Lee Davy reviews PokerStars latest TV show: The Shark Cage, and shares his opinion with anyone bored enough to listen.
I have just finished watching 48 minutes and 12 seconds of the latest poker incarnation to hit the television screens.
How do I feel?
The Shark Cage is a made for TV production presented by PokerStars. There are eight heats containing six players apiece. I watched Episode #1 and the make up of the table seems to be 1 x celebrity (Jason Alexander), 3 x professional poker players (Tony Dunst, Phil Laak & Lex Veldhuis), and 1 x online qualifier (Gareth Coles). The winner of each heat goes through to the final where the winner takes home $1m.
So what makes this TV event any different from those that laid a path before it?
The biggest gimmick is The Shark Cage. Essentially, when the action reaches the river, you can press a BLUFF button (hidden under the table) and if you successfully bluff your opponent, they have to spend one orbit in the Shark Cage (a sin bin). If your opponent successfully calls your bluff, then the bluffer spends an orbit in the Shark Cage.
The shows creators obviously realized that bluffing is a huge part of the appeal for non-poker people, but the one orbit penalty wasn’t interesting enough for me. Watching a player standing in an open door cage was not exactly entertainment.
In a show like this, the entertainment comes from one of two sources. The first is the characters. The casting for these things is essential. There is absolutely no point in having the world’s greatest poker players in this format. It will do nothing for the show because you only get to see approx. 9/10 hands of any note before the inevitable shove-fest begins.
The first time that I heard Tony Dunst speak was when he said ‘all-in’. Tony is a charismatic guy. Why else would he have been appointed as the World Poker Tour (WPT) Raw Deal host? But on a 48-min TV show you need to be all over that camera, otherwise you aint worth shit.
The coverage also showed Dunst to be a very tight player. This is another complete bomb for a show like this. If you are not going to be playing many hands then it’s a disaster for the event. TV shows need action and the players are the ones to give that. Phil Laak was a classic example of a made for TV poker personality with a lot of jabber, and a lot of action.
The other gimmick that the show possessed was the shot clock. Where the Shark Cage bombed, the introduction of the shot clock was genius. Each player received 30-seconds to make their move, and had 2 x additional 30-second time bank chips. It was clear for everyone to see that this was more than enough time for even the most complex decisions. I have no doubt, after watching this event, that tournament organizers will be eager to find a cost effective, and non-disruptive way of having this in all of their major events.
The qualifier effect adds a little bit of Reality TV into the mix. The sob story, the hard luck story, the fairytale victory. Only life isn’t like that anymore. Episode #1 qualifier was Gareth Coles. A young man who had previously won a SCOOP event. The days of the fairytale qualifier are long gone. Coles actually went on to win the event despite being the only person sin binned twice, showing that the Shark Cage is more like a little tiddler cage.
It was great to see poker back on the TV, but it will not survive if the essential elements are not in the mix. You need a romance story and this has to come in the format of the online qualifier. The only problem you have is the online qualifiers are too bloody good and it takes away the romance. I think the only way around this is to make the online qualifiers more of a luckfest than they currently are. Perhaps, one way of doing this is to run a Spin & Go series of qualifiers?
Tight players cannot be invited on this show. They will be the death of it. Loose aggressive maniacs are an absolute must. If you have a loose aggressive maniac, who never opens his mouth, and yet keeps trying to put people in the Shark Cage, then it will be a winner.
Characters are everything. You are trying to tell a story – get the cast right. TV shows about poker are no place for the world’s best players. Select the players with the biggest gobs, the worse dress sense imaginable, or the biggest blow-ups. TV poker is not about who is the best, it’s about who is the most entertaining. The poker community will not keep these shows going, the non-poker playing community will. Give them something to laugh about.
Create a great structure. Allow the creation of great play, therefore giving the production team something worthy of a 48-minute show. Even the best characters in the game will struggle to create a poker show without some cringe worthy, stupid, or ballsy action.
Now here’s the crux.
Episode #1 didn’t do it for me. I will not be watching Episode #2. If I feel like this then how many others feel the same? TV productions about poker need to be on the money. If they are off point they will drown, and you won’t need a single shark to do any damage at all.
