There is big demand for these cash games and the market keeps improving at rapid pace. What makes poker so interesting compared to chess is the display of emotions, buuld up of storylines during a session, the drama and the many different personalities.

However, HCL has showed us with the Million dollar cash game that it’s not all about the money. If you have just business men playing ABC poker trying to skin Aussie Matt out of 500 k, it’s not that interesting.

Rampage blasting a million dollar bluff against another pro was the highlight for me so far. I think I’m not the only one. The play is executed perfectly, he stayed composed and sold the story to Handz who thought very few people are capable of bluffing in that spot.

I have watched almost every high stakes cash games stream ever televised, most memorable moments are always pro vs pro, for example Ivey vs Dwan when Dwan’s eyes were drying in his head and Ivey was thinking about making sick hero call.

Lodge has streamed some cash games with 1 recreational line up and rest pros and these have been highly entertaining. Usually the rec has been Tarat who is also capable of very unorthodox plays.

HCL and Live at the Bike have had also these pro heavy line ups and they have always been very entertaining. Pros are capable of a level of aggression that many of the recreationals are not.

I think the future of cash games need to be mainly pros with 1-2 recreationals in the mix. To make the game more competitive, fun and aggressive, few suggestions:

- min vpip for certain amount of hands. This works well in app games, creates looser ranges and more creativity / skill is needed

- bounties / bonuses for the recs. For example if they call correctly a big river bluff or run a big river bluff themselves, the pro(s) would need to pay x amount.

- stand up game and similar need to have penalty large enough for it to really matter

- more background stories into players, creating bigger character like in other sports

I think poker has the potential to be the most viewed sports in the world and that would benefit us all with more games. Please share your ideas / views, I’m sure the stream creators read this and will implement the good ideas -> we get better streams and poker grows

Mods:

This is a view that is about poker and it’s future. Putting this under this sub forum is a mistake in my opinion. Here it will get lost along with good discussion, ideas and crtisism. I for example found this sub forum just by accident and I know that alot of people like me only read the NVG.


Some other topics started by me for example about Blank Check Ben could be moved here but this concerns everyone playing poker directly and indirectly.

Handz is a pro??????