As a sports fan, ESPN Classic is a great TV channel to have. I’ve always enjoyed it. I really like the fact that you can watch older sporting events that were classics. Now that poker is big, ESPN Classic has been airing some of the older poker tournaments. These tourneys do not have hole cameras to show the player’s cards but they are still fun to watch. Most of the tourney’s I’ve seen on this channel were from the 1990’s.
ESPN Classic will air more than just the older World Series of Poker events. I’ve also seen older U.S. Poker Championships on it. This morning, I saw John Juanda win Jack Binion’s 2001 World Poker Open at Tunica, Mississippi and it wasn’t a World Poker Tour event. Daniel Negreanu and Allen Cunningham were railbirding Juanda during this event.
I once saw an older event from 1996 and Phil Hellmuth exploded on someone during it. Go figure. Some guy out flopped Phil with a weaker ace. His rants have not changed. At least Phil is consistent!
Also, getting a chance to watch to Scotty Nguyen and T.J. Cloutier smoke cigarettes at the poker table is always entertaining in itself. If you have ESPN Classic and you‘re a poker junkie, set the TIVO box or VCR.
1. Another great moment although I don't recall the event. Hellmuth wanted a bathroom break but someone else at the table was steaming and hated Hellmuth and refused to let the table break. Hellmuth proceeds to ask the host how long you can wait on a hand and it turned out to be like 2 minutes or something. Phil then asks another player at the table to use up his entire hand time so he could run to the bathroom, the guy said sure, used up his time while Phil went to pee and Phil made it back in time with the other guy steaming even more; classic!
Posted at 2:45PM on Oct 25th 2005 by Matt Williams