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#608 - Escape from WSOP #1 - You Tell Me
I’ve been driving all day, I’m playing 2 FTOPS events, I still have to judge my essay contests and write about this, I have additional things to tell you about the experience of the final table - and I haven’t paid bills in six weeks, so on top of all this other stuff Mercedes Benz has a hit out to get me for $397.
So I’m not able to watch the 2-hour presentation of the final table tonight (Tuesday). So please write me a comment and tell me what you think. I THINK it’s going to be good based on what I saw transpire and what I think about televised poker and what works.
But leave me a comment and share your opinion. I gotta get cracking on all the other stuff.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
The coverage was excellent - the venue was perfect, the standard of play was a lot better than last year (not that that would be hard!) with the exception of Philips who was the most spewie (He did however acquit himself better in the hand in which you said he had when he checked his KQ on the turn versus Demidov’s JJ).
Demidov and Schwarz in particular made some great plays. Even when a player donked, there was obvious method and intent to the madness. Montgomery knew Demidov’s re-raising range to a button raiser was wide (that said, it’s hard to excuse getting involved in a 40+ million pot preflop with A9 on the Main Event Final Table - maybe ask Jerry Yang and Lee Watkinson!!!) Ylon’s river reraise bluff would certainly have worked if Eastgate had not rivered a boat.
The two that fought it out in the end were certainly the two most deserving - I was impressed by how Eastgate coasted through the 9-6 handed stage of the evening without having played a noteworthy hand. That is a sign of class. Demidov has undoubted class. He oozed composure throughout the night.
My criticisms of the coverage are not many but I think they should have shown more. 2 x 2 hour shows would have meant the inclusion of several more key moments that I remember from the hand by hand on the WSOP website. It would also have allowed for much much more of the Heads-Up action. They only showed two hands - The fifth last hand and the last. 2 out of the 120 was a poor effort and it did not do justice to the early tussle back and forth. Eastgate came across cool and collected, with a steely-eyed glare reminiscent of Patric Antonius. In victory, he barely reacted and that brings me to my other criticism.
I don’t think we, as an audience, were properly versed with Eastgate’s story. He was perhaps the least interesting, somewhat reticent and his lack of perfect English perhaps made it difficult for ESPN to provide us with quality soundbites which would have made him more involving to us. They didn’t write the script for who would win on the night but they are in the business of telling stories retrospectively based on outcomes from their significant pool of footage. I think more could have been done to bring him to life (even if he himself is calmness and detachment personified)
November 12th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I agree 100% that they should have split this into at least a 2 part series. Two hours is not even close to enough time to show all of the key moments and some of the great plays that demonstrates the skill level of the final table. Maybe that’s just the poker player talking, because I know somebody that does not play poker only wants to see the allins and the big pots.
The heads up was a bit of a disappointment to watch. I would have liked to have seen at least 20 minutes worth of HU play instead of the 2 hands in 5 minutes. The 2 hands made it seem like Eastgate completely controlled the play from start to finish, which it appears was not the case early on. It would have been nice to see a part of the battle early on.
The last thing I was a little disappointed with was the ending. Eastgate shows the winning hand, hugs his supporters, they showed a couple clips from earlier in the tournament, then the show just ended. The kid just won 9 million dollars, and the ending made it seem like he won a friendly tournament. Eastgate’s (lack of) celebration might not have helped with this, but I think they should have included a little more of the celebration to show how big of a deal it is to win a tournament of this magnitude.
Now I may seem like I was disappointed with the final table, but aside from the above points I enjoyed it, and thought it was well done. They had some big hands, some great plays (laying down a K high flush vs the A high flush? I would have gone broke) and exciting moments. Poker at its finest!
November 12th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I agree about needing 4 hours for coverage. It’s too bad the delayed table seems here to stay.. seems like we will always be stuck with 2 hours of final table now. 2 hands of headup is pitiful.
I’m pretty sure Eastgate would of checked his 55 on the river if he didn’t get the boat, so Ylon missed out by not pulling his punch on the turn.
Great writeup… please discribe the action/feel of the room when Jack announced the last ‘lady’ to last in the Main Event.
Paboo
November 12th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
While I agree that I could watch 4 hours of final table coverage, you may as well wish that ESPN would send you the $8 million instead. That’s not to say the idea is silly, but rather to indicate that the level of coverage was as good as the money will justify in the near future.
For what it’s worth, I feel like I have a reasonable feel for the way the table went by watching the pokernews.com play by play first, then watching ESPN’s coverage. Combined, the two give the poker expert what they want to see, and still allows ESPN to keep the coverage flashy. Remember that if it were not for how ESPN displays final tables, the Moneymaker effect wouldn’t be as strong as it is. And you wouldn’t have nearly as many full tables on FullTilt. So I’m in favor of the final table being displayed the way it was, since experts can get all the coverage they need with other, supplemental, sites AND inexperienced players get to see the flash and glam and spend more money on poker in general.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I have never liked the style of the programs done by ESPN compared with other poker shows. They show so few hands, barely covering more than the elimination hands. For me, it is impossible to get a feel for the atmosphere and progression of their final table coverage. And 2 hands for the heads up action? Silly me, I waited for the broadcast (avoiding all poker websites on Monday) so I wouldn’t know the final outcome. It was a huge disappointment.
The earlier episodes of the main event always frustrate me as well. They seem to show maybe 6 full hands per episode, spending the rest of each hour on boring player profiles and jumping in to catch the river card of some all in confrontation. This coverage gives absolutely no sense of the context of the plays.
All that said, at least the play was better than the last few years of final table donk fests.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Demidov made some great plays.I agree 100% that they should have split this into at least a 2 part series.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Note to Phillips: if you’re going to lead out with a flop bet and no pair when your opponent has position and put in a 3rd raise preflop you shouldn’t compound your mistake by declaring that you “raise”.
I agree with people disappointed in the heads up coverage but I’d expand that disappointment to the coverage from 4 handed down.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Interesting thoughts about the final table - I too would have liked to see many more hands instead of all the sidenotes about the players and who they flew in for the event. However, I understand, from the ESPN perspective, inserting all the glitz and glamour of the event itself, including the crowds, the mini-bios of each player, the side stories, and even Norman Chad’s continuous attempts at self-deprecating humor (which I could really do without!)
I just wonder, though - how disappointed is the network/WSOP marketing department that household pro names weren’t at the final table? Sure, it’s nice to see new names and faces, or even pros that we don’t regularly see on tv, but as for drawing even greater viewer numbers, would it help to have one or 2 big names at the table? I also wonder (not that I’m advocating it) - would they ever consider some form of ranking system, and would it benefit the WSOP and make the event more intriguing?