I have been thinking a lot about the World Poker Tour this past week. In formulating this "Report Card" I have tried to not come off as completely negative and critical. To be fair the WPT has done a lot for poker but therein lies the first problem. The chief spokesperson for WPT is Steve Lipscomb: the founder, CEO, public relations spokesperson and all around face of the WPT. Let me say what everyone in the poker community knows: Steve Lipscomb does too much and says too much without benefit of a cool, calm, trained public relations staff and that invariably leads to trouble.
The infamous "Open Letter to the Poker Community" from a few years back is only the most notorious of his PR gaffs or was that his comments about Capitalism in Communist China? Either way, it is all well and good to promote your product, even to the point of some exaggeration but honestly does anyone except Steven Lipscomb believe that the WPT sole-handedly created the world wide poker phenomenon? Certainly, the televised WPT poker tournaments were a major factor in the increased public interest in poker; there really is no need to inflate that fact beyond all reason.
I will leave to the various poker forums the high and low lites of: WPT and Traktor Poker in China, WPT having "never made a profit"; WPT Academy and other spinoffs; WPT and the revolving hostess; WPT on the Game Show Network or the Travel Channel. To my mind the World Poker Tour does two things: they put on poker tournaments and they produce them into a television program. So I will stick with those two central items.
First, the tournaments. Other than the ongoing dispute with several professional players, which the WPT could have and should have settled several years ago. Other than that, I think the WPT tournaments have addressed most ongoing issues rather well. The ever changing schedule is a fact of life in the ups and downs of the current poker landscape. I have no issue with the schedule nor its reliance on Bellagio in Las Vegas for five tournaments. After all, it would make sense to go where the players live and where the tournaments are consistently well run and well attended. Say what you will about Jack McCelland's interesting tournament rules, he and his staff at Bellagio run a player friendly event with style and minimal sideshows.
The WPT was slow to respond to the player's complaints about the small chip stack to blind structure at the WPT final tables. But respond they have and as of now the WPT final tables offer the finest example of big stack professional poker of any tour or tournament structure. Props where props are due and the WPT has done well with this critical aspect of tournament poker.
Now to the televised show. The show as it now is presented on GSN has not kept up with the changing face of poker. This is not a harsh criticism, simply because editorial and directorial decisions about the show are really tough calls. Clearly though, I have some suggestions.
First a question: Is the show aimed at more new audience members or at the continuing audience from the first five years? The answer is probably: both! And therein, lies another problem. Too much basic information, annoys and bores the poker literate audience; not enough and new viewers get lost in the subtleties of professional poker. But the show needs some new blood. Here are my suggestions.
Do not fire Mike and Vince, but quit wasting their time by having them sit through and talk through the live event. You don't use 90% of what they say live anyway. It is in post-production when they can see the hole cards where you get the bulk of their commentary, so drop the pretense and get them out of there. If you want some live quotes, Linda Johnson's live commentary is always entertaining; oh wait, you lost Linda Johnson; now that was a mistake.
Second, if you are going to put microphones on the players at the final table; then you need to use that dialog in the show. A most recent example will illustrate. During Bellagio Cup III, Mike Matusow carried on a six hour conversation about deep stack poker. He was praising the new structure of the WPT, so good promotion for the tour from one of the best known and most critical players in the world. And his comments were very informative about how deep stack poker is different from other types of poker, he illustrated by commenting on several key hands. At times the other players joined in the conversation with Mike (I know I was there), it would have been perfect for Mike Sexton and Vince to build a entertaining and informative conversation around those comments. But all we hear of this, in the televised show, are two or three of The Mouth's comments, all of which are being talked over by Vince on some completely different topic.
When Bellagio Cup III got down to heads up, a lot of talk table was aired between Mike and Kevin Saul; but that had been going on all night. Another strong and entertaining thread to make this final table unique and different from all the other WPT final tables. All I am saying is that the WPT format has gotten stale but they actually have a unique and fresh product if they would only choose to show it. Quit trying to force the broadcast into some formula that makes all the final tables look the same.
So overall, on this report card, I give WPT a B minus. They can do better, they have shown the ability to adjust to the changing market but the market is changing again. Who if anyone will catch the second wave of the poker boom and who will get swamped by the splash of the already descending shark?
