Poker Night in America has come under fire after commentator’s labelled an amateur’s play in his final table TV debut “embarrassing”. A criticism which has seen them incur the wrath of many on Twitter, PokerStars Team pro Jake Cody …
As can be seen from the clip above, the producers of the show have had to change the title after the backlash, but before we check out the ‘public rage’ over PNiA’s dubious approach, let’s look into the play itself…
Sebastian Labbe was running deep, very deep, for the first time in last year’s partypoker WCC Canadian Poker Championship $2k event. He found himself with a big stack but facing some well-known pros, Mike ‘GoLeafsGo’ Leah among them.
The very strange hand saw a raise, three calls, followed by a weird min. raise from Volpe with AK off – and then Leah shoved! Well, we could expect a slew of folds and the action back on Volpe, but somehow Labbe had an idea, so he tanked…and talked himself into a call.
Watch it yourself and try to imagine why he might do such a thing, holding the 7 and 8 of clubs…
- He miscalculated the pot odds he was getting because of all the dead money?
- He simply got the crazy idea of perhaps busting two players at once?
- The big occasion got the better of him and he was just plain confused?
Well, I guess if you’re doing any of the above 7c 8c is a good hand for it! Still 20% against all the big hands he could expect to meet. Yes, it’s still a very bad call in anyone’s book – but here’s the thing…so what?
Sebastian Labbe isn’t a poker pro – he’s a rec who was doing really well and made a mistake. The commentators on PNiA, however, went to town on him…and poker pro and streamer Jake Cody wasn’t impressed at all…
Headline reads “EMBARRASSING play by AMATEUR at FINAL TABLE” the commentator mocks the guy for having $374 in live cashes on Henson mob. This is a completely unnecessary and disgusting @PokerNightTV pic.twitter.com/Ft8HtW8wHK
— Jake Cody (@JakeCody) 23 November 2018
…and others were quick to follow…
Commentators like him are why players like myself fear being put on a live stream table. Unnecessary to mention his Hendon mob in that situation
— William Bishop (@WilliamMBishop) 23 November 2018
Commentator stated “strategy analysis is useless” “is this real life” talking about recreational players hand. I agree with click bate title having the word fish is also irresponsible. Who wants to watch 9 GTO bots playing on stream no one. We want a mix, don’t scare off recs!
— John Joshua (@JJ4DPoker) 23 November 2018
I actually agree that’s so gross. It’s so embarrassing already as a new player without being picked on like this. Everyone says poker needs new players but with attitudes like this it’s not surprising so many people don’t get into it.
— Summer Tobie (@iamnotcheninix) 23 November 2018
Despite the change in the title, and claiming it was meant to be ‘tongue in cheek’, the PNiA clip Jake Cody complained about started to go a little viral in the poker world, online legend Brian Hastings taking issue with it too…
Wtf is this garbage? @PokerNightTV https://t.co/VFqzkdDdQ3
— Brian Hastings (@brianchastings) 23 November 2018
The problem of course, as all the tweets pointed out, is that bashing an amateur on air (or playing live, or wherever really) is not going to entice more of them into the game. The opposite is true – and that’s a huge problem.
Pros and regs make their money from those less good at the game. If you don’t at least make the game enjoyable that money will, quite rightly, end up going elsewhere. No-one wants to be outed as an ‘idiot’ on TV for making a mistake – not even if Phil Hellmuth is doing the ‘outing’…
Perhaps PNiA should heed the words from the children’s movie Bambi: “If you can’t say nothing nice, don’t say nothing at all!”
