Quote:
Originally Posted by llllzzzz
Heiz made a really big bet on the river, and Antonio Esfandari said:" I think Heiz is very weak. I don't think he wants a call here." Staszko then called, and Heiz showed his set of As.
After Heiz bet the flop (9 2 3) and then checked the turn, and Antonio Esfandari immediately said:" I think Heiz is weak. 100% he cannot beat a pair of 9s." The camera then showed Heiz had 9 10.
Heiz raised pre, and bet flop and turn. Staszko raised Heiz's 8.4m turn bet to 18.4m. The board was A 9 2 A. Heiz tanked and then called. Antonio Esfandari said:" Heiz called the raise, so I am sure he has an ace now, and I don't like staszko's move here." I almost shouted out:" shut up! Antonio." There was no way for Heiz to just call the raise with his trip ace. Camera showed Heiz had 5 6, and Staszko had A 9.
AND there were lots, lots of those kind of examples. I don't understand why they kept bringing him to do the analysis. He is wrong every time, but he is so narcissistic. I think even phil hellmuth is much better than him. Phil hellmuth is a really good tournament poke player, but antonio is just an average poker player. His level is way below tom dwan on cash game and below hellmuth on tournament.
My boyfriend and I (recreational players) really enjoyed watching this tourny. With the hole card delay, we could discuss on each hand what we thought the players had and what they should do, but the announcers (Esfandari and Chad) added nothing to the process except a huge annoyance factor. It was actually enjoyable when Hellmuth visited the booth on Sunday and gave some pretty decent insight and analysis, which just made these guys look even worse. We were praying that they'd bring him back in on Tuesday.
For probably the first half of Tuesday's coverage it seemed the only hand possibilities the announcers could come up with were an ace, high card, or a single pair, each announced with resounding confidence and authority. The " he has an ace" theme was repeated for innumerable hands in a row, in spite of the fact that neither player had anything even close. Two pair, flush, straight, and boat possibilities were largely overlooked. It was really sad (and funny) later in the evening, when having missed so many calls they just started naming every possibile hand they could think of, but even then they often missed the ones that seemed most obvious to us which more often than not turned out to be close or correct.
It's really a sad state of affairs when players at our level (rec micro stakes) feel like we have a significantly better understanding of the game than the announcers for an international broadcasting company, hired to give expert commentary at the equivelent of the Superbowl of poker. We didn't even need a little kid to tell us that these 'Emperors' truely 'had no clothes'.