Go ruane, but really anyone but josephy, vayo, benger, or wong... all a bunch of losers. Vayo/benger being by far the worst.

Didn't love Kassouf, but was any part of his talk to Benger "abuse" in any way?

Yes, he's still in.

Abuse is stretching it a bit, but suppose for a moment that Kassouf keeps up these antics for ten full minutes while you're being dead silent, not moving, and staring at the board? At some point, it's out of line. We of course can't tell from the broadcast how long it went on, although it's been reported that the hand went eighteen minutes, and Benger called Kassouf's jam immediately. In Benger's spot, I really don't want to speak or engage in conversation with most people. I suppose I could be convinced to say a single word: "clock."

But I'd very likely, per my post above, to have told Kassouf at some point before the hand that I'm never ever going to answer a question during a hand with him. I'd probably be polite about it. But I also might start needling him in some way without calling him names, hopefully in a way that's funny/mean rather than mean/mean.

Kassouf would be phenomenally annoying to play with for a full twelve-hour day. His speech cadence is irritating to me and constant repetition would drive me bats.

Vayo, Benger, and Josephy all sounded mean/mean. Niwinski, not so much.

November 9 had a lot of potential... but I feel like this is just one of the worst possible combinations. Some deep runners that I would have loved to see in the Nov 9:

Dan Colman (for "star" power)
Tom Marchese (same as above)
James Obst
Kassouf
Mike Shin (had that cool story about playing to try to help his parents retire even though they disproved of poker)

Hallaert/Vayo/Josephy/etc .... yawn

Yeah agree, shame last few years have had pretty bad fts when you look who made the final 2-3 tables.

Kara Scott couldn't be any worse..questions are brutal

Vayo and Josephy striked me as douchebags with how they handled Kassouf topics.
Benger could've handled the Kassouf situation better, I thought he was cool until that blow up.
I think Kassouf's intent was to be tactical but his execution was unpolished and abrasive.
I'm rooting for Kenny Hallaert cause he seems chill and a really solid player, if Qui Nguyen can get on a solid Banker run than he might just ship it.

"Struck" me. Who are these people?

Hard to root for any of these guys who were dicks to Kassouf (Not saying I'd root for Kassouf either, but two wrongs don't make a right).

No to Vayo, JonnyBax, Benger, Hallaert.

Give me Ruane

Completely void of logic or sense - Are they middle-schoolers? Is that it?

+1, that's who I'm rooting for... seems a solid player & nice guy. Him or Ruzicka.

i'm on the Ruane train as well

Gotta root for Tiger hat Baccarat guy.

Nguyen. Seems like a cool dude and would be good for poker if he'd win.

I feel like ppl are a bit too all-in on everybody is sucky/boring in recent years. I feel like at least partly it's the broadcasters fault for not finding ways to present engaging poker stories with what they have. They keep structuring the broadcast like the only thing that can be interesting in poker is big personalities, setting themselves up for a dud when they (inevitably) get knocked out.

Tbh though I was rooting for Kassouf. He definitely stepped over some lines, and I feel like he could have accomplished most of what he wanted without being as obnoxious with the time wasting in particular. But the way the table ganged up on him was kinda lame too. Vayo comes off as a bit of a tool. His "I'm so impressed with him, only 25 years old" etc line about the adorably dorky guy (i forget his name) was hard to watch. Then he repeated it.

check your privilege

I wanted to punch Benger after that ridiculous display against WK. I was mixed on WK, but what a pussy Benger is. Check your privilege..... Who the **** says that?

Josephy? Totally unlikable douche.

Tough to find someone to root for right now but I am sure I will find someone as the night goes on. One thing for sure, it won't be either of those two *****.

The longer the Kassouf show went on the more he annoyed me. But hopefully his antics will end up being good for poker. Unfortunately Effel did not handle him well, so rules alone are not enough, they must be enforced. I surmise that Effel will not go down as one of the absolute best TDs in history.

Some may consider everything about K's "speech play" above board, I do not. When the action is not on you, especially with 3 or more players in the hand, any talk about hands or action should be dealt with an official warning, and then a penalty. On at least one occasion that made it to TV, after having (finally) acted pre-flop, K tried to influence the action with a few players yet to act. That should have incurred a warning instead.

When action is heads up and the action is on your opponent, you should not be allowed to constantly verbally harass them as K did time and time and time again. If you disagree, then perhaps I will take a whistle to my next poker game and blow it constantly when I have bet the river and my opponent is deciding what to do. I feel this is particularly where Effel did not do his job. K's antics should have been stopped by him having received a warning, an orbit penalty and subsequent penalties if his behaviour continued.

But of course K's biggest transgression was his tanking. I suggest that the length of "the clock" needs to be situation-dependent. If a clock is called pre-flop when not facing a raise, I'd say 30 seconds is plenty, more than plenty. If someone needs to have a clock called on them in such a situation I suggest they actually need a warning. I don't know what the answer is. A shot clock? Time banks? An expectation that play needs to be much faster than K wanted it to be? He says he wasn't interested in laddering up when clearly his tanking enabled just that. I don't see why anyone needs more than 2-3 minutes on any decision, that is, assuming you don't have an ASS CLOWN like K trying to **** with your head.

K has every right to consider decisions just like everyone else does, but if the action is on him and he starts his ridiculous 'speech play' and gets no feedback, then clearly he is wasting time and not utilising his time efficiently. He needed to be clocked many times, and unfortunately I think his opponents let their emotions get in the way of using the rules to improve the flow of the game.

Lol, no-one voting for gordon Vayo to win b/c he acted like a huge douche. In all the hands shown on tv, he appeared to be a ####.

from a TV standpoint, Kassouf more entertaining than the rest of the November 9 combined

What did he mean with this sentence?

if you're a ****lord

http://www.checkmyprivilege.com/quiz

it seems I am

Privilege

Your privilege level is*Disadvantaged*with a score of*-90

Lol

I am also a ****lord, go figure.