Poker Videos

Now that I've completed season 1 of Lost on DVD, I've been getting some poker videos from Netflix. First I tried Phil Hellmuth's instructional videos. Let me just say that I hate Phil Hellmuth and expected his videos to be horrible. I just wanted to make sure. Well, I was right. They are extremely hokey and pretty basic. The only thing of some marginal interest is when he describes some common tells to look for at the table.

The most recent video I got was World Poker Tour: Bad Boys of Poker. Here's how Netflix describes it:

Five of the world's greatest players go head to head at this ultimate Las Vegas showdown. Three-time WPT winner Gus Hansen, Antonio Esfandiari, Paul "The Truth" Darden, Phil Laak, David "Devilfish" Ulliot and WPT satellite tournament winner Mark Richards hit the tables to prove who's the baddest poker player on the planet. Extras include commentary by Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak, player bios and outrageous World Poker Tour clips.

Most of these guys are entertaining, and I was interested in the commentary by Esfandiari and Laak, so I decided to give it a try. It was well worth it. The commentary by "The Magician" and "The Unabomber" was consistently amusing and, when they would describe what was going through their minds as they played, even insightful (unfortunately they did this only a few times). They had interesting and funny stories to tell about the other players. According to Esfandiari, for instance, Devilfish is "the most funnest guy in the world to go to a strip club with." Also, both Esfandiari and Laak are in awe of Gus Hansen (who isn't?), although they jokingly talk about how lucky he is. They say that Gus is coming out with a book in the near future, which is the first I've heard of this - I'm excited to read it. Anyway, as a person who now plays so much poker that it sometimes gets a bit draining, I found it encouraging to see how much fun these guys still have.

Next DVD: Howard Lederer: "Tells" All