Hes fine from a strategy perspective, but he has a real talent for bringing out the insight from the great players he has in the booth.

He brings out the insight from great players by saying something so wrong that they feel the need to correct him.

Tuch had a revolving door of professionals who offered the commentary. Tuch had relationships with many younger players, which made the selection of commentary very unique to the WSOP. Gobbo is an example of someone who offered great commentary in like 2009 or 2010. Without Tuch's deciding who goes on-air we get crap like drunk Helmuth instead.

The quality has dropped overall. Tuch should be executive producer next year IMO.

I just want tuch and pros from all corners in the booth commentating final tables.

One time...

Yeah she flubbed pretty hard but was composed enough to throw it back in the booth, oh well. Doug calling out the silliness of her comment "Yes, we are in the booth!" was pretty hilarious though

Cunningham's Law.

and he least he knows enough to pose viable questions to the pros even if he does not know the exact answers. Lon's questions are so basic it's almost offensive to the pro.

An issue I can see coming up on day 1 of the ME is stack size. I feel like they will not have very good counts of players stack sizes and it will be very hard to give updates from other tables. I wonder what they will choose as the feature table. I know they technically have to control over table draws but I bet they will want a big name pro and then a couple of decently well known pros mixed with the randos. One huge name pro with 8 randos wouldn't be the best viewing I don't think

Before subscribing to PokerGo this past weekend I assumed the negative comments about Lon were a bit much. But, after playing catch-up and listening to him I have to agree with those who don't see him as a good fit for this format. The people subscribing to the service understand poker and know enough that they need someone who is a bit more schooled in the nuances of the game and not a generalist who is better suited for ESPN and entertaining the casual viewer.

Mori is an absolute ****wit then.

Isn't that because most people don't want to watch mixed-games? I'm sure the viewership #s likely bear that out. They used to show mixed games on ESPN and they were removed because they weren't popular. They even changed the Player's Championship Horse tourney to have a NLHE final table so people would actually want to watch it.

That being said, perhaps mixed games make more sense on a subscription based network...or perhaps not.

Do you have numbers on that? Curious as to what the viewership differences were for those shows. Was it because they weren't popular or because NLH was on a massive heater that they wanted to capitalize on and also much easier to explain to the general public. Imagine Ron and Norman in 2005 trying to explain triple draw LOL.

It's 2017 now and they just had a very successful 2016 streaming the mixed games from a production stand up, getting knowledgeable people into the booth to explain different games and strategies. No excuse not to stream as many tables as possible.

I like Lon, he's a iconic poker voice, but he doesn't need to be in the booth everyday. No reason they can't put together a mix of Lon, Tuchman, and guys like Jason Somerville to share the workload and rotate as play by play guys throughout the summer.

Not that WSOP cares but it's kind of embarrassing that they have all these prestigious $10k World Championships for the different poker disciplines and nobody can see them.

I don't have the numbers and would be interested in them as well. I just imagine that this stigma that mixed games aren't sellable to the masses is why they have been sidelined. That being said, I'm not sure those numbers are really applicable in today's environment. Anecdotally, there does seem to be a stronger interest in mixed games today than in the past....however do the number of players actually playing mixed games bear that out?

I've been on the "put Lon out to pasture" bandwagon ever since the horrible job he did during the live 2011 main event coverage. Still, he does have his strengths. He is quite likeable and his voice instantly gives credibility to an event because it's easily recognized even by casual poker fans. Also, he's a very good announcer. Listening to poker players talk is cool and all but I can't imagine it coming across that great without a professional announcer in the booth and that's what he is good at. Sure, he doesn't know a lot about poker but I wouldn't be surprised if he has worked on this aspect of his game because he seems less terrible than 2011.

BTW, I thought Lon in the booth with Doug Polk was gold. They seemed to have good chemistry...perhaps some unintentional when Doug was trolling him but still I found it enjoyable.

One thing WSOP should have thought through more before doing this deal is how the prestige of an event is impacted by whether or not it is streamed or not. It blows my mind that they wouldn't stream a tournament with 18000+ runners and a $1,000,000 prize for first. It seems the Colossus would be the perfect tournament to stream on twitch because casual viewers that don't know anything about poker are going to want to see a dude win $1 million. Also, since it happens towards the beginning of the series it would help introduce new viewers to PokerGo and help them expand their subscription base.

So yeah, I agree. I'd broadcast final tables like the Colossus and days 1 and 2 of the One Drop free on twitch, and I'd add events such as the $10k players championships to the PokerGo platform. Does this mean potentially broadcasting a couple events at the same time? Perhaps, but I have to imagine this is quite doable.

I'd love to watch mixed games. With no more online poker, I feel like it's the only vehicle I have to gain exposure to these games. It would be a really nice change of pace from NLH. To be honest, parts of the Super High Roller and One Drop got extremely boring and drawn out.

I think for the casual poker fan, you are much more likely to see a "name" pro at a final table of a mixed event than you are a $1,500 NLH.

I totally get that NLHE did better ratings on ESPN, it's the one game that casual viewers are familiar with. And doing well on TV means attracting the casual viewer.


But a paid subscription service.. that is not about the casuals. Only serious poker fans are gonna do that. Are more of those serious poker fans into NHLE or mixed games? Hard to say. It seems PokerGO thinks the former.

But here's the thing, why wouldn't you target both groups? When you subscribe you're buying all the events. So why wouldn't you have an offering of NHLE stuff and an offering of mixed game stuff and try and get everyone on board? It's kind of the same logic as casino tournaments. Yes, NLHE tournaments get a bigger turnout than say, HORSE, but running a NLHE tourney and a HORSE tourney will generally get more bodies in your casino than two NLHE tourneys.

And as you guys have pointed out, going all-in on the NLHE means they are effectively fading all the big name pros making a bracelet run, which is the one thing that could really go 'viral' and lead to impulse buys.

This right here.

I really don't understand how they can have the minds and the means to provide this service, and not understand all this.

Exactly. EPSN had casual viewers who only knew NLHE.
You don't get casual viewers on PokerGo.
If anything they should be having a Twitter Poll every day asking the subscribers what they want to watch on the stream that day.

Pokergo have shown ZERO effort to produce and broadcast the events people most want. A lazy effort to only stream the easiest and (fewest) events possible. The only way they will listen to the public and provide a better product is if we dont give them our money.

pokergo provides a service for a fee. if you dont likw what they show dont pay. if only we could do this in the real world with lets say healthcare. some healthcare company provides a service. if you like it you pay, if not you dont. oops in u.s. you must pay(that obamacare thing you know) so i guess this is a bad analogy. this post was co-authored by a close and mutual friend who can no longer type due to a service related injury.

So there is 14 left for the stream today. Will they start on time 2:30pm EST like they have on their website, or will they wait until final table?

Pokergo is not a service, its a product, If people dont like the product dont pay for it......No sense in subscribing and then complaining.






.

tbf, they did stream the final 2 of the LO8, due to the feedback from somewhere (probably Phil Hellmuth), too bad it wasnt for more, and lol at taking the last 3 days off. A twitter poll would be great, wonder if they will bring it in for next year

Hopefully they will have a featured table with 7 on it streaming, and then merge to the unofficial final table, when there is 10 left on the stream too

WSOP has had such a good thing going the past couple years. Now this crap. I would gladly pay a fee to have all final tables like in years past, but to only have a couple events, just crap. Hopefully they will get enough negative feedback that they will get it back to the way it has been. Way to drop the ball.

I don't know about that. Then you're asking people to commit to a subscription when they have no idea what they'll be getting to watch.

Just streaming more than a paltry number of events would be a step in the right direction.

I find it hard to believe that the majority want to see mixed games. NL Holdem is still by far the most popular and have way more entries for those tournaments. If they started showing a bunch of mixed game events, the interest would wane pretty quickly.