2024 World Series of Poker May 28th to July 17th ***No Spoilers***

That Hu match was a terrible look for poker

Pads when coaching Espen

Yea it definitely doesn't help but it's going to be extremely difficult for someone who isn't a boring nerd to win these days.
Foxen winning would have been good.

I know Weinman won last year and that's only bc I saw it mentioned a few times this week.

I can honestly only name a few winners since Jerry Yang and Joe Mcchehan is the only one I could even pick out of a lineup.

A few years ago me and the homies cheated to secure the bag.... but now they're should be ruled against this type of stuff- Patrick Lenard

She's also never been HU in a tourney before, unless it was a HU tourney.

I completely agree the solvers on the rail is complete BS. As an amateur I will not be playing the main next year, it will be the 37th year in a row I will not be attending.

Serock - Seems fairly standard tbh. Just unlucky Lena woke up with a hand even though he will be flatting strong hands.
Rast - Not great but it was for like 22bbs
Foxen - Pretty bad spot but if she does have some fold equity and if Serock ever folds Ax people would lose their minds about what a great bluff it was
Lena - Vs online crushers it's probably close, but against an amateur I'm not sure how great you're doing vs a 1.5x pot shove. Just not sure that's the spot to take playing fairly deep 3 handed when you have a considerable skill edge.
Kim - You can't convince me this wasn't the punt of the tournament. I get Astedt can have some bluffs there, but he was getting over 2-1 on a call. Even his suited wheel ace bluffs might just feel pot committed and flick in the call for the remainder at that point especially if he thinks there's a chance his min 4-bet would induce a spaz.

Agree with Serock. That is just a standard squeeze.

Rast's was pretty bad to call off that amount with AQo.

Foxen's was bad but not compared to Kim and Lena. Seems like she had a couple other similar spots that got through so then of course she looks like a genius.

Lena - Griff came out swinging and I think Lena should have used his skill edge to wait for a better spot.

Kim - punt of the summer!!

I was most disappointed in Rast. HOFer shouldn't be calling off a 4b with AQo (even if he's 'tired'). He slipped into cash game mode when the ME was within reach.

Foxen somehow lost track of the hand flow/opponent tendencies IMO. The Surfer Dude isn't blasting there. Yes, he did show some bluffs, but like most 'character' Players they have the goods when pots get bigger. I think she (maybe) could've shoved the Turn instead of x/r. But when there's now two flush draws and Pot Odds are that much better there's just so many combos that are shoving as semi-bluffs that most 4b holdings are probably going to call off and sigh if they are shown the straight.

Both Foxen and Lena should've held out and let their experience/skill advantage hopefully win out in the 'long' run. GL

Same here. That was really disappointing. Adding Rast and Foxen to the final table would have been amazing...........like the Wynn WPT Championship FT with Lucky Chewy, Moorman, Heath, and Martirosyan.

Im not expecting another moneymaker effect. That wont happen ever. And like Mason has stated plenty of times the boom was already happening before Moneymaker, hole cards on other televised shows already had poker interest booming massively. He just became the face of it, it would have happened anyway within the next few years at the latest.

But still, the likes of Weinman/Tamayo winning is about the nut low in terms of winners generating interest.

Is this actually a fact? lol

Nobody at the final table winning would generate interest. It will take a woman or someone like Kevin Hart or Neymar.

Who do people think was the last Main Event winner who was actually "good for poker"?

Like the last winner who perceptibly caused an increase in enthusiasm for the game among recreational players/viewers?

Joe Hachem.
All later winners were preaching to the converted.

I will be very surprised if WSOP does not explicitly stop this going forward.

There is already a rule that ME players cannot use electronic devices once ITM. I don't understand the difference here, Tamayo was using an electronic device when ITM.

Not it isn’t at all “good for poker” to see a bunch of dorks with a laptop so visible on the rail. This ship has sailed though. Before all of the tools that have come out the last few years though it was just the upper echelon of players who would have access to this kind of stuff, and as Pads mentioned they would just have someone running it remotely and getting the info to the players via someone else on the rail. At least now there is greater access for everyone with GTO wizard.

Honestly I think at this point the only paths forward would be:
A) ban all phones at the table period. (Not going to happen)
B) strictly enforce a rule of no looking at/interacting with a phone while you have a live hand in front of you. Hand is immediately declared dead. Repeated offense is a penalty; next DQ. No hand in front of you who cares what you do.

Great question. Breaching international markets is always big but I don’t think Norway really cares much about Jorstad winning. Germany has been there and done that, so Ensan and Aldemir didn’t really stir things up too much, even though Ensan did hit a different age demographic. Like Jorstad, Sweden didnt really care about Jacobsen.

Qui Nguyen was the last true amateur to win and maybe made some splash in the gambly Asian market but that’s a demographic already attracted to poker and casinos.

I would say Pius Heinz and Ryan Riess are the answers.

Heinz was the first for Germany and there was a big German poker boom/uptick in the mid 2010s (which had since tapered off a bit) and it was partially to his victory, although not entirely.

I remember Riess was actually a guest on ESPN college gameday after his win and made the mainstream. I think people related to him having the young regular college guy vibe. And with his Lions jersey it tapped into the sports fan market and maybe attracted young guys like him to give poker a more serious shot. (Although online being banned shortly before this obvious stemmed that possible momentum).

Going further back, Gold, Yang and Eastgate were kind of blah champions but that was still the poker boom era so whoever won was going to be promoted.

2019 Ho won a High Roller at the Commerce for over $200k .. pretty much all of her other 'wins' come from TV type shows PAD, NGNF that were probably SNGs.

She does have quite a few FTs with a few 3rd/4th, but no 2nds or other 'major' 1sts.

Doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's supposed to do .. certainly with 66 is comes down to stacks and position.

While I'm not a big fan of Ho, I will say that it's got to be very difficult to talk poker for hours and not keep repeating yourself .. especially with the other two in the both. It's OK MH, some spots in poker are exactly the same as one from a previous orbit .. it's OK to play them the same or go a different route.

There was a Twitter/X campaign that wanted Ali/Nick doing an alternate booth, which I think would've easier out 'viewed' Lon, Norm and Ho. Granted I give Lon/Norm props for the canned episodes, but Lon especially stumbles when Live. GL

Get rid of the Thunderdome rail horsechit for final table

Go back to a setting like 2005, with small crowd mostly blacked out and spotlight on final table.

Have a smallish (100 or so?) crowd, elevated so they can see most of action with announcer..so it’s not constant run over to rail …”I have KQ, he has JJ” chit every all in.

Increase time delay to render assistance behind the scenes to be mostly unhelpful

Product is quite bad right now and getting worse each year. But a few simple things can fix it

time delay should be increased by a lot.

Agree with the first half of your past. As for the second half it is unfortunately impossible to stop imo. There is always a way with technological advances and computers.

I'm gonna say Jamie Gold. Yeah ok so he donated money back afterwards and people make fun etc but his clips still get replayed to this day (Argument with Molina for one). Everyone knows what "top top" refers to and it still gets used in commentary. His table talk during that main run was exceptional and thats one thing that appeals strongly to rec players.

I actually liked Eastgate, although he did a vanishing act afterwards and had no mainstream appeal at all. It's probably because he played on the same network I did at the time and his nickname on it was a very apt "C_Me_No_More"