The
movie
Who would have thought that watching poker on television would be so
much fun? I might be somewhat behind the times in my awareness of the
current popularity of poker, but in all honesty I expected the DVD of
the 2003 World Series of Poker to be mildly interesting at
best. Imagine my delighted surprise, then, when it turned out to be a
complete blast.
The World Series of Poker is the most important event on a poker
player's calendar. For an entry fee of $10,000, anyone can play,
novice "dead money" or professional player alike, and the
eventual winner not only earns the coveted title of Poker World
Champion, but also walks away with a staggeringly huge cash prize: in
2003, $2.3 million dollars, the largest single prize in any
competitive event. ESPN's coverage of the 2003 World Series follows
the action over the course of the week-long tournament in seven
forty-five-minute episodes, blending coverage of the poker action
with interviews and background information on the various players.
In the next paragraph of the review, I'm going to mention spoilers
about the eventual winner of the tournament. If you don't know who
wins and don't want to find out before you watch the DVD, you can
skip to the following paragraph, as there are no more spoilers in the
rest of the review.
[Spoilers begin] A huge part of the fascination of the World
Series of Poker is that, according to its own tagline, "Anyone
Can Win." It's true: while the event attracts the stars of the
professional poker world, it also draws in large numbers of amateur
players all hoping for a chance to rub shoulders with the likes of
Johnny Chan and maybe even earn a spot at the final table. Over 800
participants crowded the rooms of Binion's Horseshoe Casino during
the 2003 World Series, among them previous champions like "bad
boy" Phil Hellmouth, veterans Dan Harrington, Amarillo Slim, and
Doyle Brunson, flamboyant Scotty Nguyen, and Chris "Jesus"
Ferguson. There were also hundreds of entrants in the "dead
money" category... among them, an accountant named Chris
Moneymaker (yes, that's his real name) who turned out to be the
people's champion. In a true rags-to-riches story, Moneymaker earned
his spot at the World Series by winning a qualifying tournament in an
online poker forum, thus parlaying his $40 online entry fee into a
$10,000 bankroll and the right to face off with the best poker
players in the world. We get to see him struggling in the early days
of the tournament, nervous about being at the same tables as the
elite of the poker world, and we witness his growing confidence and
cool as the tournament proceeds. It's exactly the dream that Matt
Damon's character has in the film Rounders:
for an unknown player to build up enough of a stake to make it to the
World Series, and win, and the fact that Moneymaker made this fantasy
into reality makes the 2003 World Series all the more amazing to
watch (and goes a long way toward explaining the record numbers of
entrants at the 2004 event). If this were a movie, people would
probably dismiss the victory of the affable Everyman as too
far-fetched, but the 2003 World Series of Poker proves that truth
really can be stranger (and more fun!) than fiction. [Spoilers
end]
The DVD program is taken straight from ESPN's coverage of the event,
with the result that the "feel" of the program is that
you're watching it live. The commentators don't know who eventually
wins (or at least, if they do, they do a superb job of not letting
on), so there's a lot of suspense in the air. Even knowing who takes the title doesn't spoil the effect, since it's also
very exciting to see how far each of the other featured players makes
it. And the World Series program does a fantastic job of
introducing the players. Each episode focuses on a "featured
table" with several "big names" playing there, but
periodically we also get shown glimpses of how things are going at
the other tables. Each episode also has several interspersed segments
that introduce us to some of the more interesting or famous players.
The players get a chance to talk about themselves a bit, discussing
their careers as poker players, their aspirations, their playing
style, and so on; we also learn some background information that puts
a character behind the face of people like Johnny Chan. Poker
certainly attracts some interesting characters, and it's really
fascinating to see the variety of people and playing styles: some
flashy and trash-talking, others cool and reserved. By the time the
final table assembles in Episode 6, we really have a sense of who
these people are, and who we're rooting for. The program also does a
great job of focusing on the most interesting and important hands, so
we get a clear sense of how things are going overall for the players
without sitting through lots of routine hands.
So it's clear that we get a great view of the World Series
"experience": how about the coverage of the actual poker
playing? It's also handled very well. The camera gives us an
excellent view of the overall table, with close-ups and different
angles as needed to let us see the key players as they're
contemplating their moves. What's really cool is that there are tiny
cameras built into the edge of the table, so when the players check
out their hole cards, we get to see them as well. Whenever a player
decides to stay in the hand, a graphic representation of their hand
appears on-screen, labeled with his name, so when several players
square off, we can compare their hands. The community cards are also
presented in an on-screen graphic, as well as appearing in the camera
footage; this is extremely helpful since it means we can always keep
an eye on the current state of the cards even when the camera moves
away from the cards on the table.
What's especially helpful to viewers is that a percentage appears
next to the hole cards of the player who's most likely to win the
hand, so as the successive cards in the flop appear, we can see how
the odds change based on what turns up. Whenever a player gets a
winning hand, a check-mark appears next to his cards. Combined with
the commentators' running analysis of what's going on, it makes the
card action accessible and interesting to all viewers, including ones
(like me) who know the rules and have played a few times but don't
know the game well.
The coverage isn't entirely perfect. For instance, it would have been
nice to get to also see the hands that get folded, and experienced
poker players will wish for more consistent information on the size
of the blinds and the placement of the dealer button. The footage
could also have been edited a bit more tightly for the DVD program.
For instance, it's great that we get a segment on the rules of Texas
Hold'em in the first episode, but for home viewing it's really
unnecessary to repeat that segment in every single episode. (And it's
not even a separate chapter, so you have to fast-forward through it
rather than skipping it.) It's also a bit silly to have the
occasional swear word beeped out as it was on the broadcast footage.
But those are just minor quibbles: the 2003 World Series of Poker
is an amazingly fun and entertaining program, one that's positively
addictive to watch and one that will be of great interest to both
devoted poker players and mildly interested viewers.
The
DVD
The 2003 World Series of Poker is a two-DVD set, packaged
nicely in a slim plastic keepcase. Disc 1 contains the first four
episodes, and Disc 2 contains the final three episodes plus the
special features.
Video
The image quality is the weak spot in this DVD presentation. The
World Series of Poker appears in its original 1.33:1 aspect
ratio, as it was broadcast on television. While colors and contrast
look reasonable, the image is extremely pixellated, with the result
that it's often chunky-looking and blurry. It's a very good thing
that we do get on-screen graphics showing the cards, since it's
actually hard to tell what some of the cards are when we see them on
the table in the live footage. I've charitably given the program only
one notch down from an "average" mark, because the source
material probably wasn't that great (though I really hope they do
better in the future!) and because the program is still completely
watchable even with the lackluster transfer.
Audio
The 2.0 soundtrack for the 2003 World Series of Poker does a
reasonable job under the circumstances. The commentators' voices are
always clear and easy to understand, and the interview segments with
the various poker players also sound fine. In the casino during the
actual tournament play, the participants' voices are more
muffled-sounding and a bit flat, but overall the soundtrack is fine.
Extras
Disc 2 has the special features (such as they are). We get a
30-second clip from ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, which is
nothing more than a brief and rather pointless announcement of the
tournament winner. "Kenny Mayne's Poker" is a three-minute
humorous segment following a journalist in his attempt to play at the
World Series of Poker. Lastly, we get a 6-minute segment of Cold
Pizza featuring an interview with the winner; it's really only of
minor interest, considering how short it is.
Final
thoughts
Don't
be surprised if watching the 2003 World Series of Poker makes
you want to go out and start playing! This program does an
outstanding job of making the event both accessible and truly
fascinating, mixing solid coverage of the poker playing with
interesting interviews with the various players. Anybody who's even a
little bit interested in poker will find this to be extremely
interesting, especially considering the eventual winner, and viewers
who are avid poker players already will find it even more
enthralling. I never expected to be hooked into watching over five
hours of coverage of the 2003 World Series of Poker, but the
time just flew by... and I'll be eagerly looking forward to seeing
2004 on DVD as well. While the image quality is most charitably
described as lackluster, the transfer is watchable, and the content
is amazing enough to easily earn a "highly recommended."