"Sports" You "Watch"

Recently I went on vacation. A real vacation. Like to a place so far away there was absolutely no chance of having regular access to any kind of gaming or internet. And, like every time in my life I am deprived of the more technologically advanced toys, I stuffed one of my 8 million decks of cards into my pocket knowing full well the door I was about to reopen.

The poker door.

I love poker. I'm an average player, but I think I get an above average enjoyment out of it. Even when I'm losing. And, one of my favorites is the current popular favorite no limit hold 'em.

I recently started playing again on MSN Games and even went ahead and bought it for XBLA, and that leads me back to something I didn't think I'd find myself doing again: watching poker on television.

Well, Youtube, but you get the idea.

World Series of Poker and High Stakes Poker to be specific. And, like every other time I've caught this bug, I am captivated. I can't get enough of watching these guys play the game.

I know I'm a hypocrite when I roll my eyes at every billiard, bowling, and fishing show that I ever see. But, for some reason watching someone play poker is something I have a hard time tearing myself away from.

You know those guys at the Applebee's that are craning their necks to watch the ninth inning instead of talking to their wives? If GSN is on instead of ESPN, I'm that guy. And don't think for a second I don't feel like a total dork for being him.

So, anyway, like every other flaw in my personality I come across, I've decided to air it out here in hopes that some of you are the people who actually watch the billiard, bowling and fishing shows. That way we can try to figure out why we will sit and watch people do things that we ourselves are perfectly capable of just going out and doing at any time.

I stop to watch billiards and poker when I'm flipping through channels and they're on.

Why billiards? I've asked myself that many times. I used to play a lot in high school and college. Things even got to the point where I had a few of my own cues. The same reasons why I don't watch bowling apply to billiards, though:

1. Everyone at that level is damn near perfect. Perfection is boring.
2. You're waiting for someone to screw up so something interesting happens. Waiting is boring.
3. No one takes risks or tries to do anything fancy. Safe play is boring.

On the plus side: Billiards does have a competitive aspect position-wise that bowling doesn't. That's only if the person going second gets a turn, though... which means the first person probably screwed up in some way. It also has somewhat of a random factor in the initial break. I think that leads to a more interesting game than bowling.

Poker is all about the interaction between the players. When I know what cards they have it becomes very interesting IMO. If I had no knowledge of what's in their hands it probably wouldn't hold my attention.

I think you're idea of boring play is another reason I like poker. Those guys get the same hands I do on a regular basis and I love watching what they do versus what I did. Especially whenever they make the wrong call when I remember making the right one.

It makes it easier to realize you're watching real people instead of 'roided up atomic super men.

Ninja Warrior. I cannot stop watching it ever.

Also Let's Play threads on Something Awful, which are threads where a person plays through a game with commentary and then posts a video of it. Watching someone play through a horrible game that they've obviously mastered and then listening to them constantly make fun of it, there's just something addicting about it. I know I'm watching a video of someone playing a game, but Castlevania 64 never ceases to be hilarious.

Then there's games like Psychonauts where it's actually really interesting to watch all the little secrets they've put into the game.

I watch more Let's Play threads than TV.

When i first joined up on GWJ there was a group that played texas holdem on XBL. It was fun taking money from them

There's a group of us locally that have always been a bit hardcore into poker and when Moneymaker (local boy) won the WSOP and it went crazy globally it just added another reason to watch the guys on TV in case there was someone we knew on there. Plus some guys here look at it as scouting the competition.

I've not been yet, but couple of my friends have made deep runs into the money rounds past couple of years in the WSOP.

t0W wrote:

The only sport I can bare to watch is Tennis (excluding pro gamming).

Wait, are you one of those naked guys who runs out onto the court?

I think the appeal of poker is that it removes the physical skill barrier between us and the players. For those of us who watch football (American), or football (Everyone else), or bowling, or darts, or whatever, you may think, "Man, I could be that good, if I had a million hours of practice/working out" or maybe "I could never do that in a million years."

But poker is just a bunch of guys sitting at a table. While running those kinds of numbers in your head is a hard thing to do, most people don't realize that, or if they do, think they could eventually do it as well.

In the same vein, it's not even really the players who decide the winner. You have to be good to get that far in, but in the end the final ranking comes down to the cards. There's a charmed feel around winning at poker. I really want to end with some witty segue off that, but I've got nothing.

High level poker is legitimately interesting to watch (or at least, it often is). Low level poker (which, unfortunately, is the majority of the televised poker), the tournaments where the top prize is $10k and the people both ugly and uncharismatic, is god-awful.

I think the high-level stuff is interesting because of the people playing. I like watching baby-face Negreanu steal huge pots. I like watching The Mouth get knocked out after smack-talking. Even the Unibomber and Howard Lederer, who are not nearly as in-your-face, are intriguing because they are personalities, and learning about those personalities makes the game more interesting to me.

Jolly Bill wrote:
t0W wrote:

The only sport I can bare to watch is Tennis (excluding pro gamming).

Wait, are you one of those naked guys who runs out onto the court?

I think the appeal of poker is that it removes the physical skill barrier between us and the players. For those of us who watch football (American), or football (Everyone else), or bowling, or darts, or whatever, you may think, "Man, I could be that good, if I had a million hours of practice/working out" or maybe "I could never do that in a million years."

But poker is just a bunch of guys sitting at a table. While running those kinds of numbers in your head is a hard thing to do, most people don't realize that, or if they do, think they could eventually do it as well.

In the same vein, it's not even really the players who decide the winner. You have to be good to get that far in, but in the end the final ranking comes down to the cards. There's a charmed feel around winning at poker. I really want to end with some witty segue off that, but I've got nothing.

Forgive my "ingorance".

The only sport I can BEARS to watch is Tennis (excluding pro gamming).

I have been known to watch many of the things listed above: Poker, Billiards, Bowling, Ninja Warrior.

Ninja Warrior doesn't really count IMO because it's way too totally awesome and anyone who can't recognize that is just plain silly. Heck I got my girlfriend, her mom and her sister to watch 3 hours of Ninja Warrior one Saturday afternoon.

I agree with Chumpy about Poker. I really only watch the WSOP. I watched some other tournaments and some celebrity poker and it was really boring. If I wanted to watch a bunch of bad poker players, I'd play with my friends.

My absolute favorite type of Billiards is Trick Shot Magic. The 9-ball stuff is okay, but nothing holds a candle to Trick Shot Magic. Every shot is incredibly exciting and challenging. Very rarely do they make it look easy.

Bowling is my least favorite of the four, but I do watch it from time to time. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's the beauty of the perfect shot. I have a hard time with Bowling because whenever someone doesn't strike or god forbid doesn't mark, they've pretty much given the game away and you can see it on their faces. It's almost depressing. Maybe that's why I watch...

No worries Chiggie, you aren't the only one.

I watched a lot of Poker on T.V. when I played it on a regular basis. I will almost always watch Golf when I am just killing time watching T.V. (which, to be fair isn't very often anymore). I really enjoy Golf, and see it (watching) as a way to understand the game better.

I'm going to pass on bowling and fishing.
But, every time Curling is on television, I watch it. I also watch snooker occasionally, when it starts to get good and strategic.
I can also stare at darts in a morbid fascination, but I do not enjoy it.

But this is from a guy who can sit in front of cricket for five days straight and enjoy (almost) every minute.

PyromanFO wrote:

Ninja Warrior. I cannot stop watching it ever.

I love that show! I was actually hoping the new American Gladiator show was going to be a hybrid of Ninja Warrior with muscle peeps throwing stuff at you too.

Watching world series of poker is just super fascinating to me cause I just do not have the poker composure or patience needed to be good. I enjoyed playing texas holdem on the 360, but I tend to get bored and try to create action when I should just fold. I can just see myself if I was in a real game I'd be sweating, twitching, and probably an open book for everyone to read. I'm envious of the people with that stone cold look.

MMA is another sport that I can't get enough of. I mainly watch the UFC, but I also keep an eye on the other orgs as well. Luckily my wife likes MMA also since she use to take Oyama Karate.

I watch, um... baseball, football, and the occasional soccer or hockey game. Hockey will be more common next year, since all the games will be televised. (Woo!)

Sorry, I'm a bad nerd sometimes.