Posts Tagged ‘ESPN’

Another great song by SrslySirius

With regard to all the controversy about the WSOP prioritizing ESPN’s interests over those of the players, I do want to ask, “Why shouldn’t they?” I certainly don’t like it and think it is pretty bastardly, but the truth is that they have a monopoly on the greatest poker tournament there is, and most people are going to play it no matter what. Given the choice between the “live feed”, with all the attendant problems of delays, weird schedules, players getting jostled by camera crews, etc. or no “live feed”, I’d opt for the live feed.

That said, that doesn’t have to the choice. Caesar’s could choose to compensate players with reduced rake or to strike a better balance between the interests of ESPN and those of the players. They simply choose not to because ESPN has a lot more leverage than the players do. The reality is that as much as we complain, most of us doing the complaining will continue to play the tournament. Until we demonstrate that we’re willing to vote with our feet and our wallets, it’s silly to expect accommodation. Caesar’s has the best hand, and they are betting it hard for value.

Before I became a serious poker player, I loved to watch poker on TV. Now, I can hardly stand it. I did watch a few episodes of this year’s WSOP broadcast, mostly from the days I expected to be on there and for the final table coverage. It’s clearly increased in sophistication over the years, jettisoning the “rules of NLHE” segment and adding features like VP$IP statistics. I’m assuming this reflects an audience that understands the game a lot better than it did several years ago.

Nevertheless, I feel like they still cater too much to the lowest common denominator. I realize there are (hopefully) tons of people watching who aren’t going to care one lick about table dynamics or anything like that, but I don’t see how it hurts them to include some information that is slightly beyond their understanding. I feel like that’s generally how sports are covered. Presumably football commentators sometimes talk about plays or factors that are beyond the understanding of some appreciable chunk of their audience, but they get away with it.

Given that they are making some effort to speculate as to why players are playing hands the way they are, I believe that they ought to try to get it right. On the 2+2 Pokercast recently, Lon Mceachern said something to the effect of, “There are 100 different ways to play a hand, so no matter what explanation you’re going to give, you’re not going to please everyone.”  Read the complete post...

…and it isn’t me. Or you. Unless Jonathan Duhamel is reading this, in which case, congratulations, bro!

In honor of the event’s conclusion, we’ve now got up a page with links to my 2010 WSOP trip report plus interviews and ESPN appearances.

Maybe next year…

As I predicted, my huge post-flop coin flip against David Baker made Tuesday’s ESPN broadcast.

I’m pretty happy with how I came off, though I wish I hadn’t been calling for cards. I don’t ordinarily do that, but when the cameras are on, I always feel like I need to say something. They refer to Baker and me as “two savvy pros”- depending on how closely they read the bio that I sent them, that may or may not be an intentional pun.

Oh and I like how they refer to Baker’s Queens as “the best hand” while he’s got a 36% next to his name, and I’ve got 49% (before Sallas folds, that is).

This year’s WSOP journey ended for me about an hour ago. Out of more than 7000 players, I finished 87th and won just shy of $80,000. There was nothing dramatic about it. I lost two very standard pre-flop hands to Eric Baldwin, once with A4s < KJs for a 700K pot and once with A8s < JTs for a 1.6M chip pot. Then I made a standard preflop shove with A7, got called by QQ, and lost.

There is always a modest amount of disappointment when it’s all over, but of course all in all I’m quite pleased with the result. I’m also very happy that for the first time ever I feel like I played through this whole tournament without making any big mistakes and with only a few small ones. That doesn’t mean that everything always went my way, but as they say you play the cards you’re dealt, and I believe that I would play most of them the same way if I had it to do all over again.

I was on the secondary feature table for the first few hours today, meaning both that I managed to secure an endorsement deal that brought me a little extra money and also that I’ll likely make an appearance on the ESPN broadcast of this tournament. One hand in particular is quite likely to be on there:  Read the complete post...

ESPN tells me that I’m scheduled to be on one of tonight’s broadcasts, though they’ve been wrong about that before. My best guess is that it will be the 8PM eastern one, which focuses on Day 3, as that was when I rivered a two outer on the bubble that cost some poor bloke $22K. If I am on, I’ll try to post a YouTube clip here as soon as I can find one.

I was impressed, by the way, with the producer who called me. He asked for my online screenname, and when I told him Foucault, he said, “Oh, like the philosopher?” It’s not a reference that a lot of people in the poker world get, and arrogant ivory tower denizen that I am, I didn’t expect an ESPN producer to be on the short list.