Poker Is The New Wrestling

I was watching an episode of the syndicated "Ultimate Poker Challenge", which airs very high channel numbers in a lot of markets, and I came to the above conclusion today.

Robair, who was in the room with me, noted, "All you gotta do is give Vince McMahon a deck of marked cards and let his wrestlers have at it."

Back to the above observation: the plethora of televised poker has reached a point where it is as ubiquitous as pro wrestling was in the days of the WCW/WWF (or, as it was originally called, WWWF) rivalry. Now, sadly, WCW is no more, and WWE (as it's now called) has the market pretty much to itself.

Now, as for poker, you've got the aforementioned syndicated show, Travel's "World Poker Tour", Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown", the new "Poker Royale" premiering tomorrow night on GSN, the endless ESPN rebroadcasts of "World Series Of Poker", and Fox Sports has "Championship Poker at the Plaza" and a show currently not on its schedule, the British import "Late Night Poker". NBC is even planning on televising poker sometime this winter (NBC, of course, owns Bravo, so they know how well "CPS" has done for them). So there's gotta be a shakeout real soon.

But do all these shows, now, feel they have to tell us how to play No Limit Texas Hold 'Em every time out? Anyone who's seen enough of it has probably picked up the rules. It's like baseball - you're not told the basics of how the game is played every time it's broadcast. So, to modify a trademark phrase of a certain tournament director - "SHUT UP AND DEAL!" (I'd also like to see a little more balance as far as keeping younger viewers away from the card tables until they're of age, not to mention messages deterring compulsive/problem gamblers to get help.)

UPDATE: GSN does indeed carry advisories on "Poker Royale" advising against compulsive gambling and promotes the 1-800-GAMBLER phone number, for those who need help with that sort of thing. To my knowledge, it's the only televised poker extravaganza that does so.