[sg23]

The point of the sports analogy is to connect development of poker skill with the casual dynamic of team sport play and the skill building of individual practice. It also reinforces poker as a site of competition/bragging rights/etc. The script is intentionally quite basic to ram home the point that Stars/online poker = practice = profit. No cards or situations (which could confuse viewers) are shown.

In contrast, FTP ads often assume that the viewer knows enough about poker to get the jokes...the showboater ad, the 72o ad, the jesus suckout ad...They make a lot of sense to us but many others would be lost.

I enjoy the style and humor of the FTP ads but I would rather see more of the Stars poker-sports ads because I think they will attract more rank novices. Plus the way Hachem grabs the chips at the end is seriously hot.