[Shout out to Deal or No Deal‘s Box 23 being interesting for the very second time in two years today, I don’t know the outcome at time of writing but the advert makes it sound VERY DRAMATIC.]

The other night I was informed of a Circus Halligalli special, Das Duell um Die Geld (it’s kind of a pun on another show they do, Joko and Klass’ Das Duell um De Weld) and I tuned in live, it was another attempt at the game show holy grail the quiz poker variant. As a poker player I realised a while ago that it’s really hard to make a convincing poker quiz show so I thought I’d try and articulate (badly) why.

Basing a quiz around the structure of a poker tournament initially looks like a great idea – there’s constant jeopardy and a clear beginning, middle and end game. Rising stakes.

However everybody makes the same mistake of trying to base it on Texas Hold ’em. Hold ’em is a variant that works great on telly because it’s fast, there’s action and there isn’t much the viewer needs to keep track of – just two cards for each player and whatever is in the middle. It’s pretty easy to work out what the best hand is at any given point. There is potential for shock results.

Unfortunately it is very not the case that you can just stick a nearest-to question to the formula of Hold ’em and hope for the best. If you’re watching coverage of poker on telly it’s pretty easy to hide or edit the admin – the blind posting and minor rules, this is much more difficult to do on a televised quiz, and people hate watching admin.

Pretty routinely you get your question, a round of betting, a hint (your flop, if you like), a round of betting, another hint, another round, the answer, another round then reveal. The issue here is that this is not actually very exciting to watch – extra cards mean extra possibilities and extra ways to take a hand down, all hints do is narrow down the possible range, there’s no real chance of an exciting twist river and no real opportunity to bluff – because of the nature of the questions if you’re pretty close you’re likely to stick around no matter what, the chance of an amazing bluff, an amazing read, an amazing put down or an amazing outdraw are zero and none. If quiz hold ’em worked like real hold ’em, you’d write an answer down before you even knew what the question was.

Because quiz poker is necessarily quite a slow game (because good telly demands build ups and big gestures when betting, for example) by necessity you’re probably only likely to get 10-15 questions in. If you played an actual poker tournament that was designed to finish in 10-15 hands you’d think it was a waste of money. By design everyone would be all-in every hand three-quarters into the show. That might make for some exciting television, but it’s not really poker and if you’ve come this far why bother with the poker at all?

The one poker quiz that’s had some success is Met het Mes op Tafel which pretty much breaks the rules – it’s not based on hold ’em (it’s probably closer to five card draw, as an equivalent) the betting is quick (its rules are unusual but they work for television) and there’s lots of questions in its half hour slot. It’s open to question how well it works as poker after the first few hands (when the antes get quite large if you stay in after the first round of betting you’re probably staying to the end no matter what) but it does work quite well as television. And that’s the important thing.

Got nothing to do on Saturday night from about half nine? Then why not join us for Bother’s Game Night! It’s a party and you’re all invited! The Jackbox Party Pack 2 is out today and I want to explore its internet-ability. I think watching a stream of it is perfectly fine, but for the best experience you want to recreate the lots of people in a room vibe, so that’s what we’re hoping to do.

I’m looking for a handful of people to play along in the Google Hangout (4-6 about ideal) chatting and reacting live, and for those games where there are extra spaces then anyone watching can just fill in by playing along with their phones. Want to be a part of it without playing properly? Fine! Log in as an audience member and vote on the answers, you can affect the outcome. All you need to play along is a mobile phone or second screen.

Interested in playing in the Hangout? Then hit me up here or on Twitter for consideration. Please be aware that it is likely we will be dealing with adult themes and language.

A couple of shows coming up:

• Great news for fans of mid three-figure prizes and rubbish jeopardy in the guise of strategy, the surprise second series of The Edge starts Monday now fronted by The Gabster herself Gabby Logan. Format tweaks are promised (thank goodness) and it looks like there are new arrows on the set background. A Show Discussion post will go up for it on Monday, you can read the thread for series one here if you want.
• The following Monday (that’s the 19th) Pick Me! begins on ITV at 3pm, upcoming talent Stephen Mulhern fronts a game of hard questions, comedy costumes and comedy bluffing. Will this be a bit too in your face for an audience used to Tipping Point? We shall see.

In other news Challenge have bought the rights to The Million Pound Drop series 1-3 – that’s probably going to require quite a bit of editing to get rid of all the ‘look how live we are stuff’ like the clock and references to people playing along with the app. Still, you can thrill at how slow the first series felt all over again, and at that bit where a couple get to the final question with over half a million.

There are two shows on SRO Audiences looking for contestants that have pretty much exactly the same blurb: For What It’s Worth with Fern Britton and Masterpiece with Alan Titchmarsh. One’s BBC, one’s ITV. It’s uncanny. If you like antiques and collectables (it sounds like the BBC one has a general knowledge element as well) why not try and get on both?

Finally an episode of Celebrity Squares from 1977 has turned up on Youtube look:

Sorry Eternal Glory you’ve been bumped by some potentially very exciting breaking news. C21 are reporting that ITV have signed on a format collaboration deal with CJ E&M.

The deal will see ITVSGE take two of CJ E&M’s Korean formats to UK broadcasters, while CJ E&M will look at two of ITVSGE’s formats for its family of channels. The companies will also work together to develop the formats for interested broadcasters.

Meanwhile, ITVSGE will acquire From Start to Clear and The Genius Game from CJ E&M’s catalogue. CJ E&M’s longest-running entertainment show, From Start to Clear sees a celebrity host and his guests play a computer game – but the twist is they can’t stop until they finish the game.

The company will also take The Genius Game, which sees 13 players from different backgrounds, from poker champions to CEOs and politicians, compete in a battle of wits by playing 12 strategic games.

Korea is getting The Secret Life of Students and Come Date With Me out of the deal.

Look I know nobody actually calls it The Genius Game but AAAAARRRRGGHHH I AM SO SO EXCITED! But let us be clear here, this doesn’t mean that it’s definitely definitely happening and if it does happen there’s no guarantee it will translate correctly. It’s probably a bit more ITV2 than 1 but that’s alright because according to Kyunghoon in an interview he did recently that’s the age range that’s given it it’s massive Korean ratings anyway.

The Genius is the greatest reality game since The Mole. Contestants take part in games of strategy, logic and game theory to try and outwit each other to the top all to an amazing soundtrack and editing techniques. We first looked at it in 2013 and liked what we saw and have been avid viewers since.

Edit: David B makes the very good point in the comments that this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to an ITV channel.