Is it true that ESPN is not airing the women's event this year?

[KSOT]

My friend told me this. I was really looking forward to seeing how J. Tilly did it.

[Dynasty]

It was not part of their scheduled tapings. But, they probably got some footage of Tilly at the final table.

ESPN blew it on this one and Chan's tenth bracelet win.

ESPN has been horrible this year. You would think they'd smarten up and give us more coverage. I don't even know why I continue to watch the all in hour they give us.

[drewjustdrew]

They filmed it when it got down to the final 4. I watched some of it live. They originally were not going to tape it at all. Once they found out tilly was a chip leader, and it was 4am, they decided to come back the next afternoon for a taping. I talked with one of the players husband and he said his wife didn't want to cuz she didn't think she was very photogenic. But she went along with it anyway. You can be the judge as to who that might have been.

It only went about 35 hands I think at that point. I left after the first half hour.

[MicroBob]

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ESPN blew it on this one and Chan's tenth bracelet win.


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Big time.

you would think that when you've got Johnny chan at the table you would just automatically start filming the whole thing.
In fact, they could just pretty much shoot as many of the final-tables as possible and if something big comes out of it (like Chan's 10th bracelet...or a famous actrss like Tilly winning a freaking WSOP bracelet) then go ahead and just edit in some commentary from Lon and Norm.


I'm surprised they didn't shoot the ladies event again anyway.
You've got a bunch of guys (mostly) watching this stuff on TV...and some of the women are modestly attractive.

I would think the angle of "hey! these girls are pretty good at the game too...and they can PROVE IT." (like they take on the WPT Ladies Night out events) is one they would want to continue anyway.

[lonn19]

ESPN is getting worse and worse at covering poker. You know its bad when they show hands already in progress after a commercial break.

[Moneyline]

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ESPN blew it on this one and Chan's tenth bracelet win.

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Agreed, and not taping the 10K PLO event and the drama that followed was another big mistake. With all the $$$ ESPN is making off poker you think they could buy enough tape stock to record all the events with potential and just edit them down later.

[2+2 wannabe]

you're crazy - women don't play poker /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[PITTM]

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ESPN is getting worse and worse at covering poker. You know its bad when they show hands already in progress after a commercial break.

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ive made this complaint like 40 times. why does espn think we want to see what cards people have and no action with one card to come when someone is 80% to win a hand...wow, how exciting...

rj

[Kevmath]

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ESPN blew it on this one and Chan's tenth bracelet win.

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Agreed, and not taping the 10K PLO event and the drama that followed was another big mistake. With all the $$$ ESPN is making off poker you think they could buy enough tape stock to record all the events with potential and just edit them down later.

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You need quite a bit of manpower to record 45 tournaments, with several of them going very long hours. The reason given for them not filming the 10k PLO for TV was to give them a week's break before the ME started.

Regarding their not filming the women's event, it was a terrible move in hindsight. However, last year's ladies' final didn't have any recognizable names, and with Annie Duke at the final table of the Omaha 8 taking place at the same time, they dedicated time to showing that. Expect this year's $2500 NL to get the abbreviated treatment as they'll cover Johnny Chan's and Jennifer Tilly's wins on that show.

Another note, the original ESPN schedule listing has them airing the 2k NL on October 4, when they'll be showing Doyle Brunson's win in the 5k NL shorthanded event. The events of Chan/Tilly helped them later on to change priorities when the situation warranted.

Regarding coming back from commercials "midway" thru a hand. I'm sure many of those situations are when someone is severely shortstacked and it becomes headsup right away, there's not much you can do with that. This was done last year as well, and there were other times they just showed someone leaving the table.

It would be nice to get more extensive coverage of these final tables and make them 90-120 minutes to reduce the number of times each show gets repeated. But what they've done so far has worked for them very well.

[Quicksilvre]

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why does espn think we want to see what cards people have and no action with one card to come when someone is 80% to win a hand...wow, how exciting...

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Apparently, a fairly large number of people do think it's exciting. Unless the ratings nosedive, it's not going to change.

[fnurt]

I wouldn't be surprised if they want to give the coverage the flavor of a live event by suggesting that action is taking place while they're away at commercial. A large percentage of ESPN viewers has no idea they're even watching a taped event.

[Masquerade]

I can see no possible justification for a woman-only event. But, given that they run it anyway, couldn't they play topless or something to generate some TV interest?

[Timer]

[ QUOTE ]
It was not part of their scheduled tapings. But, they probably got some footage of Tilly at the final table.

ESPN blew it on this one and Chan's tenth bracelet win.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what everyone is complaining about. You still get your quota of Norman Chad ex-wife jokes, and Lon McIdiot telling you that so and so will win if he doesn't fold comments.

ESPN coverage of the WSOP is the greatest thing since the IPOD IMHO. And if that isn't enough acronyms in one sentence for you then try this:

ESPNGOFYURSELF

[RoyalLance]

Ohh Nooooo!!!! We will have one less fix of the "I think the Ace of Spades is the prettiest card in the deck" line and less footage fool of bluffs and suckouts.

[sketchy1]

They did film Chan's table. They got the heads-up match. That's all they could do. They weren't down to the final table (if I remember correctly) until later that night. They did get some prelimary footage as well of that final table, just without hole cards. The day began taping the final table that Fred Bonyadi won. They couldn't come in that day and say "oh sorry we're not going to tape this final table, we think we MIGHT get to see Johnny Chan at his final table going for number ten." The reason they did this for the tournament Brunson won was because they saw the lineup the day before for the final table they were set to film and saw that there was not a single player at the table anyone had heard of. They looked at the final three tables or so for the 6-handed event and took a chance filming that.

ESPN did a great job this year. They could only do so much. Post-production is a different story. There's a million things they could change and instead we are stuck with what we see.

The full TV schedule is here http://www.pokertrails.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=176

The one on WSOP.com isn't correct at all.

[Drizztdj]

Ugh. They missed the blow up?

Sigh.

[drewjustdrew]

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ESPN did a great job this year. They could only do so much. Post-production is a different story. There's a million things they could change and instead we are stuck with what we see.


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No comment on how ESPN did, but I think people are expecting a lot considering this is only the second time they have tried to tape multiple events. They have no control over who is making these tables. The only way to cover themselves is to tape all final tables. Their goal is obviously not to be complete, but to offer more poker content than years past.

[Kevmath]

Why their website couldn't update the TV schedule when you and Oliver have had updated schedules for the past 6 weeks is stunning. Maybe they had some sort of ENG crew taping some events they weren't giving full final table coverage and we'll actually see the 10K PLO blowup.

[Walter Pullis]

Frankly, I think that ESPN executives don't believe that the poker boom will last, and are only interested in current ratings. To use a sports phrase, they are not "building for the future".

[Quicksilvre]

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The only way to cover themselves is to tape all final tables.

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And they won't--and probably shouldn't. What if Chan won his tenth bracelet in Omaha hi-lo? Would they show that?

[Kevmath]

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And they won't--and probably shouldn't. What if Chan won his tenth bracelet in Omaha hi-lo? Would they show that?

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They showed Annie Duke winning her first in Omaha hi/lo.

[sketchy1]

That was entirely different. They're never going to air a full episode dedicated to a split pot event.

[sketchy1]

This is something Harrah's hasn't done, or whoever they hired to run their website. Not ESPN. ESPN actually is the reason we have such updated schedules. As soon as something changed, and it did a lot during that month, they put out an updated schedule. That's the reference for my post with the schedule.

[sketchy1]

The presentation and post-production is where the product is falling apart. ESPN did an incredible job to do as much as they did in six weeks. The crew was worked to death. People don't realize how much it is to tape 12 events or whatever in just six weeks.

Don't get me wrong, I like the WSOP on ESPN, but there are a lot of things I think they're doing really wrong. The episodes should be longer than one hour, they shouldn't be showing just all-in and so forth, and they should probably be gearing up to show live events eventually. I think every event should stop once they get five-handed, and the rest of the event should be shown live. If they want to do full coverage months later of the main event and show every day, that's fine. But they're probably losing viewers when everyone already knows what happens and has seen the results as they happened on the web.

[Quicksilvre]

I pretty much second everything sketcky1 says.

[Kevmath]

ESPN should make every show 2 hours long, broken down into 2 one-hour shows. This way they have their 2 hour block of poker programming afternoons when it's replayed numerous times.

Regarding live poker on ESPN, why not set up something for Pay Pew View, OnDemand, or some sort of digital cable deal like Full Court, Sunday Ticket, etc. This way the poker hardcore fans get the live coverage they want, and then have the 60 minute show for the casual fan later in the year.

Live poker on ESPN itself sounds great, but if the structure turns into a crapshoot or if they have to speed things up like they had to at the Wynn event, is that really good for poker?

[Quicksilvre]

Me likey. However, I doubt that ESPN will ever show poker live, since there are too many programming alternatives that pull in better ratings. I think that the only reasonable live poker sources are the Internet, PPV, and smaller networks like Fox Sports or GSN.

[Dynasty]

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The presentation and post-production is where the product is falling apart.

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They haven't even aired a single episode yet.

[Kevmath]

I'm sure Jon's referencing their current WSOP Circuit product and what they did last year.

[sketchy1]

Um, yeah, they have. All the circuit episodes. Same crew, same company, same stuff.