Professional Poker Tour - Anyone watching this?

[jeff125va]

I missed the first two episodes since I was on vacation so I started with the 3rd round of the Foxwoods tournament, and I'm still not finished with this one. I liked the idea when I saw the promos but I'm somewhat disappointed with it. Actually, I deleted the 3rd round and will probably just watch the final table, but I just don't like the way they do this show for some reason, I can't quite put my finger on it. With the WSOP having started, I'll have more than enough poker to watch for the next few months.

[pmyers]

I haven't made a SP for this yet.

[Amnesia]

I've been watching it and I really enjoy it.

I like seeing the whole tournament, rather than just the final table as is common for most televised poker. Also, I really like how the whole field is made up of professionals, rather than the amateurs that you often see in many games...

The commentators aren't up to the level of Sexton and Van Patten, but they're still interesting...

[jsmeeker]

I can't keep all the poker shows straight. They all seem pretty much the same to me. A core group of guys (and some gals) playing poker at a oval table in some room. (one time, I DID see a game where they were outside on the porch of some house that overlooked na ocean.)

[jeff125va]

I've been watching it and I really enjoy it.

I like seeing the whole tournament, rather than just the final table as is common for most televised poker. Also, I really like how the whole field is made up of professionals, rather than the amateurs that you often see in many games...

The commentators aren't up to the level of Sexton and Van Patten, but they're still interesting...
I agree about seeing more of the tournament, and the idea of having only professionals was what got me interested, although there are enough players I'd never heard of that it hasn't been that big of a factor.

And I definitely agree about the commentators not being as good as the WPT guys. Maybe they're what I really don't like, since I agree with all the reasons you like it but overall I really don't.

I wonder about their rationale behind having all of the prize money going only to the final 6 (or however many make the final table, IIRC). Was that a decision based on appealing to the TV audience or to the players?

[goblue97]

it's a freeroll so there wasn't much of a prize pool to dish out. (relative to a big buy-in tourney)

[swifty]

I wonder about their rationale behind having all of the prize money going only to the final 6 (or however many make the final table, IIRC). Was that a decision based on appealing to the TV audience or to the players?


It was a bit of both. There's only $500,000 in prize money, and you wouldn't find many pros willing to fly across the country and play a three day tournament with a first place that pays less that $200,000. It's also exciting for the average poker viewer, watching some player play for several days, only to be the one to bust out right before the money.

I've given up on this show for now. I'm not a fan of the commentators, sometimes they don't get the hand details right, even though they're right there on the screen. I'm sure that the commentary is done before the graphics are added to the show, but that says something about the production values of the show. These days the only TV poker show that I watch is High Stakes Poker on GSN, it's nice to see advanced plays by well known players. It's also nice that they don't edit that show down so much like they do with tournaments. One day (10 hours) of playing time on High Stakes gets turned into eight one hour episodes, instead of a whole day of tournament play getting squeezed into an hour or two on the WPT or WSOP.

[smak]

I may be wrong, but I think all these were filmed right after the WPT event at the same location.

The best part of the PPT is that it's 8 hours (more?) per 150 or so player event.

That's way more than any other poker tournament televised. The wsop main event is 12 or 13 hours for the 8300 player event.

-smak-

[jeff125va]

Actually I guess it would be 10 hours (incl. commercials of course) with 4 quarters (which just seems so strange and contrived) plus the final table. So yeah it's a plus that you see more of it. I do also watch High Stakes Poker sometimes and it's cool to see the better players, but I can't totally get into watching a cash game like I can watching a tournament. So I figured having the caliber of players that HSP has in a tournament setting would be great, but it hasn't lived up to expectations. I started watching the final table of the Foxwoods event, but if I feel like I have to force myself to finish it, I'll probably drop this SP.

And I didn't realize it was a free roll - didn't really do the math, just figured there were fewer players. I wonder if that means the pros don't really want to play in tournaments (or at least, pay to play in them) that don't have all the "dead money" from the amateurs? So is the prize pool all from sponsorship money, like the PGA? If so then I guess they pretty much need to stretch it out to 10 hours.

[pmyers]

who are the announcers on this show?

[jeff125va]

who are the announcers on this show?
Matt Corboy and Mark Seif.

[MikeMar]

How long til we get a Poker channel on cable? Have the entire tournament or something.

[stujac]

May I also suggest the Monday night showing on the Game Show Network of "cash poker" at the Palms? IMHO, it's the best poker on tv with players using their own money-buy-in at $100,000. Great viewing.

[goblue97]

May I also suggest the Monday night showing on the Game Show Network of "cash poker" at the Palms? IMHO, it's the best poker on tv with players using their own money-buy-in at $100,000. Great viewing.
Is that High Stakes Poker (HSP)?

[jeff125va]

Is that High Stakes Poker (HSP)?
Yes, it is. It is good, but for watching on TV it's hard for me to get into a show where there isn't a "winner" to look forward to; i.e. there's no real conclusion (that I'm aware of). It's fun watching them put those stacks of cash on the table though.

[stujac]

Understand your point. Mine is that this is the purest form of poker - the form most of us play and instead of calling a monster bet made with fake chips, this is real, live money. Every show I've seen has had a winner; not a tournament winner but someone who came out on top. I prefer it to almost any type of tournament game.

[danielhart]

How long til we get a Poker channel on cable? Have the entire tournament or something.

Until they do, there is always this: Live at the Bike (http://www.liveatthebike.com/index.php)

Used to be that the live broadcasts were free - you only had to pay if you wanted to watch the archived stuff, but now it looks like there is a subscription charge for both (but with a free "preview")

I am on a couple of the archived broadcasts..........

[smak]

HSP is generally considered amongst the poker community as by far the best poker show ever. It's real, we know most of the personalities, they joke with each other, and there's some real play involved.

The WPT is kind of a joke, they screw with the blinds to fit better into a 2 hour show, making it a lot of all-ins, and not much play.

The WSOP, especially the main event is a lot better, they're gonna show a ton of hands.

The PPT at least shows some real hands, at the beginning of a tourney, and in the middle of a tourney. The announcers don't really bother me, because they don't really matter.

Most of the other poker shows are just made up shows designed for TV.

The best shows are poker tournaments televised, not poker tournaments specifically done to show on TV.

-smak-

[jeff125va]

Well I'll give HSP another chance, especially since I'm dropping PPT. I know the announcers shouldn't matter but these guys just suck. I think it has more of a made-for-TV feel than WPT does, which I agree with Smak's point about. I don't really share the sentiment that cash games are "real" and tournaments are "fake" or that being a cash game makes it a better show. When I first saw the promos for HSP I thought it was going to be a $100,000 sit-n-go or something like that, which I thought would be really cool. But like I said I haven't watched a whole lot of it.

Well I was gonna start another thread about this, but has anyone heard about the lawsuit (http://www.wptlawsuit.com) that a group of prominent professional players has filed against the WPT? Basically they're complaining that the WPT requires the players to allow the WPT to use their images and likenesses (from WPT appearances) for anything they want, w/o compensation or even approval from the players. And since the WPT makes agreements with the casinos where the events are held not to host any other televised tournaments, there's no other such tour available.

[stujac]

I forgot to mention that the announcers are a big reason HSP is the best poker show. It's Gabe Kaplan (from Welcome Back Kotter fame) who is one of the best players in the world himslef and an excellent, extremely funny and witty announcer.

[Amnesia]

Well I was gonna start another thread about this, but has anyone heard about the lawsuit (http://www.wptlawsuit.com) that a group of prominent professional players has filed against the WPT?Yeah, I heard about it a while ago.

Greg Raymer is one of the plantiffs and I could have sworn that he played in the PPT...(which is run by WPT Enterprises)

[stujac]

If you go to http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com and download current issue there is a good piece on the strike by Stan.

[smak]

Well I'll give HSP another chance, especially since I'm dropping PPT. I know the announcers shouldn't matter but these guys just suck. I think it has more of a made-for-TV feel than WPT does, which I agree with Smak's point about. I don't really share the sentiment that cash games are "real" and tournaments are "fake" or that being a cash game makes it a better show. When I first saw the promos for HSP I thought it was going to be a $100,000 sit-n-go or something like that, which I thought would be really cool. But like I said I haven't watched a whole lot of it.



I'm not saying cash games are real and tournies aren't. I'm saying if ANYTHING is done to the tourney to make it easier to show on TV then they've screwed with the "reality" of the tourney.

There are 3 types of tourney's on TV.

1. Shows like Poker Superstars that are just made for TV poker shows.
2. Already existing poker tournaments that are fudged for TV (WPT)
3. Already existing poker tournaments that are shown as they happen (WSOP)

The final table of the WSOP was 14 hours last year, whereas WPT final tables are 2 hours - commercials. It's because the WPT screws with the blinds/chips to speed things up once they get to the final table.

Their is actually a PPV tomorrow of the WSOP final table which has a time allocation of 20 hours.

-smak-

[jeff125va]

Yeah, I heard about it a while ago.

Greg Raymer is one of the plantiffs and I could have sworn that he played in the PPT...(which is run by WPT Enterprises)
Yeah, but I believe that the PPT tourney that just ran (Foxwoods) took place about a year ago. I know I've seen Phil Gordon on a WPT final table. Can't recall about any of the others off-hand.

[jeff125va]

I'm not saying cash games are real and tournies aren't. I'm saying if ANYTHING is done to the tourney to make it easier to show on TV then they've screwed with the "reality" of the tourney.

There are 3 types of tourney's on TV.

1. Shows like Poker Superstars that are just made for TV poker shows.
2. Already existing poker tournaments that are fudged for TV (WPT)
3. Already existing poker tournaments that are shown as they happen (WSOP)

The final table of the WSOP was 14 hours last year, whereas WPT final tables are 2 hours - commercials. It's because the WPT screws with the blinds/chips to speed things up once they get to the final table.

Their is actually a PPV tomorrow of the WSOP final table which has a time allocation of 20 hours.

-smak-
I was referring to stujac's comment earlier about "fake chips" and "real, live money." Maybe I'm inferring more from that than was intended, but tournaments are certainly played for real money, just not the equivalent value of the chips in front of you. Not that I'm arguing the point about cash games being better to watch, just the particular point about "real" money.

[stujac]

Consider this. Many participants in a tournament got there through low buy-in satellites. It's not unusual for a player at a final table having risked no more than $3-50 in a satellite to get there. You often get the "deer in the headlights" look on an inexperienced player in a tournament. You won't find that in cash games and in particular, very large cash games. Say what you want but there is a huge difference to those of us who have been playing hold 'em for 25 or so years. It's a huge difference to risk $100,000 of your own money versus $3. The chips the $3 player plays with are NOT the same as a $5,000 chip used in the large live game.

[jeff125va]

Consider this. Many participants in a tournament got there through low buy-in satellites. It's not unusual for a player at a final table having risked no more than $3-50 in a satellite to get there. You often get the "deer in the headlights" look on an inexperienced player in a tournament. You won't find that in cash games and in particular, very large cash games. Say what you want but there is a huge difference to those of us who have been playing hold 'em for 25 or so years. It's a huge difference to risk $100,000 of your own money versus $3. The chips the $3 player plays with are NOT the same as a $5,000 chip used in the large live game.
True. I agree with you on that side of the coin. The HSP format certainly weeds out the inexperienced and less skilled players, and generally makes for a better game. Although there's also something to be said about watching a Greg Raymer or Steve Dannenmann doing what they did in the main event. But yeah, consistent quality play will certainly be better in a high stakes cash game.

However, there's another way of looking at your example. Let's say two players have made it into the money of a tournament, and one bought in for the full buy-in of say $10,000, and the other one got in on a $100 satellite. The opportunity cost of being the next player to bust out, as opposed to moving up one more spot, is still exactly the same for both of them. So the same amount of money is on the line regardless of how much they bought in for. Well, it may be a larger difference early on when you're barely getting the buy-in back, in which case it would be almost pure profit for the satellite guy, but eventually that difference would become negligible. Buy my point is you can't ignore the opportunity cost entirely and only consider how much cash they originally laid out.

Still, that doesn't negate your overall point. Chances are the satellite guy is inexperienced and less skilled and if you'd rather see consistently a consistently high skill level you're more likely to find it in a high stakes cash game.

[Amnesia]

Consider this. Many participants in a tournament got there through low buy-in satellites. (...) You often get the "deer in the headlights" look on an inexperienced player in a tournament. You won't find that in cash games and in particular, very large cash games. And you also won't get it in the PPT---they are all professionals.