Review Update: Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational

This is a brief update of last year's review of the Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational, for the 2008 edition.

I'd reprioritize my criticisms of last year's show: not having onscreen graphics for the action may be a bigger problem than not showing all the hole cards. The show is partially rescued, however, by decent commentary: Barry Tompkins and Howard Lederer do a lot of play by play, audibly indicating much of what should be onscreen. And at least the show has pot sizes onscreen. The position of the hole-card graphics is confusing, as with most shows; this time I didn't bother to figure out any hidden logic to the card graphics' order. The lack of stack-size information is a serious weakness of this show. I'm not even sure how deep this game is playing in general, which significantly affects playing style. It impedes the analysis of individual hands as well. As with last year, the show spends far too much time on non-poker content.

The Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational is neither the best cash game I've seen (The Game), nor the worst (I wasn't a big fan of Million Dollar Cash Game or Poker Den). Compared to the universe of poker shows, however, Aussie Millions Cash Game Invitational is still above average, deserving something in the range of the **** I gave it last time.