If you are an old-school poker fan and you watched the recent airings of the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event final table on ESPN, you probably feel about the same way I do.

Yuck.

Have you ever seen such a preposterous display of poor sportsmanship, worse play, terrible etiquette and generally inappropriate behavior at the poker table?

Well, yes you have, if you watched Jamie Gold’s boorish display last year. But this year’s show was much worse. At least against the backdrop of the Gold circus, we saw ultra-classy pro Allen Cunningham make a run for the bracelet, and watched the emergence of a star-in-waiting in runner-up Paul Wasicka. Players like Richard Lee and Michael Binger also gave more than respectable showings.

Frankly, this year’s final table didn’t provide a whole lot to root for. New WSOP champion Jerry Yang is unlikable in a lot of ways. He walks around the table dressed in all black, mumbling to himself like some sort of schizophrenic, Mini-Me version of the Grim Reaper; he plays poorly -- some of the raises and calls he made were just absurd --and he repeatedly evoked the name of God at the poker table.

Yang’s faith is his business and it’s not my place to judge. But it is my place to note that there is no more inappropriate place to call on God than at the poker table, for Christ’s sake. Pun intended, sort of.

It was comical to witness the hand in which Lee Watkinson went broke (he shoved in a with A-7 from the big blind and Yang, who had raised from the small blind, called with A-9. Both players probably couldn’t have played it worse). When the baby flop kept Yang’s monster A-9 in the lead, the ESPN crews had a field day panning back and forth between Yang and Watkinson’s girlfriend, who showed similar religious zest from the rail in rooting on her man. Both recited scriptures as the final two cards were dealt, Yang pleading, “Show me your miracles, father,” while Watkinson’s squeeze repeated, “Make me a believer, Lord.”

Well, if I am God in that spot, I’m rooting for the hot chick, and Watkinson’s girlfriend is quite a looker. Yet, amazingly, Yang’s hand held up and the only pro of any real note at the final table donked out in 8th place. Of course, his all-in re-raise should have worked. But as the old saying goes, if you try to bluff a bad player, you then become one.

Phillip Hilm learned that lesson the hard way against Yang, and it was painful to watch. His bold play against the wrong opponent sent him to the rail in 9th place, and it was disappointing because he was the best player at the final table, and he might have made the contest more bearable to watch.

Hilm called a raise against Yang’s A-K, and his 8-5 of diamonds flopped bottom pair and a flush draw. Yang made pot-sized bets on flop and turn, at which point Hilm check-raised all-in. It’s hard deciding which is worse; Hilm’s semi-bluff in this spot or Yang’s call for all his chips with just one pair against a scary board with straight and flush draws lurking. But if you watched the show, you know Yang wasn’t in the mood for laying down much of anything, so it was no big surprise that he called all-in and survived the river.

Yang’s ascent up the chip ladder wouldn’t have even been possible if it weren’t for one of the worst laydowns in televised poker history. This came from 7th-place finisher Lee Childs in one of the first big pots at the final table. With blinds at $120-$240K, he raised from early position with Q-Q and Yang, to his immediate left holding J-J, re-popped it to $2.5 million with J-J. He and Yang were both relative short stacks at the time, with a little better than $8 million each.

This is where everything went wrong for Childs. If he truly believed there was a good chance he might be beat, he should have folded right there. If he moves in, he gets an instant call from Yang and we have a different WSOP champion. Aside from folding, he did the next-worse thing … he called. Presumably, Childs called hoping to see a “clean” flop that did not contain an ace or a king, though little did he know that he needn’t worry about Yang having big slick. He played the wait-and-see flop correctly – at first, that is. The baby flop came 10-high, and Childs led out for $3 million, at which point Yang immediately went all-in.

Childs deliberated, told his father that he “didn’t know where he was at,” and folded with more than half of his chips in the pot. Here’s where he was at: he had a big over pair to the board against a loose-wild opponent, and more than half his chips already committed. His pre-flop call was basically a statement of pot commitment if the flop contained no scare cards. Again, if he was planning on folding to that flop, why lead out? If his plan was to pounce on a baby flop, he got one, and there was no turning back. If you’re opponent has aces or kings, then you just got unlucky. Instead, Childs inconceivably folded, and it’s surely haunting him as he views the replay of the final table.

There were many other blunders and most of them involved Yang. They included him raising to 10 times the big blind with 8-8 from early position (10 times!), and, what’s more, he got a call! This was $5 online sit-and-go play at its worst. Granted, Hilm’s call had a purpose; he wanted to give Yang exactly what the short man did not want, resistance. Even so, why bother in that spot for so many chips against such an unorthodox opponent?

Hilm has probably asked himself this question several times. Other Yang mishaps included his insistence on calling the all-ins of Russian Alex Kravchenko, who it seemed picked up a hand and moved in about once every 4 hours. Yang was armed and ready with ace-rag or worse each time, and his insistence on doubling up Kravchenko numerous times almost cost him the tournament. Only when his 8-8 held up against the Russian’s A-K did Yang finally get rid of him.

Another problem is that is was hard to decide whom to root for. Like a good movie or a random sporting event, poker final tables usually feature a variety of personalities, and there is usually someone whose demeanor, game, or both draws my rooting interest. Between all the scripture recitals and Hevad Khan’s hyena-in-heat celebration whenever he won a pot, this person was hard to find. The closest we got was 62-year-old South African Raymond Rahme, who showed a mostly solid game and a gentleman’s disposition. But he made a huge error three-handed by only re-popping Yang’s $2.6 million button raise just $6 million more with K-K from the big blind. For any reasonable player, this would have been enough. But Yang is not that player; he called the remainder with his trusty ace-rag and outflopped Rahme’s cowboys. Rahme made it worse by check-raising all-in on the ace-high flop, and he was out in third place.

Altogether, the combination of knucklehead plays and questionable behavior set the poker boom back several years. The last two champions are not great players, nor are they great ambassadors for the game, and that hurts if you are a true poker fan at heart.

It is a widespread belief that Chris Moneymaker was the pioneer of the poker boom when he improbably won the 2003 Main Event. But this author is of the belief that it was the whole final table that captivated the nation’s attention. The unscripted blend of unique personalities, from Sam Farha’s stylish and slick persona, to the laid-back, awe-shucks demeanors of Dan Harrington and Jason Lester, is what made that final table a classic.

Moneymaker’s successors, Greg Raymer and Joseph Hachem, kept the poker goodwill going with their personable and classy handlings of themselves and the game. But that all changed when Gold won last year, and Yang’s win signals a further swing downward.

This is poker’s version of the Adam “Pacman” Jones NFL fiasco and the Tim Donaghy NBA gambling scandal. Bad champions give poker a black eye; now it’s time for the game to find a way to put some ice on it.