Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

I'd like to get the ball rolling on a big list that I can send to the WPT for next season's shows.

I'm sure I'll have more ideas myself after the WPT Championship and the 2003 WSOP on ESPN in July, but here's what I have so far off of the top of my head:

Suggestions for next season (not all mine, but ones I remember that I liked):

Assuming 2 announcers, each should take a position/style and "stick" with it during the year. Debate hands based on your style, let the other announcer (with his/her style) offer alternate reasons/attack your reasoning.
Guest announcers, with different known styles, would be another way to do this. DEFINATELY have a woman as one of them!

Hand number is a must, clock would be nice. Short review of the action that occurs off-camera would be good, so we know how players got their current stacks. Show stacks more often.

Do your Poker Primer show before, or after, the first WPT next year. Play that show as often as necessary during 03-04, so that you can cut out the primers at the beginning of each tournament show.

A stringent review of the productions for errors, ill-advised comments and other problems, must be done before the shows are canned..... or I will send a swarm of killer locusts to the WPT studios.

For the puff pieces, make sure to give some info about the casino and location, as if you're a tour guide intro'ing potential clients (unless that would smack too much of unpaid advertising)

Try the following for tournament formats (or possibly, a non-tournament show?)
- Omaha and Omaha 8
- Stud and Stud 8 (stud, especially, should be familiar to many people from home games.... I assume)
- Pot-limit
- Mixed format games (HORSE, etc)

Feel free to add your comments- I'll consolidate and send them to the WPT site from the group in mid-July.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

A show or tournament on the Atlantis Casino. Other casinos around the world would be interesting- Canada, Europe, Far East. A special pictorial show- "WPT Hosts Swimsuit Episode" would be something i would be interested in.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

I think they should have ring girls, in skimpy outfits, carrying around big cards with the blind sizes and antes on them.

Maybe I watch too much boxing, lol.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

3 in the booth, with a different guest pro each week to provide counterpoint to Sexton.

Oh, yeah, and my usual vote for Gabe Kaplan to replace VVP, the "Hollywood Home Game (fill in the blank)"

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

I like the idea of a guest pro, perhaps the best pro who suffered the worst bad beat to be put out of the tournament. Or how about the guy who finishes 6th/8th from the final table.

I too would like a clock or a hand number.

We could take out the excitement in Mike Sexton's voice we WE GET TO SEE A FLOP!

-AA

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

At the beginning of each episode they should show the buy-in amount, the number of players who entered and the prize structure.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

Well, personally I think they should stick to pot-limit and no limit tournaments, though I don't mind watching games other than hold'em. I thought that the party-poker million was easily the least interesting to watch. Just watching the best hand get to the river over and over again isn't very intersting. Watching Phil Ivey blast someone off of top-pair top-kicker with nothing, now that's interesting. I don't think a non-tournament show would be very good since it has no natural ending point and no single 'winner', which makes for a lousy sports braodcast.

I think they need to find a professional sports commentator who has some poker knowledge (some of them must) to be the 'play-by-play' guy and have Mike Sexton do 'color'. A competent professional sports broadcaster would realize the importance of at least summarizing what has been missed ("now we jump forward to hand 37. In the interceding 10 hands a pre-flop raise or re-raise has taken the pot, with chip leader Phil Ivey steadily increasing his big stack"). This obviously means kick Van Patten to the curb. I start broadcasting school in the spring, so expect my resume in a couple years. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

On a related note, send Sexton to broadcasting school, or get him some one-on-one work with someone like Jon Miller or Bob Costas. He really needs to work on not saying the same things over and over. Perhaps he could swap them for poker lessons. He also needs to work on sounding less excited about routine plays (oh my god! someone bet out on the flop after a pre-flop raise when the flop didn't hit them?!). That way when something truly remarkable does happen (Gus Hansen makes a huge river bluff with nothing when a 3rd club calls), his excitement will be meaningful.

Admit we aren't seeing everything. I get the impression that the current producers of the show want to fool viewers into thinking they are seeing every hand (as the fact that they are missing many of them is never even mentioned), and frankly that's just silly.

Chip positions should be shown at the beginning of every shown hand, preferably in an overhead graphic that uses a graphics overlay to show everyone's name and number of chips, as well as the location of the button, the blinds, hand number, and time elapsed (actually blinds, hand number, and time elapsed could be kept almost constantly on screen in a corner display).

Guest commentators would be fun, but I would only want to have them in for a few hands. Broadcasting in a 3 man booth is tricky in the best of circumstances, and when you get someone inexperienced in there (especially someone with a stong personality, as some poker players have), it can be chaotic at best. See any baseball broadcast Reggie Jackson (and to a lesser extent, Jim Brown) has ever participated in for an example. If guest commentators are used, this is an even stronger reason to have a broadcasting professional running the thing.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

i think they should fire mike sexton and have just vvp doing the whole thing. they should fire the girl too and have him do her parts too, but in the clothes she wouldve worn.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

If Shana Hiatt asks a busted out player one more time, "How do you feel?" I think I am going to go insane.

Re: Suggestions for WPT next year- starting a list
 

I don't have cable and WPT is taped for me. My 27" TV is lousy and small (by today's standards) and with this setup thought the display of bet and/or pot size was very hard to read. Last week I had a chance to watch WPT on my parents top of the line 35" TV with cable and it was still relatively hard to read. This could be improved.

Also, when a player makes a bet into a pot and another player is considering a call, I think the original pot size and current bet size should both be shown.

Finally, although I like seeing both player's hole cards, sometimes more drama and interest could be created if we get to see the action from one player's perspective.

~ Rick