My main concern is that poker gets some kind of governing body. Right now there are too many separate entities that all have conflicting interests. This is not the best situation for the long term growth of our game.

Tennis you have the ITF, ATP, WTA and they all work together. The ITF runs the Grand Slams, Davis Cup, and minor leagues called Futures events. The ATP runs the weekly tour stops and the minor league events called Challengers.

Golf the USGA and PGA Tour work together and do not have competing events running at the same time.

Poker we have EPT, NAPT, AAPT, LAPT, WSOP, WPT, Heartland (how is TonyG not the commish of this one) Partouche, UKIPT, Eureka, ANZPT, and who knows what else tours. There is no official schedule or organization of events with clear ranking points that will be awarded.

Of course I believe the part in bold. Any activity where you are risking money and the outcome is uncertain(such as a game of poker) is gambling. Everytime you put money into a poker hand when your opponent is not drawing dead you are gambling. Whether you are better than the other players has nothing to do with it. If Tiger Woods bets me $1000 on a hole of golf, he will win 99% of the time, but he's still gambling. This is not an opinion, this is just a fact.

Comparing an activity like poker tournaments with massive variance where anyone can win(see Gold, Jamie or Yang, Jerry) vs sports like Golf and Tennis are futile. The people on the PGA tour are there because they are indisputably the very best in the world. 99.9% of recreational golfers or tennis players have no business ever being on the PGA Tour or ATP. 100% of poker players, as long as they are of specified age(and sometimes sex) and can come up with the buy-in to enter should be able to enter all of the biggest poker events they wish. If a sponsor wishes to add money to an open event where the players have also bought in, bring it on. But if the players aren't putting up a dime and it's not open to the public, then it's not a true poker tourney IMO.

Bubba Watson was nowhere near a freeroll BTW. Being a PGA Tour pro is akin to running a small business. You have huge overhead. Expenses, Travel, staff(caddy, swing coach, motivational/psych coaches, personal fitness trainers) entry fees and more. Others might know the numbers better but I'd guess that a PGA tour golfer has to earn at least 300K before they make a penny. When a golfer misses the cut, they lose money.

Poker players can cash in an event and lose money, expenses are the same if not more expensive for poker players. ATP players get free food and hotel at events when they are in the draw and I believe PGA golfers are the same.

Gambling is putting $5 on number 8 on the roulette table. When you are at a massive advantage in a situation you are not gambling, your expectation is to win.

Think this guy is gambling or using a skill when he plays a SNG?



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Both obviously, and there is no argument here.

I'm not quite sure what makes you think it's one or the other?

Why do so many people still equate gambling with -EV?

I think the discussion got a bit derailed with the gambling or not argument...

why is an all pro poker tour a bad idea? I have to disagree with mike here, in an all pro field there is only a slim chance a darvin moon gets through the field, only the overwhelming number of fish leads to some of them slipping through to the final table + they do not win anymore (gonig deep maybe, but only rarely win these days)

Love me a bit of annie duke hating, but in principal this might be a great move towards making poker more like a sport.

Was really hanging out for the "where in the world is shaun mother****in deeb?" intro.

Oh well, still a great episode

is there an episode this week?

it will be up asap I believe

no tweet from bunner with upload time

can we get an update supreme podcast commanders

New episode appears to be up:

PokerCast Episode 159 - Daniel Cates, Barry Greenstein & Andrew Lichtenberger - February 8th, 2011