I just woke up from a very long, deep slumber induced by Poker Night in America’s “Grudge Match” between Cate Hall and Mike Dentale.
To say the live stream from Pennsylvania’s SugarHouse Casino was boring would be woefully understating it. The truth is, if this represents the future of poker broadcasting, we’re all in big trouble.
Keyboard warriors fail to entertain
The R-rated Twitter spat that spawned the match suggested Hall and Dentale would engage in a war of wits and words when they hit the felt. Instead, Hall proved to be more keyboard warrior than entertaining TV personality.
She hid behind a pair of sunglasses and her smartphone most of the time and never once raised the level of her table talk anywhere close to what she displayed on social media.
To put it bluntly, Hall was boring. She may have won the match handily, but she lost all credibility as a player fit to carry any kind of broadcast.
Poker used to be filled with entertaining and engaging characters that TV viewers tuned in to see. The boom was built on the backs of these many personalities.
Somewhere along the way, a lot of that personality got sucked out of the game. Based on her online presence, it looked like Hall might be able to inject some back in. However, she turned out to be less entertaining than paint drying once the cameras started rolling.