Serious Flaw with WPT Celebrity Invitational

[Vee Quiva]

Why on earth would they invite all these celebrities if they are not going to make the final table? I'm sure they are not making any money at the Commerce casino for holding the event other than the publicity it generates.

Here's my idea...Have one tournament for the pros and one for the celebrities. The last 3 from each tournament meet at the final table. That way the Travel Channel gets their celebrities on for at least an hour of the show and we all get to see the difference between the casual player and the profressional player (Much like we got to see when Layne Flack toyed with Jerry Buss last year).

Any thoughts?

[toots]

Here's my idea for the WPT in general:

Show us something other than a recap of all the All-Ins from the final table.

I mean, there's more to NL than all-in, and there's more to a tournament than the last 6 players, and I expect there's lots of interesting stuff to be mined outside of those narrow limits.

[MrGo]

Here's another idea - Lose Vincey boy. He's horrible, and show a 10 handed final table rather than a 6 handed table, and show hands from previous days, rather than just glances of players' faces.

Shana Hiatt said ESPN's coverage of poker doesn't compare to their's. I disagree 175%!

[Sponger15SB]

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Shana Hiatt said ESPN's coverage of poker doesn't compare to their's. I disagree 175%!

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how can she even say that unless she is a total moron (hmm). ESPN kills WPT, just the fact that the WPT makes poker look like it is played in a futeristic spaceship is good enough to like ESPN more. also, norman chad kills VVP on commentary any day. heck even lon macehren (sp) is better than mike sexton, because he can only say 2 things "oh i don't like the looks of this place vince" and "he has the best hand but he doesn't know it"

[Syntax]

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he has the best hand but he doesn't know it

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Is that because they can't see the players cards, but we can with the revolutionary WPT cams?

[Daithi]

n/m

[B Dids]

Here's what I posted in another thread.

"I'd rather see a few hands from the whole tournament in the first hour, and then the 2nd hour at the final table."

I think this idea is gold. Because it's mine.

[Travis]

I respectfully disagree. VVP makes the show. He may be a cheese ball but he's hilarious. He gets my vote on the hair alone. I mean is he serious with that hair? How can NC compete with that? And his ridiculous one liners! Can't you just see him sitting around for hours with a pen and paper brainstorming those up. Great stuff.

[B Dids]

Posting while drunk is not encouraged on this board.

[cornell2005]

the commentary is funny, they intentionally dont show odds and explain why a person might be betting like they do to make everything seem like its a risky play.

[cferejohn]

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Shana Hiatt said ESPN's coverage of poker doesn't compare to their's. I disagree 175%!

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? I think ESPN is horrible. They almost never give stack sizes, bet sizes, pot sizes, blind sizes, or anything other than the cards and "he bets out". I find the ESPN coverage to be aggravating and nearly useless.

While VVP can get annoying the fact that you get a lot of info is nice. I've missed some of the second season (commercials kill my soul, so I'm waiting for the DVDs), but in the first season, we saw plenty of post-flop play (in contrast to say Late-night poker, where preflop all-ins are shown on almost every hand).

I think how much flop play we get depends on what sort of players are playing. Some players (myself included frankly) don't smooth call too many preflop bets late in tournaments. Others (particularly players like Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen) like to call and play the flop. When those sorts of players are in, we see more flops.

I can't imagine that they are intentionally leaving out any facinating hands that have flop play, those are the hands that they *want* to show, for gods sake. If it looks like final table tournament poker is often decided by preflop play, well, that's because final table tournament poker IS often decided by preflop play.

[B Dids]

Sorry. VVP by definition makes ESPN better. Hell, not pandering to the "Shana is HAWT" crowd makes ESPN better.

I'm sure ESPN's coverage for this year will blow what they did last year out of the way. Some of that will be because they'll take ideas from WPT and do it better.

VVP bugs me, not only because he's corny, but because as somebody mentions both he and Sexon play up the "THIS GUY IS CRAZY" aspect of it without pointing why some of the CRAZY plays make sense. While as much as it's profitable for me for the fish not to understand some of the concepts at work, I think they do viewers a disservice by not explaining the motivations behind many of the plays they show.

It's what should be a somewhat highbrow presentation dumbed down to a level that almost demeans the game and doesn't respect the players that are making money for them.

[astroglide]

honestly, why should anybody give a [censored] what real poker players think about it? people, not yet poker playing people, are certainly proven to enjoy it.

[pgec311]

I don't know if I have an opinion either way about which is better (except they are both better than LNP "Barney, he's got the Snowmen!!!!!")but one thing to consider is that ESPN has only had the one tournament to cover, so of course the overall coverage is better, that is how they can make it multiple episodes. I am guessing that on the other tournaments they are showing from this year's WSOP, before the main event, that they will be a lot more like WPT in that they have to show just the important hands in the one or two hour span that it airs. I actually think WPT shows a good variety of hands that don't just include allins. On a side note, my new least favorite line comes from Mike Sexton, the "Bingo, Bango, Bongo he's hit the...." has got to go. I mean that is some annoying $*!^

[JerseyTom]

ESPN kicks the crap out of WPT for quality of coverage:

1. ESPN covers a better tournament, the most important one in the game. The WSOP is the Masters and Wimbledon of poker. Most of the WPT events are the equivalent of the Buick Open or the Pathmark Invitational. Every single player of note plays the WSOP. How many final tables have you seen on WPT where you recognized only half (or fewer) of the players? EVERYBODY remembers you when you win the WSOP; no one will remember even 6 months from now who won the 2004 WPT Casino Classic Invitational Battle of Champions.

2. WPT seems to go more for glitz (flashing lights, Shana), gimmicks (that frickin' clock) and "action" ("he's all-in again, Vince!") over depth (like Leno, trying to appeal to the LCD), but on some level this makes sense. This is a weekly show aimed at a "tourist" audience (remember, it's The Travel Channel...) and they are showing only the final six players of a tournament (where sometimes some really crazy chit happens, mon...). That, and some of these final tables are god-awful boring (sometimes, I'm amazed that they can find enough mildly-compelling footage to fill their 2 hours), so a shot of adrenaline in some form or another is needed. ESPN has the luxury of being able to build something of a narrative over the course of multiple shows.

3. Sexton is knowledgeable, but he relies too much on catch phrases (bingo/bango/bongo, show tunes, laying the branches, what a bold play, blah, blah, blah) than real analysis. I think Norman Chad does a better job at this (though I think there is even room for him to improve), and he's much funnier on average than Sexton or Vincy has ever been.

[Vee Quiva]

I leave for a few hours and everyone goes off topic. What about my idea for the celebrity tournament format? Post the critiques of VVP and ESPN in another thread.

[TimTimSalabim]

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Really? I think ESPN is horrible. They almost never give stack sizes, bet sizes, pot sizes, blind sizes, or anything other than the cards and "he bets out". I find the ESPN coverage to be aggravating and nearly useless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Plus, their announcers don't seem to show much knowledge of poker. As I recall from last year's WSOP broadcast, the few times they actually told us the bet sizes, they had them wrong and it made the whole thing confusing. And the announcers came up with gems like "Scotty usually gets lucky, that's why he's dangerous". I don't think even VVP has said anything that stupid.

[TimTimSalabim]

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I'm sure ESPN's coverage for this year will blow what they did last year out of the way. Some of that will be because they'll take ideas from WPT and do it better.

[/ QUOTE ]

What makes you think they will? They didn't learn anything last time from watching the first WPT season. The only thing that could save ESPN's coverage is if they fired those two idiot commentators. I'm not saying Sexton is a genius, but those two guys are not even in his league.

[baggins]

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Here's another idea - Lose Vincey boy. He's horrible, and show a 10 handed final table rather than a 6 handed table, and show hands from previous days, rather than just glances of players' faces.

Shana Hiatt said ESPN's coverage of poker doesn't compare to their's. I disagree 175%!

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I'm agreeing pretty much 100% with you, MrGo.

[SuitedSixes]

I pretty much agree that Shana is hot!

[deacsoft]

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Why on earth would they invite all these celebrities if they are not going to make the final table?

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So they can be producers for the pros.