After watching the World Series Of Poker Europe, John Tabatabai says the highlights is like watching bad reality TV
It’s been a month of celebrations for me. I reached the grand old age of 23 and attended the wedding of an old school friend. Before the latter descended into an orgy of champagne and shameless disco classics, I was lucky enough to enjoy some amusing speeches. The groom, who is several years older than the bride, joked about how he had begun to watch reality television in a bid to ignite conversation with the young lady he now calls his wife.
His reference to reality TV as ‘drivel’ made me wonder what it is that I find so abhorrent about the medium’s popularity. The answer evaded me until I watched the recent coverage of last year’s World Series of Poker Europe on Sky Sports.
One of the greatest aspects of my success (John finished second in the £10,000 WSOPE Main Event) was the calibre of the players taking part. Arguably one of the greatest fields ever assembled, I was excited to watch the best players in the world battle it out in a prestigious event.
For any budding poker players it should have been a great opportunity to witness some inspirational play on the baize. And from a personal perspective I was also quite excited to relive some of the best poker I’ve ever played.
Despite the constant jibes from friends about losing to a girl I was eagerly anticipating the ‘rabbit-cam’ perspective of my four-hour heads-up with Annette Obrestad. My subsequent disappointment has only been matched by that felt by my parents when they learned that their young, budding lawyer of a son is making a living from cards.
A few hours of outdraws, set-ups, player monologues and a three-hand heads-up was the sum total of what will be one of the world’s greatest poker events. My personal contribution seemed to be a run of pocket Kings, a suck- out and… well, that’s pretty much it – not one bluff, not any ‘good poker’.
Reality bites It was at this point that I realised I had become part of reality television, stuck in a programme rife with editing, and which tries to pass itself off as entertainment.
Despite poker’s sedentary disposition, poker players and fans deserve to see all the action. It was like showing a game of football in five minutes where the team that spent the whole 90 minutes pummelling their opponents’ defence conceded a goal. Reality TV is not real life – it’s a distortion of reality that essentially amounts to fiction.
I have spoken with Annette several times after her triumph and was impressed by the thinking behind her plays. I’m sure there are many examples of other players playing great poker, but we will never see it. If poker is to continue taking the world by storm there must be more reality and less reality television.
I genuinely hope someone, somewhere, nods their head and agrees with me. After watching the WSOPE I looked in the mirror and saw Jade Goody staring back at me. Was I another talentless twentysomething who lucked out on television and rode the crest of a wave? After some careful reflection, I decided maybe not – editing can be a callous, biased thing.
Who knows, maybe Jade is sitting in a lab somewhere working on complex algorithms and reading Dostoyevsky as she finds a recipe for world peace, quietly cursing the Channel 4 editing team: ‘I was so misunderstood!!!’
Despite my disappointment in the TV show I’m looking forward to this year’s WSOPE, and I hope this time I go one better. At least if that happens I get to take all the glory, no matter how bad the action looks on TV!
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