WSOP Tournament of Champions..haha..

So ESPN decided to only air 4 tournaments on TV this year (they are showing tables on ESPN 360 this year). They picked the main event, the $40k Hold'em, the Ante Up for Africa charity event, and the Tournament of Champions which featured only former main event champs.

ESPN figured that they would guarantee big names at the final tables which would be "better" for TV. For the $40k, they got Ted Forrest and Greg Raymer at the final table, sure they are well known but they don't really make for exciting TV.

In the Tournament of Champions the final 4 was Robert Varkonyi, Dan Harrington, Tom McEvoy, and Jim Bechtel...possibly the four least known guys. They are all good guys but they aren't going to fire up the non-poker public.

The event was basically a cheesy made for TV tournament that ESPN thought they would film and cash in....all the while only giving out a corvette as a prize. No wonder a few of the guys didn't show up. A few years ago they had a invitational and paid out millions, this year a car. haha.

ESPN is reaping what they sow with their ridiculously limited coverage.

World Series of Poker!

I don't know about you, but I'm pumped about this year's World Series of Poker. No more rebuy tourneys and a sweet $40k buyin to start it off. Rebuys suck because I'm poor and basically rich players can just buy a bracelet. Personally I think it's a mistake to have the $40k so early, not that many people will buyin since they can get better overall value out of smaller tournaments. Plus some of this year's winners would have probably tried to parlay other cashes into an entry into the $40k.

I can understand Harrah's and ESPN wanting as many big names at the final table as possible, but it certainly didn't turn out that way with two of the more boring big names making it. No offense to Ted Forrrest but he's not exactly Mr. Personality at the tables and Greg Raymer should probably get rid of those lizard glasses. Raymer now signs a fossil and gives it to whomever knocks him out of a tournament which is pretty cool but an obvious rip off of Barry Greenstein; who signs a copy of his book and gives it to the guy who knocks him out. I guess that's easier than giving his winnings to charity.

Most of the other guys who made the final table are well known online pros like Justin "zeejustin" Bonomo, Ansky and Ike Haxton (who strangely resembles Ally Sheedy from the breakfast club in this pokernews.com picture, so far pokernews has had the best WSOP coverage by the way).

It should be a pretty entertaining table to watch on ESPN later this year; the headsup battle was pretty epic and I'm sure ESPN will show about 1 or 2 hands from it.

ESPN also made the strange yet cost effective decision to hold the $40k event and the Legends of poker event (pitting all the prior WSOP champs in a sigle tournament; except for Russ Hamilton who everyone thinks is a cheating piece of crap due to the ultimatebet scandal) basically at the same time which precluded Greg Raymer from really playing in the Legends event. They probably scheduled it that way to reduce production costs since we all know ESPN is hurting for money and poker is such a high priority for them, this year they are going to show an entire 4 events on TV, and luckily all of them hold'em!!! As Antonio Esfandiari would say.....Wheeeee!