TV / POKER: Late Night Poker & Celebrity Poker Club

In the last post I went on (at length) about my poker playing midweek. I really have watched every episode of Late Night Poker, first on Channel 4 and now with the satellite repeats on Discovery Home & Leisure. I've only recently become aware of Celebrity Poker Club, which is like LNP but with people you might have seen stumbling into or out of parties in Hello magazine. Both programmes are made by the same production company. Since CPC uses the same commentators as the last few series of LNP (Jesse May and Barney Boatman), the same dealers (Marina and Peter) and even the same kind of camera shots (pulling out of a closeup of a vase of flowers and into a wide shot of the players anyone?), if you blinked you couldn't tell the difference.

Watching people play poker might seem a bit strange. Watching football can be explained away because I could never do the kinds of things I see players doing on the pitch (and I watch Stoke City). But I could quite easily join a poker game online and strut my stuff. I can only compare it to the odd fascination I used to have for watching darts. I mean come on, it's two blokes chucking bits of metal at a circle. Surely the same drama you get from watching it could be gained from opening the paper the next day and thinking "Oh look, Phil 'The Power' Taylor won." But still I stayed glued to the screen. At least darts had its entertainment value with the legendary commentator Sid Waddell. His crazy turns of phrase and erratic shouts pumped in some much needed excitement.

Watching poker may not be as good as playing it, but it does have its very own over-the-top commentary thanks to Jesse May. My favourite quote from LNP was when someone made a big bet and the 'under the table' cameras showed us what cards they had. "Oh my god, he's got the gay waiter," shouted Jesse, before quickly explaining, "It's a Queen with a trey." It took me a moment to realise he meant the player had a Queen with a Three, trey being Spanish for three. Geddit - gay waiter, Queen with a tray? Unbelievable, I thought.

But I think it's been beaten by the episode of CPC I just watched. Actors Keith Allen and Nigel Lindsay try and muscle each other out of a pot, raising and re-raising until Nigel's 'all in'. When the cards are flipped over it's clear they both have the same hand, and the chips will be shared out. Cue Jesse, "Showdown, we're going to see a split pot here. It's all for nought, like kissing your sister."