What I've Learned From Watching Televised Poker While Feverish

STARE AT IT YOU KNOW YOU MUST

So this weekend, I've been ill. Yes, it's likely Covid since plenty of people in my life have it this week, and while I keep testing negative, I don't really trust the results, especially since I've been symptomatic for, well, days now. So I've been trying to do work for the day job while leaving TV poker on in the background. Here's what I've learned!

Every Final Table Is Tough! It doesn't matter that you've never heard of the people on the screen before, or since. It doesn't matter that some of the plays stagger the imagination, or that people are talking themselves into absurd calls or folds because they are on Tee Vee. This final table is tough! It doesn't have any players who are just card racks, suckout artists, and people on 3-day heaters. They just don't exist at Very Tough Final Tables!

No one is paying attention to how these telecasts are cut! Play is interrupted randomly for promos, ads, and any other damn fool thing that some algorithm throws into the feed. Sometimes two or three times in a row, the exact same spot. This would matter if you really were emotionally invested in this sort of thing, and if you are, Please Seek Help.

Young People Don't Know The Time! Dear reader, do you routinely wear a wristwatch that isn't an instrument of technology, retails for the price of an economy automobile, and could serve in a pinch at a tapas restaurant? Yeah, you are so not the target market for people who used to run poker tournaments.  Honestly, I'm kind of amazed no one ever went all Flavor Flav with their winning timepiece and hung it around their neck. Either that, or pawnshops near casinos around the world are just dripping with ticking hubcaps. Gaudy, tasteless, ticking hubcaps.

Every Casino Runs A Great Tournament! It turns out that the venues that run these events -- and, um, do so under very clear and obvious rules, much of the time with the exact same software that you've seen in, well, every casino everywhere -- is just super-special to the players, and their very favorite place to play. It's almost as if they aren't telling the truth! Or, more charitably, on a 3-day heater of super-happy moments where they may be pulling in major bank. But no, it's the specific venue!

Misogyny -- You're Soaking In It! Ever wonder why women are only allowed on these telecasts if they are very attractive and holding a microphone up for some mouth-breather in a hoodie, while never daring to venture behind a desk to offer expert analysis? Or why wacky hijinks B-roll footage related to the area inevitably involves said woman giggling her way through an activity she's never done before? Why, it's almost as if poker is a male-dominated activity suffused in the poisonous misogyny that chokes and retards the majority of human existence. Almost!

Amazingly, You Can Play Poker Online! Yes, I know this will come as news to anyone who has been in a hyperbaric chamber for the last two decades, but this is VERY EXCITING and needs to be advertised every four minutes on average. Or perhaps I'm just hallucinating. Maybe both!

This Is A Universe Of Really Great Guys! It turns out that no one at a final table is devoid of personality, borderline psychopathic, lacking in social graces, deficient in humor, has poor body odor or any other human flaw. Again, it's almost as if people who are being interviewed are just reciting cliches or sticking to a script, but we know they aren't, because poker players never lie!

Watching Other People Play Poker Is A Party! Yes, I know, the crowd can't see the hole cards, which is kind of the whole point of the telecast, and poker tournaments are often hours of tedium punctuated by minutes of excitement. So unless you have direct action, this can present as an even bigger waste of time than watching the telecast -- but, um, nope! Everyone's having a fantastic time! They aren't overserved at all!

Many of these players are super creative! It's not as if they are all engaged in a constant escalation of math and psychology in near equal measure with a dollop of randomness and luck thrown in, all of which translates to moves that, if we digitized their faces during telecasts, would make for an amorphous blob of poker play. It's totally distinctive and unique and shows that some of these guys are some of the most original thinkers on the planet! Just ask them!

Large bricks of cash are in no way unseemly! People applaud these things as if they weren't coated in cocaine residue, the blood of senior citizens feeding slot machines, or the sad spectacle of people reacting to the dumping of paper on a table as if it were a cure for a dread disease. Lookit the money! The money is magic! I SAID LOOK AT IT! WHY AREN'T YOU LOOKING AT IT?