Live poker sucks for viewing by all but the most devoted and serious fans/players. We did not have live content in the aughts.

Of course if there are no creative minds behind the product the game will be the same old boring crap we've become accustomed to. Not all live poker is boring though, nor is it a requirement to be boring. Of course, under the current format the main event is terribly boring. I don't think anyone disputes that.

I do appreciate you sharing your thoughts on bowling but I don't think that's something poker should aspire to be.

i didn't catch the reference

Bingo...

Without online poker ads there will never be another "boom" I guess. If online poker gets regulated across the US then you'll see an edited poker show probably a reboot of "Celebrity Poker Showdown" spark things off again.

Until Party, Stars, GG can do ads on TV, we will be a step above or below bowling.

Call back to the 2021 WSOP thread. Meat of the posts below enjoy:

lol nice

reminds me of the thread where someone described a shooting on the poker room floor but spent more time describing the shorts he was wearing than the shooting in the op

They've been trying to figure out an angle to work the Horseshoe name forever. Does it really matter if they announce it last month or in January? Caesars sold the name Bally's about a year ago https://www.casino.org/news/ballys-b...or-20-million/ Last April Bally's decided to buy Tropicana and enter the Las Vegas Market. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...-308m-77048876

Does it really makes sense to have a property named Bally's, but that name is actually owned by a competitor? They finally found a way to use the Horseshoe name in Las Vegas. I think there are plans to totally cut ties with Rio next year or 2023. It's getting a name change, or you can owe Kevmath a dollar.

It may or may not makes sense to Bally’s but the fact is currently CET owns the right to the Bally’s name in LV in perpetuity as I recall So CET saw some value to keeping the Bally’s name on that property. At a min I would be surprised if they just gave up that right for free to allow the Trop to rebrand as Bally even if they do rebrand current Bally to Shoe. Note the perpetuity agreement might transfer that right back to the buyer should CET drop using it.

But heck IMO of these three brands, Horseshoe, Bally, Tropicana the most storied and iconic is IMO Tropicana. Bally would be third IMO. And of the two properties on the strip, I again think Trop is better. It is older for sure and Bally’s has a more central location, I see the Trop as better currently and definitely better potential with its almost 40 undeveloped acres of land.

I will consider above post as good as official announcement due to source of the news 😊

I think WSOP will continue to market 10 k NLH championship event as their ME .


And it should be that way.

WSOP is what it is now due to it built up on ME which started with 3 entries and grew in the huge field of 7000 to 8000

And the Colossus had 20k+ entries, but it doesn't mean anyone wants to watch it. To be perfectly honest, I believe the task of creating something new and exciting to be outside of the expertise of those running the WSOP. I fully expect them to continue with the status quo.

That should provide an opportunity for someone else to create a better marquee event, one with more pageantry, smaller more recognizable fields, better social media integration, and bigger buyins. The $10k buyin is an absolute joke. One of the greatest things about poker is the amount of pressure involved, something the main event does a piss poor job of capturing. Hey, I just got knocked out of the main event, I guess I'll just go enter an event with a buy-in that is 10 to 25 times greater.

Like Triton?

WSOP tried to market the 50k PPC as their big name event back in the day when TV poker was actually still popular. Even used a NL-only TV final table because nobody cares about other formats. Not even that helped.

There are a couple other “sports” that have been big in the UK for a long time and trending in continental Europe for the last 10+ years like darts and snooker. If I needed semi sports content in the US right now I would try to bring those over before trying to revive TV poker.

Dude, these ideas have been tried before, and failed badly, even in the poker boom days.

The PPT (Professional Poker Tour), a quasi-spinoff from the WPT, it was an abysmal failure.

Epic Poker League - another "epic" failure. This was set up to be like the PGA Tour, you had to qualify to have a "tournament card", etc. Annie Duke was the commissioner (small wonder it failed so miserably lol).

The general viewing public likes the "Chris Moneymaker" stories. A bunch of entitled, arrogant, tanking "pros", eh not so much.

The PPT wasn't a high buy-in event with any pageantry or social media integration whatsoever. Hell, it wasn't even live. I recall John Juanda won $200k + entry into a WPT. I'm not really understanding the comparison. There are tournaments that cost more than $200k to enter.

I'm not the one that mentioned PGA or tournament cards whatsoever. You seem to be talking about poker leagues, when I was simply talking about a singular event which could surpass the Main Event as the most watched and most prestigious poker event in the world.

Tanking can be fixed by a simple shot clock. That is the perfect example of a very simple structural issue the Main Event has that the WSOP has been unwilling to fix.

Well, frankly NL is not very exciting. I can't imagine that out of all the dozens and dozens of poker variants that NL is the most entertaining to watch. Is NL more fun to watch than Short Deck? Why was NL used in the main event in the first place? It certainly wasn't used because it would appeal to a mass viewing audience watching it live.

The idea behind the 50k PPC was good but it was never presented as anything special (other than them saying it was special). There were no special entrances or announcers. No pre-event coverage/vlogs. Those events looked the same as any other WSOP event. Same location, same tables, same lighting, same graphics, same everything aside from the players. Frankly there was little to set those events apart from every other poker program on TV at the time. The 50k PPC never felt like a premiere event or a premium brand. The Main Event at least has that buzz about it and a reason to be excited for it. Its problem is living up to the expectations.

I agree 100% because most of the poker products out there right now are unwatchable. I don't think this is something that can happen overnight but you'd hope that over time organizations like the WSOP would be trying to gradually improve their product. In what ways has the Main Event improved for the viewer in the last 10 years?

Here is what I care about at the WSOP:
-can I get in a game?
-can I get a drink?
-is there a Starbucks nearby?
-is there a cheap buffet available?

-oh, and where is the nearest dispensary?

Then tell us these easy changes wsop should make.

Btw, the shot clock won’t help much. Many tournaments have shot clocks and plenty of tanking. The problem is you need to make the shot clock time reasonable for when there are real decisions but the shot clock then becomes a defacto minimum time to act.

You could do a very short time with unlimited time chips. However every time you use a time chip you have to take a shot. Ten hours into day eight will definitely get interesting. Unfortunately the area around the feature table will likely become a sickly mess.

I think they should make two changes to the Main Event:

- Make it reentry for the first 3 days.
- Begin the ME not only in Vegas, but at remote locations around the world: casinos in Europe, Asia, South America, etc. Once the tourny hits the money, pause for a week, everyone meets in Vegas to finish.

World Championship, schmerld championship, this would greatly increase the prize pool and excitement. A $20 mil first prize would garner a lot more press than $10 mil.

Re entry would be very unfair for casuals. The top live mtt players would be able to fire multiple bullets in a soft mtt with an insanely favorable structure. Maybe make it max 1 additional bullet. Idk about most people but I don’t want Phil Ivey, koon, foxen , etc etc etc firing 4 bullets into a tourny. Makes the field much more difficult with re-entry. Also most casuals aren’t going to go into the pocket firing multiple bullets in a $10k just punting chips like standard low buy in mtts.

This may be stupid but I think the main event should be capped to certain people. I feel like there should be some sort of nominal qualification minimum so one can enter. Example: have 300 GPI points over the past 2 years (something not difficult to attain). I think the main should not be a 6k player gigantic mtt. I think the field size should be limited to something like 1-3k players. I’m sorry but the thought of winning a 6k player mtt is just hilarious.

I also think the WSOP should have some sort of award for grinders. Maybe have a point standings list where you give the top 10 players a monetary award. Maybe take a little bit of the rake out of every entry in a WSOP event and give a payout to the 10’best performing players in the series. It would obv be weighted toward awarding $ to the big buy in players and pros that play almost every event. Probably not the greatest idea for the casuals but would give the locals a reason to grind a big schedule.

You can play poker, or you can play some other game.

I actually thought the EPT Grand Final back in the day was a reasonable sort of compromise with this given the field size, most of the elite live players playing and the fact that a lot of SNEs who would otherwise not have played got a free trip to play in it making the field stronger as a result. Unfortunately they had a run of meh to bad players winning until chicagocards won and by then the boom even in Europe had started to cool off a tad.

That’s actually a really sick idea for a tournament, you play the first x amount of days in your closest city until the tournament is itm, you get paid out your profit so far and you’ve got to use that to get to Vegas to play out the rest of the tournament.

That’s a really good idea.

Could even be like the WCOOP phase tournaments for those already going to Vegas…

I actually really like the idea of a low-bar qualifier to ME though I’m sure it’d be extremely controversial. Besides being a massive break from tradition, many like that it’s a 10k filled with huge donks, and any sort of qualification would drastically toughen up the field. And the huge final table payouts would be cut significantly so they have less “wow” factor.

On the other hand, it strikes a really balance between still being an open event while making it more prestigious and more winnable by a known player. I mean it’s a bit backwards that the most prestigious event has the lowest level of competition. And to your point, Ivey or Negreanu has a better chance of final tabling a 2k runner field than an 8k field. Also , I don’t think there’s much difference between 3 million for first or 8 million, it sounds like a lot either way,

Finally, the best reason I like the qualifying format is it helps the rest of the poker ecosystem by encouraging people to play more small events. Now the rec who wants to see if he can luckbox his way to a television FT appearance has to play some local events to qualify, that puts money into more tournaments and also now the rec is playing 5 tournaments instead of 1 which might put poker on his radar more in general.

I agree the bar can be relatively low, you don’t have to be a high roller crusher, just someone who cashed a few events, someone who actually plays poker. And auto qualify anyone who’s ever cashed a WSOP event so old school players can still drop in.

As far as the television goes, the early 2000s were lightning in a bottle and I think poker ever entering mainstream consciousness to sane extent is super unlikely. Fads some and go. On the other hand, we’ve seen increasing fields in WSOP throughout 2010s meaning while poker shrunk in the mainstream it grew as a niche. I think going with the flow and just embracing you’re targeting people who actually like poker, and trying to keep grow that audience, rather than trying to interest every Joe and Sally. To me a qualifying bar does that.

It could even be super good for the casual player who get some small cashes and brag to their friends/family they “qualified” for the WSOP championship. Even if they don’t cash it, just playing it becomes a win beyond “I had 10k to dump.”

I wonder if there's anyone for whom this is a significant difference. An entity who collects money from every entry, and generates other revenues from every person who plays...

Also a huge difference for a player if he’s 3 million in debt