If you listened to Phil Gordon’s WSOP podcast (and if you didn’t, you missed out), you heard him promoting his new instructional DVD, Final Table Poker. The DVD is aimed at tournament play focusing on No Limit Hold ‘Em.
Long time readers of this blog know that despite being a Professional Poker Player(TM), my tournament game is one of my biggest holes. Therefore, I eagerly awaited the delivery of this DVD in hopes that I could learn something. I was not disappointed.
Many people are familiar with Phil Gordon: he’s one of the Tiltboys, he’s made a number of World Poker Tour final tables (winning one), announcer for Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown, and spokesman for Full Tilt Poker. His tournament record is impressive. He knows what he’s doing and he’s got a great personality.
The video is setup like a final table of the World Poker Tour, flashing lights and all. You only get to see Gordon’s hole cards, which at first kind of bugged me because I am used to seeing all of them on TV. After a while though it made sense that they did not show them because you are supposed to be in Gordon’s mind, and therefore you would not be able to see them. This is made apparent a couple of times when Gordon will make comments such as, “I have no idea what he has”. They also have 3 commercial segments with those cool Full Tilt ads.
The table is made up of real people including 2000 WSOP champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, “The Voice of the Octagon” Bruce Buffer and Gordon. The rest of the table are facsimilies of real people. These include “Butch Dude”, a member of the “Cool Guy Crew” representing Dutch Boyd; “Harmony Jensen” representing Jennifer Harman (I would guess) and “KW” who is part Phil Ivey.
Gordon covers a number of topics throughout the video. He addresses these as they come up in the “real” tournament situations. For example, he covers the gap concept early on when trying to decide how to act. Some of the topics covered include position, short stack play, odds, and board texture. Gordon does a great job explaining these concepts, often times breaking away from the game to show graphics and a more detailed explanation.
During the play you are “in” Gordon’s head. You hear what he’s thinking and why he acts the way he does. This is very informative due to the way the game is setup. It is not “by the book” type of video, but rather a way to show you how to evaluate a situation and make decisions based on that information. It goes to show that poker, especially no limit tournament poker, is not a game that can just be played by the book.
Gordon also provides some great commentary about the players during his “thinking” about what to do. They were things that most “normal” people would be saying to themselves. “What the hell does he have?” “Please fold! Please fold!” “Please bet! Please bet!” etc. They weren’t needed, but added a nice personality to the show. His personality really shines through and is very enjoyable without being distracting.
There were, however, a couple of things that could have been improved. One was that the flashing lights that went across the table when they did the overhead shots were way too bright, it made it difficult to see the cards. I know they were trying to mimic a WPT show, but they could have cut the number of lights over the table in half and it would have been enough.
There was also at least two times where the cards that were displayed were different than what was shown in the hole card camera. The ranks were correct, but the suits were wrong. For the particular hand it didn’t matter, but it was wrong enough that I noticed it and should have been something that was caught in editing.
Note that none of the “bad” had anything to do with the content. It just seemed that some of these production issues should have been caught, especially the cards not matching.
I have not viewed any other poker videos, so I cannot compare Final Table Poker to others, but I can say that the information seemed helpful and valid. If you play tournaments all the time or are a Professional Poker Player, you may not get much out of this, most people, however, will be able to get at least a couple of things out of this which will more than pay for the $25 the DVD costs. The unique thing about this DVD is that Gordon walks you through his thought process, which should help you in assessing a situation.
The video is aimed at live tournaments, but many of the concepts will obviously translate to online tournaments. Some things such as tells and taking your time may not be too applicable, but assessing betting patterns and other concepts are common across the different types of games. It is also specfically aimed at tournaments, although once again, some of the general concepts (gap concept, betting patterns, etc.) will directly apply to ring games.
I recommend this DVD and would think that virtually any tournament player or even no limit ring game player will get $25 worth of value out of it. It covers a lot of material in 90 minutes and warrants a couple of viewings. I have watched it a couple of times and each time I absorb something new.
). Hell, I even got a call from some British bloke from The Gaming Club (a CALL! Yes, it was legit, they sent an email saying they would be calling) about a “VIP Freeroll”. OK, that wasn’t for my birthday, but…
