Despite the onslaught of ads every twenty-three seconds doing its damndest to make me entirely sick of the concept, I’m planning on watching. A group of top gamblers in a number of disciplines competing against each other in several games for a million dollar winner-take-all prize.
Hey Otto, I’m in for a look-see. But I really don’t know what to expect. Well i just checked the Bios, and I think I recognize a couple of them: Max (who I thought had pictures of someone at ESPN considering some of the bad shows he created there), and David I recognize from Poker shows.
We’ll see if the producers have learned anything from the successful reality shows.
Actually, I completely missed the hotties on the show. Now I’m ready for the show!
Well. That was…not good. It seems sort of unfair not to have everyone competing on the same games each round. They didn’t explain what was going on as the games were being played. I had quite a bit of trouble following the Carribean Stud, and the hold 'em was especially poorly done. Matusow loses the first pot, then on the next shown hand he’s above $20,000 on a double up? And then what happened to his chips after he was “sitting pretty”?
Yeah, the games section was really quick, and I couldn’t follow what was happening. Even in blackjack, it seemed like they were playing one deck (or maybe one shoe) only. Out of nowhere came “last hand” calls. I guess I’m ok with different teams playing different games, it’s all part of luck to become the king of vegas. (and being capable at every game.)
The wierd game to show was Roulette. Just showing people’s big bets? When I look at a roulette table I look for what trends each player is making, maybe it would’ve been helpful to have more identifiable chips. maybe not.
I may take off from this show until it gets down to a more manageable number of people. (and we’ve gotten rid of the chaff)
I don’t get how roulette or craps will identify anything other than the luckiest players. They may as well be playing slots.
Well, there are betting systems to roulette, but the ones I know about involve observing a particular wheel for hundreds or thousands of spins to detect any bias, then betting segments of the wheel. In this particular case, there’s some strategy involved in betting in reaction to other peoples’ bets. As on the apparent first spin when Matusow bet it all on black and the jackass in red bet everything on red, for example. Matusow knew that roulette was going to be all luck and that he was likely to crush any of them at poker, so he correctly played either to double up or head for the poker table. The jackass knew by betting the opposite color he’d either double up himself or not have to worry about playing Matusow, arguably the best hold 'em player alive today, in poker. But other than that it all seemed pretty much like luck, with the jackass hitting the 0 and Evelyn Ng hitting her number twice.
As for craps, there are those who claim they can control the throw of the dice well enough to give them a significant advantage, and if one is betting against other players rather than the house then strategic bets are possible. I don’t understand the intricacies of craps so I’m at a loss as to how to play strategically.
What a dumb idea for a show.
The commentators kept talking about how so and so was an expert in craps and that gambling was all about skill and psychology. What the fuck are they talking about? Playing craps or roulette or anything like that is no more skillful than picking numbers for the lottery.
Why don’t they put that on TV? We can have expert lottery number pickers.
That there are “expert” gamblers are just nonsense. I could teach you the optimal strategy for craps in about 6 words, and it’s still a losing strategy, it’s just the best because it loses the least.
It’s not a bad idea ofr a show; it’s just IMHO really poorly executed.
In the bulk of the games that are being featured, it seems the skill and psychology come into play because it’s competitive. If I’m playing, for example, blackjack against the house, my card strategy is going to be (probably) basic book strategy and my betting strategy is probably going to be close to non-existent. But in a tournament setting I’m going to make decisions with the cards and with my betting in response to what other players are doing. I recall watching a blackjack tournament where player A had to hit a 19 against a dealer 10 because the only way he could beat player B with his 20 was to hit 21 and have player B push. And damn if he didn’t hit a 2 for a 21 against the dealer 20 for the win.
Some of the strategy/psychology was evident in the roulette, as I mentioned earlier. We haven’t seen craps yet so it’s unknown how much strategy can be employed.
Right Otto, It’s called tournament strategy, and the idea is to manage your risk against the results of your opponenets risks. If one player is betting big, and winning, you need to adjust your strategy and get more aggressive to catch up (even if you have to make inadvisable plays). If the player is betting big and losing, then you can get more conservative.
That’s the basic strategy, since they are reacting to your bets and success too
Anybody else make it through episode 2?
Me, I’m pretty sure I’m done. I’ll watch pretty much any gambling show that comes on, but this one is so poorly done it’s unbelievable. They had blackjack again, and apparently the final hand was very tense because one player had to get more money out in order to guarantee he would advance. He split tens and got a 15 and a 11/21. He then doubled the 11 and got 21. So he had three bets out. The dealer hit to 21, which meant that he lost one bet and pushed the other two, which should have meant that his result was the same as if he hadn’t split or doubled, down one bet. Yet he was congratulated by the commentators for his play (which was, admittedly, great tourney play) and he advanced. You know what would have been helpful here? Some numbers. An explanation as to how losing an amount equal to his original bet translated into a win. It was just impossible to follow. Add to that confusion the assholish behaviour of a couple of the players and the repeated insistence that there is some skill to playing Acey-deucey and I’ll find some other way to spend that hour for the next two months.