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Originally Posted by dingdongdonkey
Thanks a lot for adding the subtitles.
I enjoyed both episodes, but somehow they seemed too slick and one-sided in terms of content. Kind of like a "The Last Dance" for poker - interesting, fun to watch, but also very one-sided and uncritical as far as the protagonist is concerned.
Hey,
And thanks for the well-thought out feedback! Here comes a response that looks like me being overly defensive but is mostly just me rambling.
Bolded: this is pretty much exactly what we were trying to do. I have a background in journalism and I personally have a soft spot for critical documentaries that ask all the tough questions. I also don't disagree at all that having asked the questions you mentioned below would've made this an even more interesting watch for poker players.
I wrote about this a little bit on page 1 of this thread, but basically, there are a few reasons (all of which I can't even disclose) why we chose the approach that we chose, most noteworthily that we wanted to give Last Call a chance to get exposure from non-poker players as well. That was our #1 goal and the series has been blowing up here in Finland beyond our wildest imagination. Just last night some random esports dude who had the #3 ranked stream on Twitch was showing Last Call to his viewers and they were talking about it for like 25 mins, and it was pretty evident most of the audience weren't poker players. We're closing in on 1% of our country's population having seen this, which is beating several government-produced documentaries operating on 10x our budget.
I think the content we have is
just deep enough to satisfy (most) poker players, but also
just understandable enough to the casual viewer, and that's something I'm actually pretty proud of. But add some talk about 800BB pots and gutshots and backdoor draws and poker references most people won't get, and you'll alienate casual viewers pretty quickly. For example, in ep#1 we had Jens tell the whole hand history about his biggest pot vs durrrr, but we ended up cutting it because it was just too tough for casual viewers to follow. I have no doubt in my mind that nearly every poker viewer would've preferred the version where he shares the hand in detail, but those are the compromises you just have to make.
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Patrik could certainly fill a book with interesting stories, but I'm not sure if he was even asked about certain things. Just one example, anyone who wins millions and millions of dollars is bound to have to deal with scammers of all kinds sooner or later. For example, if I remember correctly, Patrik played High Stakes on Ultimate Bet, but left the site in time. As for staking - how was/is his relationship with Degenyamine? Did he have a piece in High Stakes Poker? How big was his contract with Full Tilt Poker? He talks about how much he won per year in some cases. How big must the contract have been? bad_ip vs Fast_Freddie - does Patrik believe in the cheating story? He played against both of them, but Fast_Freddie only had short hit and run sessions against Patrik. Thoughts on certain specific hands, like sticking in 800bb with top pair vs Sam Farha or (correctly) calling off with ace high in a $600k pot online? The list could be continued for sure ...
Regarding these, the only one we asked Patrik was the first one about scammers. We ended up cutting it because it just didn't work in the context of the episode, and his response wasn't particularly interesting either (if he had shared some figures or scamming stories we would've included them obviously).
I'd also have LOVED to ask him about the Fast_Freddie thing speficially, but admittedly I also didn't want to make him feel like we're ambushing him. And if you make people you interview feel uncomfortable, the risk of not getting other people on board becomes exponentially higher -- especially in poker where the circles are small. For example, Ziigmund actually messaged
us after seeing the Patrik episodes about starring in his own episode, and that guy
hates the media. If we had made Patrik uncomfortable and asked him really nasty questions, I don't think the Ziigmund ep would have any chance of happening.
Again, I think there's a time and a place for a poker show that asks all the tough questions and digs deep into the ugly side of this game. I'd LOVE to do that as well -- hell, that might actually be the show I'd prefer to do over anything else -- but I just don't think Last Call will ever be that show
PS. I'll add that there are a gazillion things about S1 that I'm not totally happy with, and one of them is that certain segments just aren't as exciting as others. I think we (well, as the main screenwriter, I guess I really should say I) can and should do a better job at making every single scene fly. For example in ep #3, the part where Patrik talks about Ivey, durrrr, Isildur etc is golden and it makes you feel "holy **** this is epic". But then there's the whole thing about his vices and alcohol use and whatnot that just feels like a letdown in comparison. In the future I want us to have more highs and less lows, and I'm pretty sure that's doable by fixing certain things.
Sorry for this ramble, bottom line is that I really don't disagree with you at all. I loved the quote you put in spoilers as well!
Last edited by Chuck Bass; 12-22-2021 at 12:09 PM.