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Martin Devlin: Poker is the worst sport on television

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 23 Apr 2020, 12:31PM

Martin Devlin: Poker is the worst sport on television

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 23 Apr 2020, 12:31PM

Poker is the worst sport on television. And it's not even a sport.

Yesterday a bouquet for sport on TV, today a brickbat. If the Last Dance doco represents the highlight of small screen replays during this lockdown, then poker on ESPN is the lowlight.

If there has ever been a bigger pile of who-cares-tosh I struggle to find it.

Poker is a great game to play. It's also a terrible game to watch. Pointless drivel in fact played by a bunch of anonymous no-names. These people, try as the hype machine does, aren't sporting "stars".

Case in point, name me one professional player you know - or have  even heard of. As a sports fan, if you consider yourself to have even a respectable smattering of general knowledge, you'll have no idea.

Plus when they programme this rot they blanket the coverage ALL DAY.

Back to back boring episodes of some world masters classic invitational load of old cobblers. There is nothing worse. It actually makes re-runs of Krygios vs Nadal from some irrelevant satellite tennis tournament seem worth watching. Almost.

And don't even get me started on the fact they wear sunglasses, hats, bandanas and all other means of facial disguise. What a complete crock.

There's half the contest gone right there. Poker, as I'm sure you know, is ALL about the bluff. The art of the bluff is entirely what separates those who can play from those who just pretend. Reading the other person IS the game. Their body language, mood, pauses, sighs, eyebrow raise, or not.

The eyes. Do they flicker, avoid, excessively blink, dart around, look up, down, show the same "tells" under similar duress. This IS what poker is at any level of itself. But even if they took the silly sunglasses off I still wouldn't watch. BECAUSE IT'S NOT SPORT. put it on the Living Channel.

Put it on PPV. I bet (no pun intended), what i mean is I make the call (no pun intended), that there would not be a single buy-in (every pun intended).

Finally, just in case you thought the whole world wasn't stark raving bonkers, The Last Dance was not the most-watched show on Netflix last weekend.

In fact it was #2 behind "Too Hot to Handle" - a reality tv show where a big bunch of beautiful folk in skimpy swimwear are allowed to do everything with each other except have sex. I kid you not. As good as TLD is/was, not even Michael Jordan could compete with that. Mind you I'll bet the entire pot that in 22 years time no-one's watching re-runs of that either.

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