but sometimes Benza busts in over the top of it with some inane shit. Yes Gabe, your old Jewish man shtick that every Catskills comic has been doing for the last hundred years is hilarious, now can you please shut up and let Doyle Brunson finish his story?
I just think the format of the two is the most interesting. A leisurely pace (unlike the WSOP coverage, you don’t only get to see the QQ v. AK hands), full tables, much better play – or at least much more experienced players – than you typically find at a WPT final table. And they all know each other, so you get the entertaining byplay.
I love how the PPT shows you each stage of a tournament, too. Watching players maneuver with deep stacks is fascinating.
Leave Chad alone and attack Helmuth like yolu should. His ego overfills the tv and drips onto my carpet. He never lost a hand that he didnt get screwed,.
That’s true, but has Chad even played a hand?