Search - Ultimate Poker Challenge Season Two on DVD

For die-hard poker fans only,this is like having King-9 suit

Poker Face | Toronto, Canada | 12/07/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"WARNING: My DVD was missing episode #7. It's listed on the inner case,but when I select it, it instead shows me episode #4 , which is already on another disc. So I have two episode #4's and NO episode #7. If you buy this, check if your episode #7 has the same people it lists on the case,instead of episode #4's Al Krux,Freddy Deeb etc. that I have. Maybe only some of the sets have incorrectly duplicated episode #4. According to the case,episode #7 is supposed to include:R.Guevarra, A.Lari, I. Overman, K. Robbins, D. Johnson, D. Kaufman and Chung Ng.

UPDATE: I have just recently seen the missing episode #7 while watching Canadian Tv (on CGTV), so I can tell you that the co-host was Robert Williamson III. The $28,000 first prize was won fairly easily by three year female poker pro, R.Guevarra (Winnipeg,Canada), who also is quite good at chip tricks.

Yes, I love watching poker on DVD. Even though this series, filmed at The Plaza in Las Vegas,has generally a low budget look and feel to it, due to it's only so-so visuals from the poor DVD transfer quality (lots of small digital squares seen in the background and many more places), I still am enjoying it. Chad Brown and his various co-hosts still read the cue-cards like they're robots,causing me to both cringe and laugh at the same time since many of them look like idiots.

There are 28 episodes(actually only 27,since episode #7 is missing from my DVD). All are about 43 minutes in length, and mostly feature 7 player final tables. Two of the episodes are on the bonus Disc 8. One of those bonus episodes has Chad Brown and Oliver Nejad analysing many of the hands of Season 2 to illustrate how they are good examples of bluffing or playing position etc. Mostly basic explanations are given, so it's more boring than informative, if you've watched enough Tv poker. The second bonus episode features Chad Brown and Ted Forrest commenting on many of the heads-up only hands of Season 2. Again,very basic stuff.

This time around, they have different tournament buy-ins and prize pools for each event,which is fine,but it still seems basically identical to last year's season anyway,so it's not really much of an improvement. For example,episode #2 has a buy in of $1500,with first place netting $35,650 and 7th place getting $5095 (which is similar to all the other tournaments on these DVD's). The championship game though, has a buy-in of $10,000 and a top prize of $167,000 for the winner.

Some of the pros you'll see playing in this DVD set are: Todd Brunson,Chris Ferguson,Andy Bloch,Cyndy Violette,John Juanda,Erick Lindgren,Mark Seif,TJ Cloutier,Clonie Gowen etc. However, most of the episodes feature unknowns with the odd pro sprinkled in.

Again,the fun part of this series is the many different co-hosts that appear with Chad Brown. Some are worse than others but still help keep this from being as lame as it could have been. They are as follows: Oliver Nejad, Dan Harrington,Robert Williamson III,Kenna James,Kristy Gazes,Clonie Gowen,Hoyt Corkins, Connie Kim,Gavin Smith,Vince Burgio,Scott Fischman,Chris Ferguson and Ted Forrest. That's all of them, since many appear more than once.

The card graphics have changed slightly from last year's release but still are easy to read and I don't really have a preference as they both look good enough. There now is a Fulltiltpoker logo in the bottom left corner of the screen for most of every game and the odd poker website banner moving across the bottom of the screen, but they don't bother me that much anyway.

One great thing is that they no longer give away at the beginning who will NOT win the game because they don't show interview spoiler clips like they did last season before each episode. Another twist is that in episode #11, it only lets you see one of player's two hole cards in the heads-up battle(like on Celeb. Poker Showdown's, How Would You Play It?),although for the first hand they accidentally showed both hands just before the flop. Gotta love those lame production values. Funny stuff.

One sad thing is that hottie Brandi Williams' outfits are mostly dull (only 2 semi-hot outfits) and fail to showcase her true "talents" like last year's revealing ones did. So now, she's practically useless and adds virtually nothing to the show. I want my eye candy back! If you're a fan of hers, just stick with Season 1.

So, if you simply have to see almost every Tv poker DVD they release, like I do,by all means pick up a copy, but be warned, this set is a little less polished than last year's and just offers more of the same, which for most, will probably be sleep inducing. This is light years behind World Poker Tour quality but after watching just a few episodes of this UPC Season 2, it's cheesy look and feel may grow on you, just like the mold that's probably growing on some of the seats at The Plaza."

Good Teaching Tool

D. Vetter | 04/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even though it is a couple years old, this series is full of learning points and is well produced. I wish the show was back on the air."