There is a new poker show on NBC called Face the Ace. The premise is simple. A qualifier from FullTilt Poker is selected to compete against up to 3 professional players. If they beat the first player, they win $40,000. If they beat the 2nd player, they get $200,000, and the third player is worth a cool million. The player can walk away at any time, but if he loses to any of the three players he gets nothing. When I initially heard about this show, I thought it would not interest me, and I was going to let it go by. But, TiVo being easy to use, I figured I'd give it a shot. }
I loved it. The main reason I loved it was because of the competitors. When I heard they were taking qualifiers from Full Tilt, I expected the usual parade of 20-something hotshots. Young guns barely old enough to shave talking about how no one can stand against their awesome aggression and how they've got the game of poker all figured out. You know who I'm talking about.
For one thing, it's impossible to root for these people (unless, I suppose, you happen to be one). For another you will find that the best poker players in the long term tend to be humble (look at Phil Ivey, Allen Cunningham, Doyle Brunson), so it's very difficult to believe that most of these younger players are not the beneficiaries of short term luck who will fade into obscurity the moment the odds tilt against them, therefore it's very hard to hear them expound on how they have mastered the game of poker. This being the case, I had no interest in seeing whether any of these people could win a million dollars, if these are the people who competed.
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They weren't. Just the opposite.
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The first player, Jonathan Nygaard, was a war veteran from Pennsylvania. The second, Don Topel, was a truck driver from Illinois. Both were over 30, baseball fans, and overweight. OH MY GOD! JUST LIKE REAL POKER PLAYERS!!!
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If you walk into any casino anywhere in the world (and I've been in more than a few), these are the people you will see. Not a horde of brash 21 year olds in backwards caps and sunglasses staring overconfidently over huge stacks of chips, but middle Americans, husbands and fathers, a few wives and mothers, doctors, firemen, lawyers and janitors, senior citizens and yes, a few hopeful young kids in the mix. One of the great things about live poker is the way it puts people from widely disparate walks of life together. Another great thing about poker is that not everyone at the table is an overconfident douchebag, and that the people that are often end up going home relieved of their chip stacks.
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Anyway, the first exciting thing about Face the Ace was that it had real people competing, people I would actually like to see win a million dollars. But the reality didn't stop there. Nygaard, clearly uncomfortable on television, had the misfortune to select Phil Ivey, who may be poker's next world champion, as his heads up opponent. From there, he showed the world just what real poker is like:
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On the very first hand, Nygard got pocket Aces and limped to Ivey's A8. Ivey bet out, Nygaard check-raised, bet the safe flop, and took the pot. On the second hand, Ivey got rags and had to muck pre-flop. On the third hand, Nygaard got Queens, he limped, Ivey raised, Nygaard check-raised again, and Ivey moved in with A4. Nygaard insta-called and won the match.
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Ivey's play couldn't have been more understandable. He was check-raised two out of three hands and naturally assumed his opponent had decided on a strategy of being hyper aggressive and attacking all of Ivey's raises. Ivey decided to take a stand early with his ace. The reality of course, is that Nygaard had the unlikely good fortune to actually have been dealt monsters on those two hands, and so he won the match. If he had not been dealt aces on hand one, it's likely things would have gone very differently.
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Then, $40,000 in hand, Nygaard shockingly chose to drop and take the money. Considering that he already had beaten the best player on the panel and in short order, this choice was pretty surprising (and mathematically wrong; given the volatility of heads up play, it would be a mistake to pass on 5-to-1 odds against any opponent). It was unclear whether Nygaard chose to quit because he didnt realize how uncomfortable he would be on television (he covered his mouth frequently and gave slow, halting answers to host Steven Schirripa's questions), or he didn't realize how having $40,000 in hand would feel, but either way, it was a very real moment.
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Don Topel managed to get past his first two opponents, Erick Lindgren and Howard Lederer, in similarly natural poker ways (the critical hand in the first match came when Lindgren made a move with a suited ace and Topel called with a bigger suited ace, Lingren hit his kicker on the turn but Topel made his flush on the river; the critical hand in the second match came when Topel got it all in pre-flop with KK against Lederer's AQ suited), with the result that Topel had the opportunity to go for a million dollar game, which he decided to do (some will say he was greedy, but again, this is the mathematically correct choice). That game will be played out on the next show.
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I'll be watching, and rooting for Don, a likeable guy who wants to buy his mother and sister a home and who took the Schirripa (not entirely comfortable in the host role yet, it seems) ribbing about his weight with good humor. This really is a poker show that almost anyone can enjoy.
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Naturally, the first episode of Face the Ace finished last in the ratings in its time slot.
7 comments:
Sounds good, thanks for the recommendation! I hope the host is not as annoying and lame as Ali Nejad. Were those the only 2 contestants? If so, then the pros are 0 for 3?
The good news is that while you may find Steven Schirripa lame and annoying, it won't be in the same way as Ali Nejad. The bad news is that Ali Nejad is the tournament director/announcer of the game. Yes, the pros are so far 0 for 3, but it really did not appear, to me, at least that the pros tanked in any way. The show (not intentionally, one presumes) did a good job of showing how small the skill gap can be in a short term poker situation.
Funny that the first guy is turning down the chance to get 5-1 against a pro, yet these people are 3-0 against the pros! I'm surprised the first guy didn't get backers or insurance or something so that he could safely risk playing on for the million.
Did it feel like they were showing every hand? Do you think AA was really his first hand dealt, or just his first hand that NBC showed?
To be honest I don't think the first guy was savvy enough to have made an insurance deal before hand, and he had to make the choice on the spot. For future contestants, however, it would definitely be a good idea for them to try to get some kind of insurance, but of course they would have to find someone willing to lay that kind of money. Remember, this was some blue collar joe from Pennsylvania, not a kid living in a house in Vegas with Tom Dwan and Andrew Robl or something.
My initial instinct was to say that the first match was heavily edited, but Nejad does say "Nygaard gets aces on his very first hand" or something to that effect. I suppose they could have dubbed that in later but that would be pretty sneaky. There could have been other hands edited out before the queens although if there were the edit was pretty seamless.
After learning about this show from my World Series of Poker Academy instructor, Charley Swayne (I am not actually enrolled in WSOPA -- he just happens to teach at my university), I looked forward to Face the Ace with great anticipation. Frankly, I couldn't have been more disappointed, and therefore I'm rather surprised with your positive rating of the show.
As a diehard Texas Hold'em fan and player, I found myself practically horrified with the chintziness of the whole affair: the boorish host, the cheesy theme music, the stilted banter, and the absence of any personality among the chosen qualifiers. Though I freely admit I have a strong bias against reality television to begin with, I found myself wondering how much experience the producers had, having made (in my opinion) so many tactical errors in casting, premise, and choosing of contestants. Shirripa frankly admits he has no idea what is going on. At first it was virtually impossible for me to root for the qualifiers (as a two-time Iraq vet, I was positively embarrassed by the first qualifier), but I'll admit the second contestant made it engaging for the $200,000 match; too bad he allowed Gavin Smith to get in his head and played too conservatively in the million-dollar match. I also think they need to rethink the gambling aspect of the premise; contestants shouldn't have to play all-or-nothing but should at least have some consolation prize if they lose a subsequent match.
Overall, I'm afraid the show is not long for television unless it is quickly revamped. Already it's being moved out of prime time into some obscure time slot. More's the pity, since I'd like to see it renewed for another season, so I can have a chance to qualify myself.
Great analysis and review, by the way, even if I don't agree with it at all. I do wonder, though, where did you get the 5-1 odds for the qualifiers? I concur that mathematically, the correct choice is to play for it all, and were I able to get on the show, I'd do so in a heartbeat.
Hi Rourke, thanks for taking the time to comment. I will agree with you that Steven Schirripa as the host seems to be a poor choice, although perhaps he will grow into the role. While I will also agree that the first contestant was far from a "made for TV" personality (and by the way, if you liked him, keep an eye out for November Nine chip leader Darvin Moon, who seems to be cut from a similar cloth with regard to his relationship to the camera), I found that to be refreshing, at least in a small dose. I also found that any difficulty in watching contestant 1 was redeemed in contestant 2, who I felt showed that a "regular guy" with some basic poker knowledge could hold his own against tough competition, that you don't have to be an Internet whiz kid or a math genius to play poker, and I think that is good for the game.
My 5-to-1 came from the fact that Topel had $200,000 in hand and was risking it to win 1 million; 1 million:200,000::5:1 (by the same token, 200,000:40,000::5:1).
Yep, I later realized where the numbers came from. I had initially thought you were placing the qualifiers as 5:1 underdogs, when what you were really trying to say is that if the qualifier thinks he can win one out of every five times, he definitely should play the next match. On the other hand, good poker players gamble as infrequently as possible, so strictly speaking, the qualifier should only take that bet if he believes his odds to be slightly better than 5:1. Otherwise, he's making an even bet with an expected value of zero; i.e., if he played the match 5 times, he'd exactly break even. But I'm being absurdly pedantic here, and your point obviously stands.
I was quite impressed with the second qualifier's play in the $200,000 match, so I had high expectations for him in the million-dollar match. I don't know if he got starstruck sitting at the table with Gavin Smith, or if his nerves simply got the better of him, but he definitely played more conservatively in the last match.
I'm really hoping they can improve the show -- I'd hate to see it canceled before it gets a fair chance at life.
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