the ESPN2 streams suck, they seem like they don't know what table they're watching and the commentary is usually below-basic pop-culture and memery, and the WSOP commentators are equally childish and unprofessional.

poster was right though, it seems far from what it was as far as general non-poker interest goes.. maybe the increased size of the poker hall/tournament attendance is evidence of another effect; gambling tends to go up in poor economies.

my .02c: i've seen a lot of my favorite casinos close their poker rooms or convert them in the past five years. my neighborhood games are all mostly dried up, and all of my cohort I network with about poker stuff is essentially still just enjoying 10-20 year old Poker After Dark eps. The coverage sucks and only the huge games or private tables are worth watching, and that's a whole other cash grab. The personalities are largely non-existent, and the ones that try angle don't do that great a job.

It all sounds like sour-grapes nostalgia, and maybe it is to a degree, but it's a common opinion that poker is in a rut lately.

At the peak before black Friday, it was pretty routine for 3 or 4 people I knew from work to be on Full Tilt at the same time and I only really knew about 15 people at this company.

The server knows what cards everyone is holding. Even if the cards were randomly assigned and weren't changed after the fact, users have no logs of the order of cards remaining in the deck. Its pretty trivial to have software that selects community cards that usually lead to a larger pot.

Quite often I would be at a table with someone I know and chatting on the side.

We wanted to beat each other though for bragging rights so never colluded. Thinking about what could be done though if sharing card information is really bad. There are so many spots that knowing for certain 2 cards have been removed from the deck would be an absolutely massive advantage.

I can't even imagine the schemes real cheats have come up with.