Face The Ace Debuts to Mixed Reviews

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The newest entry in the televised poker category debuted this weekend. NBC’s “Face The Ace” premiered at 9:00pm ET on Saturday, with a simple (but potentially catchy) premise: regular folks face off against randomly chosen poker pros in a heads up freezeout match. If they win their first match, they get $40k, which they can keep or elect to risk by moving on to the next match. That match is worth 200k; a win in that one and they can book the 200k and exit or risk it all on a third match worth $1 million.

The debut episode saw two contestants face off against various ‘aces’ (all drawn from the Full Tilt Poker pro roster). First up was Jonathan Nygaard from Jonestown, Pennsylvania. Nygaard faced off against Phil Ivey in a very brief match that ended a few hands in when Ivey reshipped with A4 and Nygaard woke up with QQ. The queens held, Nygaard won and elected to walk off with the 40k. Next up: Illinois native Don Topel, who busted both Erick Lindgren and Howard Lederer.

Topel elected to return next week to play for $1 million. The question is, will anyone be watching? Reaction to Face The Ace among the online poker community was tepid, at best. Wicked Chops summed up the general response across forums and blogs: “While the show has some potential, it definitely needs some tweaks. Steve Schirripa seemed a little awkward as host. Most of the entertainment really relied on the pros making convo. The show could move a little faster, add a little more Ali Nejad, and maybe use some background mood music or Peter Bretter inspired tones.”

We couldn’t agree more. Schirripa seems a really odd choice for host of this show, and doesn’t do anything but make the proceedings feels stretched and uncomfortable. The pros try their best to make small talk with the players, but the matches move so quickly and the players are so apparently star-struck that the conversation dies quickly. The best banter of the show
came from hostess Megan Abrigo, who had some quick comebacks to comments from Schirripa that, scripted or no, got a genuine response from the audience.

The ratings suggest the casual poker public isn’t immediately thrilled with the program either. FTA came in last for its time slot, losing out to America’s Most Wanted, a rerun of Numb3rs and an ABC movie called Red Eye.

Despite the issues, you’ll likely see the show stick around for a bit. It can’t cost very much to produce and it’s an excellent commercial for Full Tilt Poker. It does a good job of promoting the central idea necessary to bring recreational players online – that any player at any time can possibly take down the best in the world and win a boatload of money. Finally, the show is so simple that it has a lot of flexibility in terms of how it’s presented, so expect to see serious tweaks in upcoming episodes.

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