SkyPoker have brought something new into the world of poker.  It's interactive TV - and despite the critics, it's working and it's making them money.  It's also bringing a lot of people into poker - and that can only be a good thing. 

The main show on SkyPoker is The Open, a multi-table tournament that's on most nights and people can play along at home whilst 'experts' in the studio comment on hands and studio guests also take part in the tournament.  I appeared on the show last year, and it was good fun.  The Open itself is a bit of a 'luckfest' - the blinds go up so quickly that you need a lot of luck to do well, and it's a format that suits the looser players (whereas my play is a lot tighter and favours a slower blind structure).

Anyway, SkyPoker have introduced different shows, with differing success.  One that has been introduced recently is Stacked Up.

Instead of tournament play, this programme focuses on cash poker.  It's quite a different beast, and also not always the best format for a two-hour show on TV.  To get round this, they've introduced a league table and a time-limited format.  Teams of three appear on the show and see how much ROI they can make in two 50-minute sessions on the show. 

I captained a team for the blonde poker forum a month back, and we did OK.  SkyPoker invited all the teams back on again, and we recorded our second show last Tuesday - and it'll be aired on the SkyPoker channel this Tuesday (15 July) at 9pm (it's also broadcast online).  I personally did better this time, but again in such a short time-period a lot of luck comes into play.

As a team we faired less well.  Only two minutes away from the end of the show and our star player lost a huge hand which shot us down from the top of the league table to somewhere further down.  we aren't too upset about that, as it was only for a trophy (no cash prize), although the money we were playing with on the show was actually our own (as are any profits we make, or losses for that matter).

The thing with the show that it's just not that interesting.  There's no compelling reason to watch it (in my opinion), but I guess it's another show that Sky's offering and I'm sure they'll tweak it and change the format until it's right.

I've already had other players at DTD mention

that they'd seen me on telly, and others at the table started to give me more respect as we played!  If only they'd see

n the show…

Although I did OK with this hand: