Damn, that was some pretty fine poker playing! The heads-up at the end was just nuts. I’m a total novice so I tried to test myself on how I’d play each hand, trying as much as I could to forget that I could see the hole cards. I would’ve done the same thing as the players about 85% of the time, which I guess means I play poker like a girl.
The only thing that really marred it for me was Vince Van Patten’s stupid commentary, especially his “estrogen” comments and most especially his calling a pair of queens “West Hollywood.” Because West Hollywood has a large gay population and isn’t it funny for him to slur gay men like that? I emailed the network and GLAAD.
I wish they would’ve spent less time on the profiles of the players, or at the least focused less on the hubbie and kiddies routine. They don’t that I recall talk about the wives of the male players (other than quick cuts if they’re in the audience) so emphasising the marriages of the women players seems a little sexist.
You know, I was watching it and got almost the exact opposite reaction. It seemed to me that the women were not playing that well, except for Annie Duke. Harmon got short stacked after Clonie (who, without a doubt, is the most annoying person I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing on the WPT, and that includes Phil Hellmuth) got lucky, she went on tilt with 3 all-in’s in a row. The first time was a bold move, the second time, with the 8’s was brilliant, and the third time was sheer stupidity. Feduniak got short stacked and went all in with crap. And Clonie just got lucky.
As a whole, it seemed to me that the whole tournament was less about skilled play and more about getting damn lucky. I think the women played so conservative that the blinds kept going up and up and up, until you really had no choice but to go all in or fold. That’s why, again it seemed to me, that the head-to-head, had little or nothing to do with skilled play, but more with who caught the lucky cards at the end. Now a great deal of success in poker is luck, but for this tournament it seemed to be nothing but.
Good for you. The comment pissed me off also. I was annoyed by the almost palpable condescending by Vince and Mike that was throught the show, but that comment really got my goat.
Sure it was sexist, but I couldn’t help but be intrigued by who these women are. After watching the show, it seemed to me Maureen (and don’t get me started on that idiotic little stuffed bear she got from her husband. What a dolt.) and Clonie were trophy wives who play professional poker and can lose a ton because their hubby’s are rich. On the flip side, I really liked Annie Duke dropping out of grad school and getting instruction from her brother, and Jennifer Harmon being the breadwinner for her family. They seemed like a couple of regular poker players who know what they’re doing.
The end stages of tournaments tend to be like that - and unfortunately because they only had 2 hours to show it to us they artificially structured this tournament like the end of a tournament.
Most of the skilled play you’d see is at the early and middle stages - but if you start with jacked up blinds like that it’s equivelant to being the end stage.
So there’s not a whole lot of room for manuevering at that point -pot odds automatically dictate all-in calls in all sorts of circumstances.
I wasn’t especially impressed by any of the play, but with that structure they didn’t really have all that much room for interesting play. It was certainly competant, all around, for the most part - but less skillful than you might expect out of the people who worked their way through a big tournament to finally hit the final table.
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They were just being how they usually are - it wasn’t like they suddenly got like that for women players.
I thought they did it because normally professional poker playing is looked upon as seedy and unreputable. So it was such a contrast to see a normal house wife in that roll. I didn’t think it was sexist so much as you wouldn’t get the same contrast out of, say, a bio on Hellmuth.
Well, maybe it’s my inexperience, but I thought by and large all of them played well for the most part. There were some really bad plays (like the third all-in you mentioned, and Ng went all in heads-up once and I thought she was just insane…and she got caught too). But hey, I’m a sucker for a good all-in, and lucky cards or not, you gotta admit watching million-dollar pots swing back and forth several times in heads-up play is pretty exciting.
wpt@worldpokertour.com Fire away. Van Patten irritates me in general as a commentator. He pops off with these cutesy little nicknames for hands (does anyone really call J-5 “Motown”?). I love it when he goes ballistic over, say, A-10, “He’s picked up a MONSTER hand!” and Sexton is like “It’s a good hand, not really a monster hand” and Van Patten backs off his comment like he’s been scolded (which he sort of has). There’s gotta be someone out there willing to sit second chair who doesn’t sound like a dolt. Lou Diamond Phillips, are you listening?
And I was interested in the lives of the women, but it just seemed like with the exception of Kathy Lieber (who strikes me as a lesbian, and isn’t it interesting she was the only one who wasn’t shown with a husband or an ex-boyfriend?) it was pretty much “here’s my house and here’s my husband” and little else. I dunno, maybe I’m overreacting. Oh, but you know what else bugged me? When they showed a chip count, the women were identified by first name only. I am positive that the male players are identified by their full names. It just seemed so disrespectful.
Yeah, VVP is “color” commentary who’s pretty ignorant about poker in general. I remember one egregious incident with the WPT episode with devilfish - where he was bluffing with 52s and got reraised - and after putting on a show, VVP said “he’s really thinking about calling!” and I wanted to slap the idiot.
Oh, heh, and if you want to catch some bad poker, watch that Bravo “Celebrity Poker Showdown” show.
I can understand non-pros playing badly - but you’d think if these actors knew they’d be going on a show like this in front of a large audience they’d try to pick up the game. Some of that play was terrible.
Ben Affleck of all people was the only decent poker player there so far.
There’s a difference between “PC blandness” (congratulations, by the way, on resorting to the dis of last resort…“can’t think of any real reason to object so I’ll call it ‘political correctness’”) and objecting to an insulting jackass. I wonder if you’d babble about “PC blandness” had Van Patten, say, referred to a spade flush as a “Harlem.”
That wasn’t some random “dis” of last resort, it was, I thought, a rational analysis of your actions.
I’m not sure what you mean - I’m not labelling what he said here PC blandness, but the fact that it’s edited out because someone has to freak out at something they perceive as offensive rather than let it go. In this case, I would call it PC blandness if someone felt so insulted and offended that they had to write in about such a usage, yes.
First, I didn’t “freak out.” Suggesting that my objecting to an anti-gay slur means I “freaked out” about it is ridiculous.
Second, labeling objecting to a slur as “PC blandness” is fucked up. Maybe you don’t find slurs of gay men insulting. I do. I’m sorry that, based on your objection, you think that slurring gay people on national television is no big deal. I do.
Third, you apparently didn’t get the example I offered. To spell it out for you, let’s say that instead of playing pocket queens, Jennifer Harmon had flopped a spade flush and VVP had called it a “Harlem.” Harlem is a section of New York City which is known as having a large black population. “Spade” is a derogatory way to refer to black people. Would you similarly label an objection to that comment as “PC blandness”? Or are slurs against other minorities important enough to warrant an objection?
I re-watched the episode this afternoon. The comment had been excised and the episode was no less engaging for its absense. So stop freaking out over something you perceive as “PC blandness” and let it go.
The way you reacted was the subject of what I posted about - so how is classifying the way you acted somehow tangenital to what I spoke about?
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You felt compelled enough to email them - seems like freaking out to me.
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Yes, and that’s why I classified you as overly sensitive, I guess. I’m fat, but I don’t write NBC every time they have a fat joke. I don’t make it my duty to get offended and be the humor police when I determine something to be too risque.
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Aha.
In general, whenever people find something so offensive and objectionable that they try to contact the source and have them edit it - I consider that entirely overly reactive. That’s a personal thing on my part, I guess, but I’m sick of knee-jerk reactions from [insert group here] raising a storm about everything. As such, I tend to think of all such groups as supporting “PC blandness”, because the cummulative effect of all of this is to make us so careful of what we say as to be ridiculous.
So, yes, I suppose I would’ve regarded such a strong reaction to that comment in the same light.
Indeed, I’m so upset that I’m going to write you an email to ask you to stop addressing me like that and to have a moderator edit your posts in previous postings so that I won’t be subjected to that horror again.
No, “freaking out” would be flying to their headquarters and throwing together a picket line. Freaking out would be threatening them in some fashion. Emailing them and requesting that they apply the same standards toward anti-gay slurs on their airwaves as they undoubtedly do with any other minority group is not “freaking out.” Labeling it as such is a bizarre and deliberate mischaracterization of me and the act.
And when I hear a slur broadcast on national television and do something about it, only to be told by someone that not only do I pretty much have no business complaining about it but no business even being annoyed by it, I find that to be messed up. You seem to have this image of me sitting at my computer, seething and hissing, unable to rest until I right this terrible injustice that was done. That ain’t how it happened. The slur was broadcast. At the end of the show I spent all of seven minutes tops going to the WPT website and sending an email, which got near-immediate results.
I’m really sorry that you choose to interpret not accepting bigotry as a fight for “PC blandness,” but that’s your damage, not mine. If you choose not to react to slurs, whether they be aimed at gays or blacks or fat people, that’s your choice. But there’s no need for you to piss on the corn flakes of those who prefer not to sit there and take it.
And if your little heart is so unable to take my posts in this thread, there’s a simple answer for you and your poor heart. Stop clicking on the thread.
SenorBeef, it was a crude, immature, sexually tinted, comment by VanPatten and the network is well within its rights to excise w/o it meaning it’s a victory for “PC Blandness”. If I want that kind of material I’ll watch Howard Stern.
I think the problem here is that you’re giving VVP a little too much credit. There are a million nicknames for starting hands that were all made up long before VVP came around. If I had to guess, he probably has some sheet in front of him that has a huge list of “colorful” names for any given starting hand. All he does is parrot them back in an attempt to sound witty. Half the time he probably says it without even realizing what the nickname means. All the nicknames are just part of poker culture, and sure the background on some of them might be slightly “edgy” but is it really worth all the hassle?
And since you’re on an email kick, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him reference “The San Francisco Bus Boy” in the past. The starting hand of Q3, or a queen with a tray. Better make sure you email them and let them know about that too. And here’s a link to a page on CNN that mentions the same hand… http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/books/04/23/poker.glossary/
Better get to them too and let them know about the slurs they are making so they can cleanse it from their pages and save the world from such derogitory comments! They also mention the hand of 33, also known as “crabs”. Better let them know about this too. It might offend shellfish, or those of us struck with the plague of pubic lice.
I mean really, do you have nothing better to do with your time than worry about some silly one off comment made by a barely conscious game show host?
Do you have nothing better to do with yours than jump my shit about it?
I’m requesting this thread be locked. ANyone who cares to discuss the episode in question further is free to start a new thread. Anyone who wishes to continue jumping my shit for not wishing to tolerate anti-gay slurs on TV is cordially invited to the Pit.