Buy the dip and get your home game buddies ready, the World Series of Poker finale is coming up!
Final-table play starts this Sunday, November 9th and will finish up on Monday. For the first time ever though, the coverage of the final table will air on ESPN just one day after the last hand is dealt and a champion is crowned. This is a welcome change from previous years where viewers, most of whom already had learned online who had won the Main Event, had to wait a full month before viewing the coverage. It never really made any sense to me. Would you still watch the Super Bowl if you knew four weeks ago who had won?
If you haven’t been following the WSOP this year, the Main Event began in July with a field of 6,884 players. Play continued until nine players were left, and they were quickly dubbed the “November Nine”, the ones who would return to the Rio hotel in Vegas this weekend to play for the $9 million dollar first place prize.
Producers for the telecast expect to have about 16 hours worth of footage to comb through once the event is over, and they will have just one day to transform that into a cohesive two-hour package for the viewing audience on Tuesday. Play will begin on noon Sunday and will continue until the final two competitors remain. Then on Monday at midnight, the two finalists will return to play heads-up until just one of them is left. Hard to imagine that if heads-up play runs long, the production crew will have just a handful of hours to edit and finalize the package. But, I agree it’s a needed step in the right direction of poker broadcasting.
Personally I can’t wait to prop up my feet in the poker room aboard the Norwegian Star cruise liner and view a piece of poker history. Check your local listings and don’t forget to tune in to ESPN on Tuesday!
 As we get closer to the "nearly live" final table of the World Series of Poker, ESPN and other broadcast outlets are beginning to ramp up the promotional hype. Below is the final schedule for the 'first run' ESPN shows. Most other outlets around the world show the same schedule on a 12 to 48 hour delay. ESPN also shows the same episodes twice the following week.
Tuesday, October 28 at 9:00 PM ET –27 players to 18
Tuesday, October 28 at 10:00 PM ET –18 players to 9
Tuesday, November 4 at 10:00 PM ET –Final table preview show
Tuesday, November 11 at 8:00 PM ET –Final table preview show
Tuesday, November 11 at 9:00 PM ET –Final table
Tuesday, November 11 at 10:00 PM ET –Champion Crowned
As you probably know, the live schedule calls for the nine players to assemble on Sunday November 9th and play down to heads up. The two remaining players come back the evening of November 10th and play it out. Then ESPN will decide how much play goes in each of the final two shows. Remember "Heads Up" could last one hand or two hundred.
And what they are playing for:
First Place: $9,119,517
Second Place: $5,790,024
Third Place: $4,503,352
Fourth Place: $3,763,515
Fifth Place: $3,088,012
Sixth Place: $2,412,510
Seventh Place: $1,769,174
Eighth Place: $1,286,672
Ninth Place: $900,670*
*all nine players were paid $900,670 back in July; so the first bustout gets nothing; well actually he gets his share of the interest earned on the remaining prize pool since July.
 Well they did it again. The ESPN coverage of Day Five of the main event of the World Series of Poker has changed the events as they actually happened. I am referring to the last five minutes where they show Phil Hellmuth going "Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!" on Cristian Dragomir. They got the hand, they got about 50% of Phil's antics and all of Dragomir's reation. They missed the great sideshow with the audience taunting Phil and they missed Mike Matusow, who first laughs hysterically and then later tells Phil he is "way out of line" and he should stop.
I understand they have to edit something out but they completely ignored the penalty given to Phil for his behavior. It was a one orbit penalty, which would have meant over 80,000 of Phil's remaining stack of 720,000 would be blinded off before he was allowed to take this seat the next day. The penalty was a one orbit or nine hand infraction.
But overnight, after an early morning meeting with WSOP commissioner Jeffery Pollack and Tournament Director Jack Effel, the Hellmuth penalty was lifted. Now the Poker Shrink will tell you that the penalty should never have been given and I am not going to argue with him because he was at the feature table at the end of play on Day Five. My complaint is not with the penalty or the reversal of the penalty. I want to know why ESPN is ignoring it.
They had no problem listing Chino Rheem's police record during the show and mentioning Mike Matusow's now five year old run in with the law but a penalty given to albeit the biggest name in poker is not worth mentioning? So much for independent coverage of the Series. Just who is in who's back pocket here?
 Day Four of the 2008 World Series of Poker main event runs on ESPN and other international channels for the first time tonight. The massive field is now under 500 players, all in one room and all in one section of the main room at the World Series. "Celebrity Coverage" is over and hopefully we will be seeing more poker and less fluff for the next four weeks.
One thing to look for now is how quickly ESPN is able to pick up coverage of the eventual "November Nine", thus far only David "Chino" Rheem has made an appearance and that was because he was moved to the ESPN feature table on Day One.
Here is the remaining "first run" schedule for the telecast:
October 7th: Day Four (474 players)
October 14th: Day Five (189 players)
October 21st: Day Six (79 players)
October 28th: Day Seven (27 players)
November 4th: ESPN Final Table preview show
November 11th: Nearly Live Final Table (9 players)
When I saw the Day 1A of the WSOP main event on ESPN last week something bothered me. Yeah, sure Norman Chad and the gang were beating on Scotty Nguyen again for his H.O.R.S.E. behavior. Norman (using my worst Chad voice): "That event is over, give it a rest, along with your tired ex-wife, dead-on-arrival, no longer funny, non-jokes."
But it was more than that, something just did not seem right about the "Scotty" aspect of the telecast. So I did some snooping and discovered; lo and behold that ESPN is not simply reporting the World Series of Poker; they are, in fact, creating coverage of events that did not actually happen.
How so you ask?
Well during that episode they have an interview with Scotty, which on its surface appears to be an explanation of his behavior during the $50K H.O.R.S.E. final table. Scotty talks about being pushed around by other players and needing to stand up for himself at the table and fight back or something to that effect. When they cut back to the coverage, Norman Chad says: "That didn't sound like much of an apology."
Well, there is a reason for that. A reason Norman and all the ESPN production staff know but chose not to reveal to the viewers. That particular interview with Scotty Nguyen was shot before the H.O.R.S.E. tournament. Scotty is not talking about his behavior during that event but, in fact, is referring to his play in last year's main event when he imploded and missed the final table. Some judicious and completely prejudicial editing makes it appear that Scotty is talking about the H.O.R.S.E. tournament from this year.
It didn't sound like an apology because it wasn't. Congratulations to ESPN for turning their coverage into something that Jerry Springer would be proud to air, since it fits his show's current tagline so well: "An hour of your life, you will never get back." Or perhaps the ESPN producers just misunderstood the famous Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce line:
"What doesn't happen in Vegas, doesn't have to stay in Vegas when it will sell some beer."
With the actual WSOP events nearly over and on hiatus, ESPN will begin broadcasting the 2008 World Series of Poker this week. Below is the U.S. based television schedule. ESPN affliates around the world will be picking all of part of this schedule, I will post those times and channels when they are released.
July 22 -- 8-10 p.m. $10,000 pot-limit hold 'em
July 29 -- 8-10 p.m. $1,500 no-limit hold 'em
Aug. 5 -- 8-10 p.m. $5,000 mixed hold 'em
Aug. 12 -- 8-10 p.m. $1,000 no-limit hold 'em with rebuys
Aug. 19 -- 8-10 p.m. $50,000 HORSE
Aug. 26 -- 8-10 p.m. $10,000 pot-limit Omaha
Sept. 2 -- 8-10 p.m. $10,000 no-limit hold 'em main event
Sept. 9 to Oct. 28 -- 9-11 p.m. $10,000 no-limit hold 'em main event
Nov. 4 -- 8-10 p.m. WSOP main event final table preview show
Nov. 11 -- 9-11 p.m. WSOP main event final table
Along with the announcement of the delayed play for the WSOP main event final table, ESPN has also released the proposed schedule WSOP broadcast events. There was some conversation during yesterday's teleconference about an extended international broadcast schedule, particularly leading up to the main event final table. The two other notable changes from last year are:
- less coverage of the $50K HORSE event, the viewing audience appears not to be so interested in watching Razz, Stud or even Omaha. So there will be only two hours of this event;
- much more coverage of the main event leading up to the virtually live coverage of the final table in November.
The tentative schedule of TV coverage for this year's event is as follows; each listed show is scheduled for two hours:
• July 22 - Event 1: $10,000 pot-limit hold 'em
• July 29 - Event 2: $1,500 no-limit hold 'em
• Aug. 5 - Event 3: $1,500 pot-limit hold 'em or Event 4: $5,000 mixed hold 'em
• Aug. 12 - Event 5: $1,000 no-limit hold 'em with rebuys
• Aug. 19 - Event 45: $50,000 HORSE
• Aug. 26 - Event 50: $10,000 pot-limit Omaha
• Sept. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, Oct. 7, 14, 21, 28 - Event 55: $10,000 no-limit hold 'em main event
• Nov. 4 - Event 55: WSOP main event final table preview show
• Nov. 11 - Event 55: WSOP main event final table
Does anyone else wish the ESPN would cover Poker! from the World Series of Poker and not the stupid crap they tend to focus on. It's like covering the World Cup by doing features on the drunk hooligans with their chests painted during the play of the match.
Prime example: the hour on Hevad Khan this week. You think these players don't know if they act whacko they will get air time? Did you notice in his private interview he was calm, relaxed and articulate. So why did ESPN choose to feature him? Do they think they will get more viewers for the "entertainment" value of this nonsense? They know they have the true poker fans trapped, we have no other way to see the minimal poker they actually cover. But I ask again: At the World Series of Poker, Why not cover poker!
And while I am on the subject of ESPN and the World Series, when are they going to dump Norman Chad? Do we need more lame jokes about his ex-wifes? Do we need to hear: "A queen and a queen only" again? How about someone who knows a thing or two about poker and will actually offer that to the viewers instead of some lame ass line about himself.
It's about poker. Why doesn't ESPN get that? They don't bastardize the coverage of other sports like this. I watch the coverage to see poker. Let me repeat--it's about the poker!
EDITOR's NOTE: For those of you who might like to express your opinion on this topic directly to the ESPN network. Here is a link.
I got a note from one of my poker friends yesterday that said:
"I see your buddy made it to the top of the ESPN rankings."
Before I went to take a look, I asked myself two questions.
#1: "What is the Bluff/ESPN criteria for their rankings?"
#2: "Which buddy was he referring to?"
With all the magazines and online sites ranking players and doing "Player of the Year" races, you need to know how player performance is used in the rankings. And I wondered if by "buddy" my friend was joking with me and perhaps he meant that one of the players I really dislike was in first place or if he actually meant that someone I knew and liked was currently Numero Uno.
So I tried a little experiment. First, I went and looked at the Bluff/ESPN criteria. Here they are:
The Bluff/ESPN Power Rankings are based on the results of major tournaments over a trailing 24-month period. Qualifying tournaments must have a minimum $5,000 buy-in and at least 100 participants.
Bluff Media reserves the right to include any high-denomination, high profile events. Tournaments occurring in the trailing 12-month period are given additional weighting. Players must finish in the money to earn points.
Next, without looking at any database of results, I picked who I think/feel/remember should be at the top of this list. My first and second choices were heavily influenced by my friend's statement that: "your buddy made it to #1". So consider one of my favorite great players and my least favorite great player are one and two in my selections. I will leave it to you to decide which is which.
I put my top 11 [I gave myself one extra because of the "buddy" tip] on the list below. I did pretty well, all of my top 11 are in the actual top 30, except for that one distraction I put in the #2 slot.
Here is the ESPN/Bluff Poker Ranking list as of July 30, 2007 with my guesses in [brackets].
 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Jamie Gold is, to say the least, a controversial character. When you think of the term "controversial" what also comes to mind is that phrase: "you either love 'em or you hate 'em." But outside of his family and I am sure some friends, you don't find anyone inside of poker who will say they like Jamie Gold.
The champ's style during the main event is, of course, partially due to the editors at ESPN. News stories even have them telling Jamie that they were going to make him look bad .... and they did. But some of us were there, we saw what ended up on the ESPN editing room floor and most of us don't have a lot of issue with how the Champ was portrayed on the tellie. Yes his mother was there and so what if he ate blueberries. The fact remains that Jamie Gold is, well, Jamie Gold. You know that friend you have that no one likes the first time they meet him and you always say something like:
"Trust me, he really is a nice guy once you get to know him."
And you know how you keep saying that even when people try to get to know him.....
And then there is the now classic line:
"Phil is a very nice guy away from the table."
Here's the problem. Jamie Gold works in Hollywood; he should know something about image, which would appear to be part of his job description. Yet in the nearly eight months since we won the Big Bracelet, he has managed to do zero, zip, nada about his own image.
 Our WSOP Cast of Characters got another nice chunk of airtime in this
penultimate week of new WSOP Main Event episodes on ESPN. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Party qualifier and Altoid aficionado Richard Wyrick (right) made the broadcast!
How did our motley crew of poker personalities damage (or repair) their images this week? Let's take a look.
 Leif Force: A-
Leif Force was raised as a nudist in the woods! He lived in a treehouse! And he's "never had more than a couple thousand dollars" to his name! Well that explains a lot. Especially why he was borrowing cab fare from a couple of the ESPN sound guys at the end of Day 5. Whatever. I adore him. A star is born. Vive la Leif!
Prahlad Friedman: D
I spoke way too soon about the end of Friedman's ESPN rap career. In one of the most bizzare, cringe-inducing moments in televised poker history, Friedman, who clearly didn't learn from his humiliating debut last year, broke out in yet another freestyle rhyme for the cameras. For your reading pleasure (and mine), here is the text in its entriety:
 Let's be real. TV exposure is almost as important for a professional poker player today as a major tournament score. Some may argue that it's even more important in terms of potential sponsorship and endorsement opportunities. The ESPN repeat cycle guarantees that any player lucky enough to make the broadcast will enjoy a full year of mass-media exposure. Though emerging players stand to benefit the most from national airtime, veteran pros with existing deals still have a lot to gain from playing a few hands well on television.
Yesterday we texamined how some of poker's often-brash new personalities came off on this week's WSOP broadcast. Today we'll take a look at the veteran players.
Humberto Brenes: A
I think Norman Chad got it right for once when he said "Humberto Brenes doesn't just play poker, he performs poker." Humberto serenaded the dealers. He made his opponent smile when he spiked a gutshot to double up. And he expanded upon his traditional "all eeeeen!" schtick to accomodate his new sidekick-- a rubber shark card protector. The shark rode into the pot with Humberto's chips as he'd bellow now-classic lines like "Humberrrrrto eees hunnnngry!" Though some may find him annoying, I for one appreciate the levity Brenes brings to a tournament where more often than not, tension rules the day. Good for poker and GREAT for television, Humberto teaches us all that it's possible to be a great competitor while having fun along the way.
 Last night's ESPN broadcast premiere of parts 7 & 8 of the 2006 WSOP Main Event gave many of poker's new cast of characters their first chunk of significant TV airtime. As we all know, when it comes to the WSOP broadcasts, good poker TV isn't always about amazing laydowns or stunning calls, but the personalities of the players themselves. Last night's installment featured a number of strong personas -- both newbie and veteran.
How did they all come off to the viewers at home? Here's my report card on the performances of some of last night's featured players.
Jamie Gold: B-
Surprisingly enough, Jamie Gold came off pretty decent on television. We only saw a few of his hands as he built up his significant chip lead over Day 5 and 6, but on the broadcast I witnessed three important things from Gold that likely led to his victory.
Wow ES (remember that one time, you said I could call you that?) it's been soooo long since we've talked! I know we haven't hung out in ages, and I'm really sorry about that. I've been super busy; you know how it is. I did get to meet a couple of your people this summer, and most of them seemed pretty cool. Though, I have to say, I don't get how knocking someone in the head with a camera is supposed to be a greeting. But maybe it's a regional thing...
Anywho, ES, I watched the first two episodes of the Main Event coverage this week (several times) and that's why I wanted to write you. I'm pretty impressed. Things just wrapped up a few weeks ago and already you've got some pretty sharp looking footage out there. I even caught myself laughing at Norman Chad! More than once!! And I wasn't even a little drunk!!! You're probably not shocked, I know you've always thought he was funny. (But I'm telling you, I really think you're the only one!) I thought it was a little odd to run the Main Event coverage first, cause it kinda makes the rest of it anti-climactic and all that, ya know? But whatever. You do your own thing, I know.
It really shouldn't come as a shock in this day and age, but apparently some uber-geek found a way to stream the ESPN WSOP PPV coverage over the internet, and the link to access that has since found it's way to several online poker forums. (No, I'm not saying where, so don't even ask)
I just overheard a media member here in the media room discover this little gem himself, and alert one of the suits to its existence. Not sure what recourse ESPN has at this point, as I imagine the damage is pretty much done. Still, it's interesting - this is by no means the first PPV event that's ever been stolen, but unlike boxing or football, poker has a huge web-savvy fan base that can spread something like this further and faster than a bunch of frat boys looking to catch the fight for free. It's a bit of a double-edged sword for ESPN - their fan base is composed of people who love poker, and have the money to burn to cough up nearly $30 to see the final table live, but they're also people who routinely break the law, by playing poker either online or in an illegal home game. Swiping PPV feed is nothing.
What effect is this going to have on any future WSOP PPV plans ESPN might have? Discuss...
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