I don't think it's too much of an issue to have a special nearly live broadcast without the hole cards to attract hard core players. It's not like ESPN does this all the time, it was a special occasion. Also, it was a Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning, where pretty much the only other sports story was the Penn State fiasco. It's not like the WSOP is up against Monday Night Football. With a timeslot like that I think ESPN can afford to cater to a niche audience. It's not like there'll be 5 million complaints from people who wanted to see Sports Center at 2am.

One more thing, a great deal of people with a casual interest will hear about the championship after the fact, and those people will probably be drawn to the edited down replays with hole cards.

They should go back to heavily-edited two hours per week coverage like they've done in the past. Non-poker players don't care about the hands at all, they watch because of the atmosphere, and the atmosphere/vibe to this year's coverage was redonkulously sterile.

beef jerky wild card?

Although it's fairly enjoyable as an avid poker player to try to read and guess what players have, it is an extremely tough sell for the casual viewer. And even I fell asleep during the coverage.

The WSOP needs to have the cards shown earlier in the hand (and ideally as the hand starts). The Nevada Gaming Commission should give a little slack here and allow ESPN to show the cards on its 15-minute delay once the hand is completed in real time. Therefore, the vast majority of hands that are shown on TV will have cards displayed right from the onset, while the very few hands that take longer than 15 minutes will have the cards displayed after the hand is over (so maybe by the flop or turn).

Sorry, I haven't read the whole thread, so this might be said before:
This was the best poker show ever on TV (computer).
This was not edited, you saw every single hand they played.
The format was brilliant, you saw the hole cards AFTER every hand.
This means that the first time in history you could learn something from TV-poker.

If they're worried about the hand running longer than the delay, then they should lengthen the delay and/or have the tournament director call the clock when the length of the hand goes in the danger zone.

While it is a fun excercise for experienced players to look at the players without knowing more than people at the table know, and trying to figure out what they have, it does make for a very deflated drama. You look at players shuffling chips for 10 minutes and looking like they're trying to squeeze the turd out, only to glance at their cards for 5 seconds after it's over to make sense of the situation.

I felll asleep and missed who won... I think that speaks volumes about it.

ESPN, sponsors, and companies who are buying ad time.

No, it's to show both hands. The casual fan doesn't care about "holy crap, I wonder if he's triple range merging." The casual fan wants "Oh no dude, he's got a flush! Fold!"

Right. But ESPN isn't going to want to give up 6+ hours of live TV time to show something a small percentage of people want to see.


I think the real answer will be in a couple days when the overall ratings for the show come out; but when even Daniel Negraneu was on Twitter saying "screw this, I'm going to go drink"... the live coverage may not do as well as some people hoped.

It's better than nothing at all, but without seeing the cards during the hand it's pretty boring.

Well the final 2 had the most boring players in the history of poker. Of course it's going to be boring. It didn't help that Heinz takes 2 minutes to make every single decision. Not good TV!!

Very boring

true dat.

Format didn't work. Wasn't as fun to watch. 2:30+ is kind of insane.

I just don't get it, what's boring about this? U wanna see AA vs KK every hand?

There is one hand that I 'd done differently, if I had been Staszko: When he had A9 and made the boat, Heinz having 76o. Board A9xA6. I mean Staszko never hollywooded one single time....but this time he should have pretended to hollywood...like looking at his chips and then started counting one by one...and then change his mind and check. Heinz could have been firing away at this point...and game over!
PS. Easy to say now, but I actually put him on A9 (no brag tho)

I watched the entire thing because it wasn't the usual "all-in every hand" kind of coverage. It was real heads up poker by two really good players. I think it was one of the best matches I've seen in a while and to see it virtually live was awesome.

QFT!

Absolutely brilliant show! Watched every minute of it. Not knowing the hole cards during the hand made it much better for me. You can actually learn something by trying to put players on ranges and get feedback almost immediately.

I would have gladly paid $40-$60 to watch this on PPV!

I paid SEK 29 (about $4) for a week on ESPN. Probably the best investment in my entire life.

it was boring for me... and I'm not a recreational viewer.

I think the timing was more of an issue than the not showing of the hole cards. Obviously they have no idea in advance how long HU is going to last, but if they want to do the second day of the FT with much more uncertainly about length of play because they do the final three instead of the final two, I think it needs to start a little earlier than 9 pm EST.

Really tough balancing act to try to show the whole thing and really showcase what poker is about and not having 1/2 your audience need to stop watching because it goes too long and they fall asleep.

I think they should go back to just the final two on the day two, or just drop the whole day two of the final table and actually, you know, play until they have a winner in the first place, start the coverage at around noon EST on a Saturday.

Alternately, they should just scrap the entire November 9, run full coverage and play the whole thing out in July in this years streaming format for the die hard fans, then do the two hour edited shows (using this years format, though, which was much better than just the knock out highlights from previous years) for the more casual fan with full hole cards shown.

I think the issue is that they are trying to appeal to two bases, and they can't really do that as well. The casual fan that only follows poker once a year probably isn't going to care that the tournament is already over, and unlike spoilers for other events, avoiding knowing who won the ME isn't that difficult if you are a casual fan.

Then your name must be: Isildur1.

Yah they really need to do it differently. I enjoyed the way it was done, but I don't see how anyone else could deal with watching that for 5 hours like I did, I even found myself having a hard time focusing. Also, less poker commentary more norman chad. Antonio was amazing up there but I don't think we need someone analyzing hands like that for our everyday casual viewers. It is all way over there head and probably boring to them. The casual poker player doesn't give a **** about strategy he just wants something that seems cool to blow money on and which he can win millions at the same way chris moneymaker did.

If it bored the casual viewer than it needs to be changed. It doesn't matter what we think. We are committed players and the minority. We need to give the casual viewer/player what they want in order to draw more fish to the games and to build support in the US for online poker regulation.

The funny thing is that I was rooting for Ben Lamb all summer. I was trying to bet on him BEFORE the ME began, but didn't find any plays on Betfair. so, I forgot it all until this Sunday. Yesterday I tried to play on Staszko for 5 times the money (only because he was the onlyone giving some odds) on Betsafe,
but I couldnt figure out how to do it.
Sunday, I immediately changed my my mind about Lamb, I started to dislike him for some reason. I fell in love with Heinz. Was hoping he wins it all. But to my surprise, I was on Staszkos side last night. I don't even know how this happened, but to be honest with my self...every time there was a big pot, I was AFRAID that he could lose it.
PS. I think Pius Heinz is the best that happened anyway. He is a good ambassador for the poker community.

I don't know if there is any format (Live, produced and cut, hole cards, no hole cards, etc) that will catch the attention and make the "average" person want to watch poker. The people that will watch are the people who are interested in learning to play. In that case, the current format seems incredibly interesting to that viewer (for an hour or two anyways, lol). If your target audience is the guy who has very little or no prior interest in poker, there isn't a format that will grab his attention imo.

I fell asleep after about an hour and a half. There's just way too much time between hands. I don't want to sit there and watch shuffling, players hollywooding, or players taking 15 minutes for one decision.

They should copy The Big Game as much as possible. It needs to be edited, but not as extreme and terrible as the normal WSOP casts. Show players hands at the beginning of the hand, edit out the uninteresting hands, and edit down the decision time.

I don't care if its not live, at least it would actually be fun to watch for pros and recreational players.