Paul Phillips ([info]extempore) wrote,
@ 2005-12-01 00:27:00
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season 2 battle of champions
I see the WPT season 2 battle of champions has appeared on my tivo. I'd like to once again thank the WPT for scheduling it during the real WPT event at the bike, making it impossible for me to play since I was still in the big one. Super lame, not to mention totally avoidable because they filmed the ladies night event after the main event was completed.

I'm not sure I have any more WPT tournaments in me unless they do something about the final table structure. For all its problems, at least at the WSOP they let you play the game when the money gets biggest.

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[info]space__monkey
2005-12-01 08:57 am UTC (link)
For whatever reason the blinds of that particular event were very low. With around 3 million in play they finished with blinds of 24k/12k. Maybe the players were just playing much faster since it was just a winner take all freeroll for 25k. How they managed to push in over 30 big blinds each preflop with A8 and KQ is rather beyond me.

I wonder if the WPT realizes how boring these all-in preflop hands are. Experienced players can see it coming a mile away. Fourhanded game, average stack 15 is big blinds someone has AK and someone else has TT. Guaranteed coin flip for a few hundred grand. Play after the flop is much more interesting. But watching some fool call off all his chips with the bottom end of a straight is almost as good as watching Hellmuth mouth off about donkeys that can't even spell poker ;)

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[info]extempore
2005-12-01 09:04 am UTC (link)
Oh, I didn't mean that event (I didn't watch it) I mean the real ones. I'm sure the blinds started reasonably in the battle of champions since only half the field was gone when the final six began.

But watching some fool call off all his chips with the bottom end of a straight is almost as good as watching Hellmuth mouth off about donkeys that can't even spell poker

That sounds entertaining indeed -- but let's try to stay realistic here, nobody would do that.

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[info]jl2585
2005-12-01 09:37 am UTC (link)
See, and some think you're an egomaniac. =P

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[info]gimmedawatch
2005-12-01 01:10 pm UTC (link)
Are the stacks that shallow at all the WPT events, or does it vary from event to event? I agree that shallow stacks near the end is a travashamockery, but I was surprised to see when it got heads up in tonights episode that the stack were actually the deepest I've seen for any HU match. Very lame about the conflict, and while we're complaining, why on earth don't they start the final table from 9 or 10? I know it would obviouly take longer, but so what? They could make 2 episodes or even do what Fox had done w/the Sands tournament and sometimes show the earlier days. I think its distorts the reality of tournament poker when every televised WPT match starts at 6 handed (with 1 or 2 players usually so short they have little or no play), when all the players have played 9 or 10 handed for several days just to reach that point. Deep-stacked (relatively speaking) poker is innately more interesting to me, and I would assume to anyone who knows anything about anything. ESPN, listen up, and stop rushing over to show me the high dram of AJ vs 99 ALLIN!!!!

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[info]extempore
2005-12-01 04:25 pm UTC (link)
The battle of champions started with a dozen people and was winner-take-all. Of course when it gets heads up the money will be enormously deeper than in a large field tournament with step function payouts.

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WSOP
[info]drewjustdrew
2005-12-01 01:42 pm UTC (link)
"For all it's problems"

What are the problems you have with the WSOP?

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Re: WSOP
[info]drewjustdrew
2005-12-01 01:44 pm UTC (link)
P.S. I know it should be "its". That's just an automatic typo I make. Similar to "withe" or "bothe".

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Re: WSOP
[info]extempore
2005-12-01 04:31 pm UTC (link)
If you have a couple hours to kill try this for starters.

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Re: WSOP
[info]leafsba
2005-12-01 05:50 pm UTC (link)
Wow I just read all of that :(

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Re: WSOP
[info]es0terix
2005-12-01 06:23 pm UTC (link)
Great letter from Harry. I had heard about a number of those problems but not the stuff with the adding partial levels and changing payout structures.

Paul, the WSOP and WPT obviously have their problems, so who would you say has it the MOST right at this point as far as running things how they should be run? (not just out of those two, out of all the venues and organizations that run events)

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wpt final table blinds
[info]bigstack90
2005-12-03 03:27 am UTC (link)
Yeah, but if they had a good blind structure, the crowd might lose interest. There's nothing worse than a dead crowd when I'm watching poker. Why watch the top players in the world play awesome poker with deep stacks, when you can watch them play a turbo tournament with the crowd going crazy.

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