SELL POKERSTARS W$ T$ DOLLARS INSTANTLY!

I had read something about this a couple weeks ago but it didn't register until i saw it after the NFL game yesterday. Really impressive! I don't know how much that time slot cost, but I think it was worth it since their target audience should still be young males. As a poker player, I didn't care for the format much, but I can see the reasons why. I guess there's a reason why Americans love game shows, so that format is probably a good idea. And then telling everyone to go to PokerStars.net and make a new account and wait for a password to get into a free tourney seemed great. I'd love to see the PokerStars numbers as they must have spiked. Of course us poker players know that there are freerolls all the time and they're no big deal, but I bet the folks at home watching don't realize that.

I liked how Daniel constantly made comments on every hand since there wasn't a normal play-by-play host. It's a shame that the other PokerStars Team Pros don't have very good personalities. They're great guys, just not personable. I think the show should script alot more stuff (looks like they might not have scripted any). A pushup match with that sargeant would've been great - reminds me of the Charles Barkley TNT pushup contest from last year's NBA season. The playmate worked out well since it usually annoys me when shows put talentless eye candy out there, but this girl knew the poker jargon and didn't make a fool of herself, while still supplying the eye candy, so well done.

I think PokerStars' normal commercials are great, but they have only one genre. Now when I see them I kinda tune them out since they're all the same, and for that matter, extremely similar to Full Tilt's commercials. This game show challenge portrayed PokerStars and online gaming in a completely different light. That has to be a good thing.

Of course I'm extremely biased, but I think it would be great to somehow showcase a few online guys and how they can build their rolls from $50-100 into $10k+ and make $5k+/month. The Boku87 bet would be great ($5 into $100k < 1 year), but spice it up and show his life and how he might win a saatellite here or there to get to travel to a far-off destination. I think by only marketing the big dogs, it appears to make it like winning the lottery. I don't know if non-poker players out there realize that you can set up an online account and within 6 months be making more than $75k+/year without "winning the lottery".

I always see those Yahoo Finance articles along the lines of "Top 10 Online Jobs" or "Top 10 Jobs Without a Degree" and they never mention online poker. It just shocks me that more people don't realize what a sweet racket this whole thing is. I guess most are truly followers and can't think outside the box.

I started playing at 7am yesterday, but my cousins were in town so Michaela and I took them and my nephew for a bike ride along the boardwalk around 2.30pm. Still a decent session, but I normally like to grind for at least 12 straight on Sundays. Now I feel like I "have to" play 5 hours sometime this week just to get my weekly average back up. Especially after the game show and announcement of the Team PokerStars Online Pros, I'm more fired up to get more games in. We're heading to Hawaii next Wednesday, so I plan to grind rather hard every day until then (although tonight is the Chargers/Broncos game).

Go Chargers!

-PinPB