World Poker Forums

Ive been watching vids on youtube and on high stakes poker there always seems to be pocket pairs, straights flushes etc, but when me and my mates play, pocket pairs are really rare and the highest hand is usually pair. Why do poker tournaments always give high hands?

the things you see on tv and youtube are a few select hands out of thousands, think of all the people not posting hands, there isn't really a reason to post your 39 off suit that hits nothing, and why would they show that on tv?

What you see is not every single hand that gets played. Like stated by the person before me, they select the best hands.If they were to show every single hand that was played, the broadcast would last as long as the entire tournament, thats days of footage, say an episode would last an hour, that would mean there would be like 40 hours of footage, filled with boring hands etc...People do indeed get confused by this, like yourself, as it looks as if the players get nothing but good hands.What you may notice is that between some hands the amount of chips a player has can drop or go up without you seeing any action from him, thats because the hand he lost/won with was not shown. I've seen bad things like someone who had 1.000.000 chips and the next hand he was all-in with only about 300.000 left, he lost 700 in between the two hands shown, but we don't know that.

In high stakes poker (the series), you'll see big hands because pros show down big hands, there is also 9 or so players meaning bigger hands and more pocket pairs per round. In tv tournaments,(not cash games) they just show the action hands.