I have never seen so much raise, 3 bet fold action than ever. The comments are all about how nobody is getting out of line, could it be that when someone does get a little creative, everyone gets a text and they cant wait to play back at the first chance they get?

I understand that watching live is infinitely different than watching edited TV with mostly action hands, but the poker I am this week doesn't resemble what I see playing live tournaments.


Anyone else have thoughts on this?

It definitely does influence play. I guarantee that everyone who made it to the final table would've spent hours looking over the WSOP coverage and hole card information to get a good idea of how their opponents play and how they could adjust.

I'll bet it has a lot of subconscious subtle effects on the players.

I wouldn't be surprised if people are less likely to try high variance or "fancy" plays for a few reasons. There's the obvious one that your opponents will see it eventually and knowing that might cause you to hesitate to do it.

However I think another factor might be to avoid looking potentially foolish. Sure you can make a crazy play that blows up and it's aired eventually, but it's days or weeks after the event, when it airs the event is over.

If you do something "stupid" at a live broadcast table and it blows up in your face, your friends and family and the world sees it WHILE YOU'RE STILL PLAYING the event. That's got to be extra rattling.

This also might be a factor in causing players to play more conservatively, whether it's conscious or not.