Bravo Expands Poker Showdown

[davemackey]

For the forthcoming second season of "Celebrity Poker Showdown", Bravo will be replacing first-season host Kevin Pollak with fomer "Kid In The Hall" Dave Foley, and the new season will consist of 12 two-hour episodes, with two separate 25-star tournaments.

The expansion of the series is due to the ratings success of the show, which ranks with such other Bravo hits as "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" and "Inside The Actors' Studio".

[JayC]

2 hours of Poker?  Can you say excessive and boring after 1 hour (Poker on TV is already pretty boring in my mind)

[goongas]

The World Poker Tour is very successful with its two hour shows.  If you like poker for one hour you will probably like it for two hours as well as you get to see more hands.

[Matt Ottinger]

Bravo's show amused me, so it's good to see they're going to give us a bunch more the second time around.  I look at this show in much the same way as I look at the old panel shows.  The game is watchable enough, but what you're really seeing is a bunch of interesting, clever people being interesting and clever, and taking the game they're playing a lot more seriously than we are.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Mar 19 2004, 11:06 PM\']Bravo's show amused me, so it's good to see they're going to give us a bunch more the second time around.  I look at this show in much the same way as I look at the old panel shows.  The game is watchable enough, but what you're really seeing is a bunch of interesting, clever people being interesting and clever, and taking the game they're playing a lot more seriously than we are.[/quote]
Which I why I find "Celeb Poker Showdown" more entertaining than the other poker shows on the air--it's a chance to see the famous and semi-famous with their guard down, similar to classic "Password" (Allen Ludden:  "You'll learn more about a star after a week on 'Password' than in any magazine profile").

I do wonder if Foley's going to be snarkier than Pollak's Mr. Vegas and bring unwelcome touches of VH1 to the show.

[ChuckNet]

For the forthcoming second season of "Celebrity Poker Showdown", Bravo will be replacing first-season host Kevin Pollak with fomer "Kid In The Hall" Dave Foley, and the new season will consist of 12 two-hour episodes, with two separate 25-star tournaments.

Any word as to whether or not poker champ Phil Gordon will be returning as co-host?

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[carlopanno]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Mar 22 2004, 03:38 PM\']I do wonder if Foley's going to be snarkier than Pollak's Mr. Vegas and bring unwelcome touches of VH1 to the show.[/quote]
A look at Dave Foley's work on NewsRadio shows that he's the master of the boomerang line that circles its mark and makes lethal contact from behind. His work on Celebrity Poker Showdown may well show off this skill -- if he knows his way around poker like Kevin Pollak does.

I think World Poker Tour is bloated and slow, and the $500,000 stakes may have something to do with this. I much preferred Celebrity Poker Showdown's leaner one-hour running time: If I want to see some bimbo eating up time with a meaningless interview I'll watch Sexcetera on Playboy TV, not World Poker Tour.

--C

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Mar 23 2004, 12:48 AM\'] Any word as to whether or not poker champ Phil Gordon will be returning as co-host?
 [/quote]
 Gordon does return as co-host.

[CaseyAbell]

I'm a fan of the Travel Channel poker shows, but they do seem to lounge a little at two hours. They load up with eye candy, plugs for the casino, overlong interviews with the players, trivia questions, and human-interest segments. Maybe I'm just looking at them with a different eye after I've seen the crisper hour-long blackjack shows on GSN. Plus the long pauses for bluffs and stare-downs get tedious after, say, the second long pause for a bluff or a stare-down.

But I'll still watch. And I'll try to catch some of the Bravo shows. I'm such a lousy card-player myself, it's a guilty pleasure to watch other people lose for a change.