Quote Originally Posted by JeffDime View Post
It was all pretty good for about the first half of it…but then unfortunately you can’t get around the poker portion of a poker reality show. Sit N Goes don’t make great viewing. I see what they did by really trying to make it about the reactions of the teams talking shit in the back.

But just taking some hands and trying to add an element of suspense to them by drawing them out just doesn’t do it for me. Who is up and who is down? What are the blinds? It would hold my interest more if I had some semblance of how the Sit N Go is progressing rather than a few hands in isolation.

Does anyone even remember the cliff hanger? Because I forgot it. I still will keep watching and holding my interest is probably a bit tougher than than average viewer. My feeling is if you are going to show Sit N Goes I understand you have to be creative to make them suspenseful. But let’s have some idea of the actual flow of play.

The casting is missing a villain and also a dynamic personality. To be fair, there really aren’t many of them left in this age of poker. I agree a strong personality like Selbst would help put. Josh maybe 15 years ago was a real shit stirrer. I think the cast is a bit too polished, image conscious and/or reserved. Should have cast Big Huni.

I didn’t watch Jesse Martin win Big Brother Canada but apparently (according to him lol) he was polarizing when he won. I think the casting was GG pros and very much depended on connections and friendships. Not really what would make great reality TV.

That all being said, the bar for poker shows is so low that is why seemingly everyone is collectively jizzing their shorts over this. I think I really need to see another episode to see if this was just a strong pilot or if they can keep my attention.
We definitely have different takes on this. This is 100% memory from a few days ago but I felt stack sizes and blinds were always shown throughout the whole thing. Everyone started with 2 million chips so very easy to calculate where people were. They started with 10k bb plus antes and looked like 30 min levels from clock in background. I was watching on 4k TV so maybe different in browser but I could always see blinds in bottom right. Now they could have done a much better job of explaining structure to those who couldn't pick up on it. Final hand if I remember correctly was Ukrainian who had over 3 million raising UTG/CO to 110k (assuming 40k blinds) , Kyna going all in on button for 800k. BB Indian girl nearly snap folding AQ. This hand stands out to me as I don't know what ICM solvers would say but with big stack to act it's a lot harder to call AQ even 4 handed. Then Ukrainian calls the all in with AK. To me its a very memorable hand on par with one of the first one's where Kyna rivers her straight but under bets.

As said though I'd like more recaps on overall stack sizes rather than having to go by memory and also payouts for finishing. Hoping they will do this more in later games as previous results will impact that games strategy.

In defense of Maria Ho I for got to mention I watched her on the amazing race back in the day so she definitely has a good resume to be on here outside of her poker.

As for Kevin Martin on bigbrother I didn't see him as polarizing but he did play a cutthroat game. Keep in mind a lot of viewers and players are literal idiots who can't seem to grasp basic concepts.

Bonus footage below below of how stupid Canadian bigbrother players can be. The vote BTW below resulted in 4-3 win for Jillian (Topaz was Gary's best friend int he house and cost him 100k)