Jerry Wayne Odom Jr.

HDTV Poker

Why Present Poker in High Definition



So the other day I'm flipping through channels in the 7xx section of my cable television and I notice that they're now presenting poker in HDTV. So I stop and check it out for a little while and I found myself wondering why the hell would people go through the trouble of presenting poker in high def? Does it really make a difference on a game you could watch on an Atari?

Why? Do you need every angle on a guy making a 5 minute decision while hardly moving? Plus it isn't exactly soccer where the camera is several yards away. In fact the cameras were about 2 feet from Phil Laaks face last week on the poker show called "High Stakes Poker". Non high definition and I saw things far far better than I really even want to.

In addition professional poker players aren't exactly Adonis like on average. Most of them look like they haven't seen the sun in a year. Health wise they remind me Kingpin where Ishmael busts out with: "It's kind of intimidating to be in the presence of so many great athletes". These guys don't need close up action guys! We could really do without seeing just about everyone but Jennifer Tilly close up.

Perhaps they've just got extra high definition cameras sitting around in Las Vegas. Personally I'd rather watch show girls or the Pussycat dolls in high definition over all these old lords of the card rooms!

Jerry Odom - Ridiculously bored and griping in August 2006