Torrent Review: American Poker Championship

The live telecast of the 2004 American Poker Championship from Turning Stone (torrent) was one of the best and most important poker shows ever broadcast. It was also perhaps the most serious attempt ever to present poker as it should be presented.

As one of the announcers explained early on, this wasn't a highlight show, like poker on TV viewers were used to seeing: it was the actual game. They showed the last four hours of a real tournament, with hole cards, on a five-minute delay.

They showed all the hole cards at the beginning of the hand, which is my preferred method, rather than as people acted. They also managed to get win percentages up in real time.

It wasn't a perfect broadcast, however. The RFID detectors didn't always get the hole cards. Howard Lederer's commentary was excellent, but none of the three announcers did much play-by-play, they usually covered up the dealer's announcements of the action, and there were no onscreen graphics of the action.

Later live and live-to-tape broadcasts perfected the technology. Unfortunately, the technology has been used to create made-for-TV shows instead of showing real poker. They don't make them like they used to.