2026 World Series of Poker May 26th - July 15th

This streaming is so painful to watch. Just remember our rake is paying for Joe Stapleton (and Norman Chad)’s paycheck.

Stapleton has misread the board/outs/situations about a million times. He's terrible at this and I think Norman is funnier, maybe not saying much.

All it is is bitch bitch bitch. FFS the guy above your post is complaining about cashing the first event.

How many times do people have to bring up wanting the mix games over NL. We get it, high stakes no limit tournaments are boring. Especially toward the latter stages, but theyre showing what they show. Isn't it free?

You win chips at the end that can be exchanged for prizes in an outside venue, this gets around the legality.

Ren Lin has been on the 25k stream and Joe and David are just having the greatest time hearing him say “Lady Gaga” and other assorted catchphrases.

We’re cool with him cheating because he says “Lady Gaga” over and over? Is that the general premise?

But other cheaters like say an Ali are dead to the poker world because he doesn’t have catchphrases? Does he know that’s all he needs to do?

Wasn't he a GG sponsored guy? That's why they're "cool with him" (unfortunately, obv.).

Stapleton is the worst thing to happen to poker commentary ever, how he got picked up for WSOP is beyond me, he is complete **** tier at the job. You can't have a color commentator who is completely clueless about the game and cant offer the slightest insight into what is happening and why.

Lon and Norm say hi.

He really is just awful. It's baffling to me how he's worked steadily for over 20years.

Stapes does the play by play. So far, for color commentators I've heard him work with Randy Lew and David Williams.

I like Joe, and am fine with him on a rotating basis with Ali, feeling it's more enjoyable to hear at least two play by play voices over the long Series than just one.

I'm not sure.

Lederer should come back, try to get in some DNEGS vlogs and say "Bazinga" or "Uh-Oh Spaghetti O" when a bad card comes

not sure if serious, you could comment on state of live MTTS. but in no version of universe does your desc make any sense

Norman is awful and needs to go away. Not a fan of Joe either. Bring back Brent Hanks and Remko. And let J Becks in the booth I thought he did really good last year during the main after he cleaned up his potty mouth.

No one cares about stuff like that, one man to a hand rule in online poker is dumb anyway as so hard to enforce.

Damn people here bitch a lot. If you want some nerd analysis go watch a RIO vid

Ren Lin is 3rd on China’s all time money list. You’re high if you think they were going to ban him for life. China is poker operator’s ticket to the big leagues.

I don't get how Joe is employed in the industry either. He's not funny in the slightest, why does he keep getting hired? How many times do I have to hear "hello my babies"?

There's a very wide range b/w nerd analysis on a RIO video and someone who can't even follow the action properly despite having announced for a very long time.

I am only speaking on live MTTs, the average joe has realized that more often than not their 4-6 hrs at a $300-$800 BI tourney ends without them being in the money. When cash games allow them the ability to 2x maybe 3x the same amount of money potentially in much less time and they can leave when they want. IMO the avg joe player was a significant chunk of the recreational tournament player pool when the Moneymaker effect hit. Anyone still playing 1 or 2 day tourneys in that range, that is not extremely experienced or studying ranges and charts (aka someone like me who is not experienced or studying), is a huge dog when these tourneys get down close to the money, and thats just a fact. Live MTTs never lost the delusional players who ran deep once or twice and think they can replicate their results one day, but at this point a huge chunk of the field are people who specialize in tourneys.

Ex. My starting tabling at the $550 Mini Mystery (3500 entries) (one of the lowest bracelet buy ins) had over 2M in live earnings across 3-4 people. This was the last flight (happened to be a turbo)....and then there is myself and 4 other fish lol.

He's likely employed because he's a play by play guy who's enjoyed by a lot of listeners. "Hello my babies" is his catchphrase, so you'll always here it - why it would bother you at this point escapes me. Many listeners also find Joe funny at least occasionally. An instance I thought was funny was in the day 2 stream of the $25K, when Boika and Soika were seated on the same featured table, and Joe and David began referring to them as the 'Oika brothers'.

I hear that many don't find Joe funny, but the fact is that many others do. And for play by play, there are only a small handful of commentators proven to be highly competent over the long haul, and work outside of the Triton Series. Personally, I think that Ali and Hartigan are the top of the heap, but I prefer Joe to Remko, Tuck, Lon, and so on.

Stapleton is not an experienced play-by-play commentator, for like 15 years he was the color commentator for PokerStars and the events that they ran, primarily EPTs with James Hartigan doing the play-by-play. You get a complete **** broadcast when he is in the booth with someone who is actually supposed to be doing color commentary, likely an active professional player, and he can't even follow the action or read the boards correctly, but finds plenty of time to drop stupid one liners that no one actually finds funny.

Seems to be the complete opposite in my perspective. Live MTTs are booming while live public cash games are dying. Hate to break it to you but if you aren’t studying ranges and charts, you’re even deader money in cash than in tournaments. In my area, the tournament scene is filled with players who used to dump in cash games until they discovered mtts.

Although, I do agree with your assessment of the WSOP environment. Players going out to Vegas for the summer, looking for soft fields may be disappointed. The fact is the players who can afford the money and time to go out to WSOP for weeks on end are mainly pros. If you’re trying to play soft field tournaments, you’re actually better off staying home and playing something at your local room.

I can’t imagine with the glacial pace of play and graphics explaining exactly what is happening in regards to the action, that anyone has trouble following the action without the commentators. This is WSOP, not Triton or EPT. Go to one of those streams if you want hooty snooty commentary on ranges and what luxury watch each player is sporting. WSOP is for the red blooded Americans who love Jesus, cold beer and fat tits.

Actually, for the past several years Joe and James would begin EPT streams working together, but would invariably take turns as play by play commentators over the course of the long day-long broadcasts.