Product Review: 2004 World Series of Poker (DVD)

October 9th, 2005

2004 World Series of Poker (ESPN - DVD) 10 hrs <BR>$29.99″><b>2004 World Series of Poker (ESPN - DVD) 10 hrs <BR>$29.99</b> <p>In May of 2004, almost 2600 poker players put down $10,000 in order to take their shot at becoming World Champion at the World Series of Poker. Anyone who even remotely follows poker knows that it was Connecticut patent attorney, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer who took home the the top prize, $5,000,000. ESPN was on hand to film this grueling seven day event, which is available in a three DVD set.</p> </p> <p>The first two discs of this set include ESPN’s coverage of the $10,000 buy-in no-limit Texas hold’em tournament at the WSOP. This week long event is divided up into ten episodes, each of which runs about 45 minutes without commercials. During each day of play, ESPN would select one table to be their “feature table” where the players’ hole cards will be visible to the cameras. Simultaneously, several camera crews move around the rest of the tournament looking for something interesting to shoot.</p> </p> <p>While the first several episodes may be interesting from a soap-opera standpoint, they’re pretty disappointing for serious poker players. Relatively little air time is spent covering the play of hands. Partly this is due to the size of the field and the relative likelihood that any of the few cameras will capture the more interesting moments.</p> </p> <p>However, at least here we get to experience some of what goes on early in a tournament. In almost every other televised poker event we never see more than the final table. The amount and quality of the poker coverage improves considerably as we get further into the series, and these are the episodes that real poker fans are likely to enjoy the most.</p> </p> <p>The third disc contains a host of additional features, including three other tournament events. Coverage of the $1000 no-limit hold’em event, the $2000 pot-limit Omaha tournament, and the Kansas City lowball event are included in this set. I especially liked the KC lowball coverage. While hold’em is a fine game, it’s nice to see some of the more obscure events get some air time. Personally, I’d like to see even more of these events covered in future WSOP DVD sets. Also included is the 2004 WSOP Tournament of Champions invitational with a winner-take-all $2,000,000 prize pool. We also get Greg Raymer’s commentary during his play at the final table. This is especially fascinating and insightful, and may be the single finest hour of televised poker I’ve ever watched. With his commentary Raymer demonstrates that he’s both an insightful player and a class act.</p> </p> <p>While nobody can win this tournament without way more than their share of luck, Raymer demonstrates that his win was no fluke, and that without a doubt he’s a worthy champion.</p> </p> <p>Overall, I found this DVD set to be a mixed bag.</p> </p> <p>I view the first disc and some of the second to be a mildly entertaining time filler. There is some serious poker content here, but not enough for me to be truly satisfied. The last part of the second disc is quite good, though, and well worth watching. On the third disc, I found about half the material to be pretty boring, but a couple of features, especially the KC lowball and Raymer commentary, are truly excellent.</p> </p> <p>While I didn’t find everything in this set to be top-notch, there’s enough here to make this DVD set worthwhile to poker fans, so I give it a qualified recommendation. -Nick</p> <p class= Filed under: Poker News

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