One of the matches on Sunday’s NBC’s 2009 Heads-Up Poker Championship was Daniel Negreanu vs Scotty Nguyen. A great match up of two poker professionals, I was anticipating fireworks, mental and verbal jostling with great suck outs and bad beats. Both will play with any hand and each plays the player. I was not disappointed!
What made it even better from an entertainment standpoint, Negreanu came dressed as Nguyen (<–NBC video), and played the entire match impersonating Nguyen, “Oh yeah baby.” Watching these two upped the entertainment ante…and took the curse off of watching the featured table which, as I wrote about yesterday (Phil Hellmuth’s Shocking Behavior), was so serious.
Final Hand
Nguyen, short-stacked and on the button with Kd 7h pushes all in. Negreanu shows Qh 10c. Board comes 9d Ks Js 4c 2c. Negreanu flopped the nuts and went on to the next round.
Scotty and Daniel were at ease and had fun with it…I couldn’t help but wonder though…casual fun or brilliant marketing? When such an anticipated rematch of Hellmuth vs Dwan is at the featured table, how do you get attention? Kudos to Daniel’s and Scotty’s marketing teams…and thanks for keeping it light!
What do you think? Casual fun or brilliant marketing?