Why is HSP3 a major disappointment?

[theman]

i feel like any NLHE game played that high is kind of automatically a good show. just based on the "pain threshold" these players have to pass through when losing a big hand is enough to generate great competition and excitement. i can't imagine any other poker show beating HSP out.

having said that, i do think that they could have longer weekly sessions (kind of like the two hour episodes of WPT) and show how players are doing over a longer period of time. i didn't think the problem was too many players (i liked new blood and fresh faces), but not long enough episodes.

-TheMan

[legend42]

Seems like the most common complaint is too many lineup switches. Yet, in the weekly threads, there were numerous gripes along the lines of "this table is getting stale or boring...can't wait until (Ivey/aba/Farha/DN/Antonius/etc.) shows up to get some action in the game."

As far as the no-name/nitty/fishy guys are concerned, they have pretty much always been there- Nasseri, Buss, Amnon, Chamanara, Zeidman- so I don't think there's a big difference between this season vs. the previous ones. How the pros attack the lesser players is one of the things that makes the play interesting.

The big difference this season, which someone has already pointed out, is the lack of interesting hands. And unless you're going to stack the deck, or tape much longer sessions and edit it down, I don't see anything you can do about that.

(Though, with all the people who complain each week about boring HSP episodes, is it any wonder the quiz show scandals of the 50s took place and that even most of today's "reality" shows are scripted and/or heavily edited, and basically conceived, contrived, and manufactured the exact same way fictional shows are?)

[kflop]

I think most people here enjoy and look forward to each episode HSP. We all know it’s not perfect, but it’s the best poker on TV. The players don’t make the right plays every time; we disagree with how a hand was analyzed, that’s all good discussion. Some people think their really cool if they rip the show a new one after each episode. Season 3 is different than 1&2 but just as enjoyable. You can be sure the critics are going to be watching the last few episodes of season 3 and counting the days till season 4 starts, then we'll find out why we shouldn't like it.

[Tomy_Lee]

I am watching HSP every week and it is obvious that it is a lot different than season 1 & 2. First couple of seasons were specific in some sort of way. The first one was cool because Negreanu on start of the show bought in for cool million $$, lost almost $600k and then won all his money back. That was great to watch.
Second season was also cool because there were some good hands to watch, Matusow was paid to stay and then went broke, Esfandiari was so unlucky and that beautiful $575k pot..
Certainly it was great to watch it.

While reading some posts of Negreanu about how tough table setup was for this season with Antonius, Yukon, Ivey and the rest of them I was expecting to watch great poker, but so far there was not many of it.
Too many switching players, some of them just played couple of hands, but when I saw a preview about next episode where there will be $4,5M$ on the table, I am certainly gonna watch it.

Anyway, HSP 1 & 2 was better in my opinion because it was consistent players and better play then in HSP 3.

[kflop]

I enjoyed watching Gold, Doyle and Mike on the first few episodes of 3. I liked it when Gabe played and Daniel did the announcing, the epidsodes with Townsend, Wasica, Sammy and Eli were great and we're all looking forward to the next few weeks. I didn't like the Harmetz, Shak, Trincher table, too many amateurs. But I still looked forward to the show every week. If you liked 1&2 better, that's a fair criticism. I think there's good and bad stuff every season, mostly good.

[-moe-]

I find the show near perfect.

Just invite a few Scandinavian LAG online players (anyone bankrolled for it from, say, Christopher "LuckyULSA" Ulsrud, Johnny "bad_ip" Lodden, Ramzi Jelassi, Mohammad "Fast_Freddie" Kowssarie, Fredrik Halling, ...) and some interesting table personalities (Prahlad Friedman, Ram Vaswani, Roy "The Boy" Brindley, John Duthie, ...) and we're all set. It's getting a little stale with Negreanu, Matusow, Esfandiari, and Laak to be the life of the table.

Kudos to the production team for the current table, though, it looks amazing -- I can hardly wait for Monday's show.

Oh, and yeah, wouldn't mind it being extended to 2 hours, as others have mentioned.

[TenEightClubs]

I was diappointed from Season 3 till the last 2 shows, the action was boring no one wanted to do the straddle, it was alot of boring action also. whoever invited some of these players needs to be fire, They need to keep the major action players and invite some people like Chip Reese, or invite The grinder back and some other young guys..

[csquard]

HSP3 as a major disappointment speaks to who the audience of the show is. If you step back and think of it as a television series, then you have the cult fans (many of us) and the casual fans (the poker dreamers). No one accidentally watches this show as who in their right mind skims through GSN to see what's on. I agree that too-many-players has reduced the storylines as guys are coming and going. This makes the season more difficult for the casual fan, and even for the zealots it probably comes off as more of a throwing everything on the wall and seeing if something sticks.

IMO, the table we have now is the one we could sit back and watch a dozen hours of play. We're already seeing all of these subplots emerge almost instantly (Benyamine producing an extra $200k when all those monies show up, Negreanu's chat starting to look uncomfortable with all these big guns there, players very familiar with some at the table and unfamiliar with others, etc.).

The last episode makes this season great, just with the big change in dynamics with Booth's bundle and his immediate Ivey play. We basically have half of Bobby's Room now combined with their online equivalents, with Esfandiari and Negreanu thrown in for good measure. If you could go another eight hours with Booth, Benyamine, Ivey, Dags, Brian Townsend, and Antonius, what other two players would you add to complete a solid eight-handed table? I'd suggest Chip Reese and Jason Strasser to further broaden the game or Prahlad and Gus Hansen to LAG the table up some more.

[9cao]

It is simply a product of too few hands. They are only playing like 10-15 hands an hour. If they played more hands per hour or longer sessions the shows would be much better. As it is no, there are not enough interesting hands to show.

[stephenNUTS]

Dead on correct post csguard!