Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the Poker Go Podcast.
My name is Donny Peters. I'm joined by PGG commissioner, the man
who's been out there. Pitchforks are being held to his neck. People are
coming for him. Tim Duckworth, how you doing. I'm good. I'm
good. I'm currently trying on my stainless steel ama that I'm going to wear
to the studio going forward. I need the protection from those pitchforks. They're
coming for me. I've ordered a shield, I've ordered a sword. I'm
ready to go. I mean, I don't think we need to, you
know, ignore the elephant in the room. I mean, let's talk about
it. You know, what do you got for me? I mean,
listen, I've been going back and forth. If I'm being quite honest with
you. So for those who aren't aware of what they're talking about, is
you know, there's been some some player feedback, some criticism about the PGT
Championship event in regards to the qualifiers, the dream seat entries that were granted,
which you know, honestly was probably it's probably been emphasized more than it
should be due to the Jeff Lennon effect, where he was pretty much blackout
drunk on the on the stream. I mean, my thing is this,
like I understand where the players are coming from. I get it. You
know. My argument against it, I'm not saying that I'm making this argument.
I'm telling you I'm like currently on the fence, I think. But
my argument against it is that Poker Gro the PGT is giving you an opportunity
at a one million dollar free roll. Last season on the PGT, we
gave out what one million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bonus money
the million dollar free roll, fifty k champ ship bonuses for the majors,
twenty five k's for the other ones. You get reduced rake, which I'm
pretty sure the poker Gro Tour or the Poker Grow events pioneered and are the
only ones that really do it on a regular basis. Some other high rollers
have started doing it, but the PGT that applies for all of our events
that are held within the studio. And then you also get to eat for
free and play in arguably the most luxurious place to play poker, and that
is the poker Gro Studio. So you know, and it's also listen,
you play at the Poker Studio, you get the ARIA dealers, the ARIA
staff, Paul Campbell, all that sort of stuff. I mean, it's
it's a plus top of the line. So you're not going to get any
of that stuff all rolled into one bundle at another venue. You're just not
going to I'm sorry, you're not. Like you can go to these other
places and you can get maybe one, maybe two of those things, but
like everything together, you're not. So that would be my argument against is
like you can deal with playing against what at least was this year fourteen qualifiers
because at the end of the day, we as a company have to try
and make money to give that money back to you like that. That's the
reason for all of this, right, you know, the reason for the
dream seats is we want to use them as a revenue driver. That way,
we're able to give you a million dollar free We're able to put these
events in the studio and have the championship bonuses. You know, We're able
to do all this sort of stuff, right, I mean, so that
would be my pushback on the other side. I get it, you're right,
this is supposed to be like the pgt's most prestigious event, of course,
we try and make it one of the most prestigious, meaningful events in
all of poker. I get it. So you are going to run some
risk with the other side. You know, you're opening this up to some
players that aren't the regulars, the high volume players on the PGT. So
I don't know. I just I don't know if I know which way we're
gonna ultimately go from this. And I'll let you say your stuff in a
second, you know, I just ultimately, I think there needs to be
a compromise somewhere. Much like most things in life, whenever there are different
opinions on things, the right answer tends to fall somewhere in the middle of
the two competing sides. Again, I'm not saying I'm particularly on a side.
I'm pretty much in the middle and believe that, like I believe that
there's some sort of world where everything can work out. I thought we did
that for the past season. You know, I mean people, people aren't
in our meetings internally, but you know we're constantly fighting for the players.
I can you know, you can ask anyone in the company. Tim and
I are generally screaming at people about fighting for the players all the time,
you know, So we did try and together a tour that we thought was
you know, a good compromise for all parties involved, and probably leaned more
player friendly than you might think reading social media and some of the comments lately.
So that said, I think there are certainly areas that you know,
the PGT can't improve. And you know, Tim's already been out there talking
with a bazillion players already, like you know, hearing their criticism, hearing
their feedback, you know, giving our side of things, trying to find
those compromises and whatnot. So yeah, I mean, listen, we're working
through it, I guess is the situation right, you know, we we
obviously understand the importance of our players and we love them dearly, you know,
but we also have to put on a product that we believe we can
put on in a way that we can continue to give back to you guys.
And what I mean by that is we do have to, you know,
work to drive some revenue and all that sort of stuff. So I
don't know where that compromise is ultimately going to fall, but yeah, they're
they're probably needs to be some sort of compromise within everything. Yeah, I
think everything you said was pretty spot on. I've always told the line that
we're very transparent with everything we're doing, and we actively, and I underline
the word actively, are reaching out to players to get their advice on everything,
whether it's you know, upcoming tournament structures or the series, have the
events you know line up, even dates like we you know, we're just
we're moving dates around to accommodate some players because they want to go on you
know, the WBT voyage and they want to enjoy spring break with their families.
So we have that flexibility to you know, do what is best for
the players, because I believe personally, whether this is correct or not,
that this tour is the player's tour and at the end of the day,
they are the ones putting up the money to play the events. So let's
create a product that's best for them. And obviously, yes, we are
gaining out of it. We do gain content, whether it is editorial or
written or video or photography content. One thing I want to stress, you
know, this might be a bit behind the lens or whatever, is that
a lot of players have said, hey, you know this rake back,
you know, shouldn't be going to these dream Sea winners. It shouldn't be
going to the Jeff Lennons or the Art and Chows. Well, there is
no rake back. I think a lot of people don't quite understand the process.
But that rake is not the rate they pay on these events, whether
it's reduced or not reduced, is not going to the PGT. It's going
to aria. We've got to pay the dealers, you got to pay for
the food, you got to pay for the bar, you got to pay
for security, cashiers, et cetera. So I think I've talked to a
lot of players the last few days and that was their assumption that their rake
is going to this free roll. But that's not the case. And once
they understand that, they actually a lot of them flip sides. They're like,
oh, so you just are giving us a million dollars of like,
yeah, it's basically amodican. We could run a tour similar to other tours
out there, where we have our events, we have our season, and
it ultimately culminates in whatever right, like other than I mean other than the
WSP circuit that does the million dollar free roll at the end, I mean,
like the WPT doesn't conclude with with them giving a bunch of money back.
I mean they did this year because they missed the guarantee, right,
But it's not like you know there it was different in years past when they
had that Tournament of Champions right and they were putting like two hundred and fifty
k, three hundre k into the prize pool like that. You know,
like you know, these these are the tours and I listen, I'm not
coming at the WPT. So please don't, you know, jump down my
throat Mats Savage and others out there. You know, I'm just I'm just
saying, like we could just run the PGT like it's it's all these events,
it's it's this it culminates like you know, the leaderboard winner is the
leader board winner in that. But we want to have like this big you
know, crown jewel at the end, you know, and and we wanted
to give a lot of money towards it. And that was the million dollar
free rolling. Yeah, so you know it's I'm not gonna say that it's
perfect because it's not, you know, but we're trying to make it the
best thing that it can be. So yeah, you know, we don't
we don't get that Raake as Tim said, you know, it's a partnership
with Aria, and we handle one side, they handled the other side,
and you know that's how things work. I mean this very this money is
very much coming out of poker grows pocket carry kats his pocket. So I
mean, like what, you know, what you got to you gotta give
a little bit there. That's where I come at from the compromise side of
things. And like you said, I think the players, you know,
once you kind of break it down for them a little bit further, they're
like, oh, you know, I get it now, like it makes
a little bit more sense. Like, you know, we're whatever I do
wish. You know, some of the statements that were said publicly weren't said
publicly, you know, but I guess that's hindsight is twenty twenty. You
know, you can wish things in the past or whatever, just only because
as you've said, and as you've done, you know, we communicate so
much much with the players, you more so than anyone, right, So
can't people just talk to you? Can't they send a text to carry?
Can't you know like that sort of stuff like that. They know enough people
within the company that we don't need to be blasting things on social media all
the time, right, so, and then and then if after our conversations
they want to blast us on social media, fine, but like they don't
even give us a chance to explain things. I won't say defend ourselves because
I don't think there needs to be any sort of defense, but just explain
how it is, because that explanation can then lead to them being as you
said, you know, oh, okay, it's kind of different than I
thought. Well, yeah it might be. So, I mean, it's
a tricky spot, you know. And I don't mean to, like,
you know, just talk about all this for you know, the first ten
to fifteen minutes of the podcast, but yeah, it is what it is.
It is fine, It's just yeah, it's it's better to be open,
like I said. And I think, obviously the elephant in the room
is the Alex foxhom thread, and I have I have nothing against Alex Fox
and speaking up. I encourage players to speak up, not just about PGT
but anything they want to. Uh. Hopefully we see Alex in the next
few days playing PGT kickoff, and you know, I can happily answer any
questions he wants. I've answered lots of questions via WhatsApp and text and Twitter
dms the last few days, and I'm very willing to answer any questions anyone
may have. So but hey, let's not uh, let's not bury the
lead on the very successful season and uh any championship. Well no, let's
let's let's let's now. What I'm saying is, hey, let's move on
to the other the cool stuff. Yeah, I mean we're moving on for
sure. But you know, as Tim mention, we always try and be
transparent, especially on this podcast. Maybe sometimes a little bit too transparent,
but hey, whatever it is, that is who we are, and you
know we're going to talk about it because we don't need feel the need to
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io. All right, we talked about that stuff with the PGT Championship,
the quote unquote elephant in the room, and we're going to continue to talk
about the PGT Championship. We have a winner. Daniel Smilkovich out of Germany.
Took down the whole thing, five hundred thousand dollars half a milli in
his pocket. He defeated arden Cho and heads up play top heavy structure.
But you know, this special event kind of like it that way. Second
place was two hundre k, first place five hundred, so nice jump there,
three hundred k, Leon Stern third, Daniel Weinman fourth, Arthur Martirosian
fifth, and Darren Elias rounds out the payouts in sixth place. Fifty of
the fifty four players that were eligible for this event showed up, and yeah,
who didn't show up? We had Adrian Matayosh Open Ruslin Pride deck from
WSP Man and Alex Kolev boo. I'm booing everyone that didn't show up.
That's fair, I mean, well, how can you not show up?
I I would have bet that Adrian Motteo showed up. I would I would
have lost a lot of money on that. If if you would have,
like if there would have been a book, I would allaid whatever the price
was to bet on Adrian Matteo showing up. The other ones, I do
agree we're wild cards, but I will say that we got we got one
person. Yeah, so who didn't you expect? There's there's for sure one
that I didn't expect, and that's Dean Hutchison. But who else For the
others? When I saw Dean Hutchinson walk in, I was like who is
First of all, I was like who is that? And I was like,
oh my god, it's Dean Hutchinson. So he was one. And
the reason why we say that is because through all of the outreach efforts he
couldn't reach out to Dean Hutchson for whatever reason, they couldn't get a hold
of him whatnot. So yeah, you know, it was hard to gauge
whether or not he was going to come or if he even knew about the
thing. Yeah. The other one to me was also Alexander Riere, the
Frenchman. You know, We've mentioned that I played poker with him, but
he seemed very disinterested in you know, having to travel from probably France here
for the win and then home. I just was like, he's probably not
coming, and let alone I see him in the morning. I said,
you know, I'm like, okay, maybe we're getting everyone. So he
was the other one, and then pretty much, you know, everyone else
we expected to show up or at least we had heard from in some capacity,
so they weren't going to be surprises. As for Daniel Smilkovich, I
mean he he he became a I would say, a favorite of a lot
of people. During the PGT Last Chance Series. He had some success there,
made some final tables, people got to see him on the live streams.
It was a lot of fun. He came into this event sixteenth on
the PGT leaderboard, so very much qualified in terms of the top forty.
He had thirteen hundred and sixty six points. That was from six cashes for
a little bit over two point one million dollars. You add in the five
hundred K that he won from the PGT Championship, so two point six and
a half million dollars in PGT prize money. The biggest results for him from
the twenty twenty three season, where he had fourth place in the WSP fifty
thousand dollars high roller for seven hundred and thirteen thousand dollars, and interestingly enough
that was won by Leon Sterm who he battled with at this final table.
And then he had third in the WSP Paradise twenty five thousand dollarg GG millions
high roller for one ninety two thousand dollars. So Daniel Smilkovich, you know,
very much a deserving winner. Plays a very fun, very aggressive,
very creative style of poker. There's a lot of over betting, a lot
of big bets in general involved with Smilkovich. So hopefully we get to see
a bit more of him on the PGT, you know, coming out playing
within our studio. We'll see if he sticks around for kickoff. You know,
he could be one of those guys where he plays enough WSP and other
stuff, you know, WSP Paradise, if that's back, et cetera,
he could he could qualify again with a relatively low volume. That said,
you know him already being in town, maybe we see him stick around for
the kickoff, stick around for Poker Girl Cup and take that route. That's
uh, I think that's what I would like to see from this overall.
I think he's a really fun player to have in these events and you know,
get onto the final tables and get onto these live streams, so so
yeah, good for him. And then Arden Show she was one of those
dream seat recipients. She was there on behalf of sponsor Mesklaw the me mescala
is. I think it's puff crisp protein burs, very good. Eat mescal
dot com. I think I had four or five of them during the days
that I at least fifteen. Okay, don't look at me, don't look
at me, Eric Saidel was eating one on stream. You know they're they're
very good. Eat Meskla dot com. If you want to check those out.
So ardenthow was there on behalf of them. She ultimately runs it too
second place. It looked for a time that she was gonna win the damn
thing. She was a ship leader during three handed, she was hip leader
during heads of play. Ultimately, Daniel Smilkovich was able to you know,
come back out on top and uh, you know, get the thing done.
Ardenthow impressed a lot of people. You know, I don't think people
really knew what to expect at first. And to start the final table,
she played pretty conservative at times, but then it was like out of nowhere,
she just started bluff raising people and it was like, oh, hold
on, like what is happening here? And she showed us she has a
lot of game. So it was a lot of fun to watch her battle
with these other players. After Darren Elias went out in sixth place, you
know, she was up against Spilkovich, Sterm, Daniel Weinman, and march
Eurosian. I would say Wineman is probably less of a solver guy than Spilkovich,
Sterm and march Erosian. But it seemed like kind of all these these
guys didn't really know how to play against her. I felt like early on
they were like, we're just going to play aggressive against her and she's just
gonna overfold and stuff. Yeah, but then she started to fight back,
and I don't think that they really caught on to what she was doing because
she was making some pretty crazy plays, some some really good well timed bluffs,
and they were all working. And it was probably Leon Stererm who like
he got a big chip lead when he won a huge hand double through Daniel
Smikovich. But then like it was like Arden chose to start to like wreck
him and he just kind of like got deflated in a way, and so
it was a really really good showing from her. Overall, I thought it
was a really good event, you know, all things considered, Yeah,
it was a lot of fun. It was cool to say the impact.
You know, high stakes players, people from overseas, dream see winners,
recipients, all battling out for that five hundred k first prize. I mean,
I guess it's a good time now to mention or remention, you know,
I guess the one change that we have for next year that does like
this year this season. Sorry, yeah, I'm still like twenty twenty three
PGT Championships. I'm still like in the twenty twenty three PGT season, right,
But the biggest change is that you're going to have to have three cases,
yeah, in order to qualify. So that's as it pertains like the
top forty of the leader board and getting into this event. That that's going
to be the biggest change, the one that's going to have the biggest effect
on the season and the leaderboard. So you're gonna get people like we already
mentioned him, Dean Hutchinson, somebody at this final table, Daniel Wineman,
basically everyone that made the wiss AP Main Event final table. You can't just
have that one cash on the PGT and then make it to the championship event.
You're going to have to play some other stuff, get some cashes under
your belt, and the PGT qualifying events have a minimum of three and then
get in, which I think is good. You know, I think it's
good for it's good for the player base in general. It was funny because
a lot of the players were like, how the hell that help you get
in? I'm like, well, help you actually qualify? Like, like
you know, there's like he wants. That's pretty good. I know,
like he actually had he finished like twentieth or something on the leaderboard, Like
he actually had a decent year, right, I mean he probably had better.
I can't. I think he finished lower than Spilkovic, but he had
like a more results, right, Like at least they stuck out to me
more. Well, Yeah, he had the two wins that was the USPO
and he's seventeenth WSP bracelet. He had nine total cashes in PGT events one
point four million dollars in winnings, so two victories alone is extremely good.
Yeah, of course, And people were just kind of wondering how he because
he doesn't play a ton of the stuff within the studio. He plays,
yeah, very selectively. Obviously, he plays a high volume WSP schedule.
He was down at ws P bhamas all that sort of stuff. So you
know, there's that that said, as long as the w CIP keeps counting,
you know we're going to be drawing people from there. But it kind
of works out because Poker Grow is the official live broadcast partner of the DOUBSIP,
so we get to showcase a lot of those events, so you know,
you do become familiar with those players quite a bit. You know.
But the players like the Daniel Lineman's, Stephen Jones, Adam Walton, et
cetera. You know they're going to have to play a few more PGT events
and hopefully get in, you know, with some cash. But listen,
you make the Basbee Man event final table, you're cashing for a ton of
money, right Hopefully then you can you know, play Poker Masters, you
can fire in the Last Chance series that sort of stuff. You know,
we we don't think that you have to come out and play a full schedule,
but you just give a little bit, you know, to show that
you belong. I guess, I guess the one outlier from this year's final
table was Toby Lewis because we did see him in the studio at times.
You know, he's like he'll play mixed games, he'll play some poo or
whatever it might be. So we do see him pop in every every now
and then. But of course you know he got in via the wisby Min
event, So that that's the biggest change as it pertains here, which I
think is a good change overall. Now, moving on twenty twenty three PGT
season, even though it wrapped up in twenty twenty four, is over.
It's done, it's dusted, see you later for a season of the tour.
We have the million dollar PGT Championship is coming back. Okay, there
will be opportunities to win some dream passes which are going to get you into
an invitational to win a dream seat us. We should explain that a little
more. Yeah, Well, first I'll say stay tuned on details because we
don't have all of them ironed out just yet, but they are coming.
We're working through them with our team here. But one of the changes we're
having this year is basically there's going to be what's it called the Dream Seat
Invitation or Dream Pass the Championship Dream Seat Invitational. There's going to be a
satellite tournament to win dream seats to get into the to the Championship, right
as opposed to this year where we just gave some way. There will be
some giveaways, I'm assuming you know, here and there throughout the season,
but a lot of it will be you know, you'll have your you'll win
into the Dream Pass event, right, You'll get a dream Pass, You'll
win into the Dream Pass event, and then top X players that finish in
that event will get a dream seat. So five five dream seats. Yeah,
so a little bit of a different plan of attack from our end,
you know, kind of going back to what we kicked off the beginning of
the episode with you know, we try and leverage these to hopefully generate some
revenue, generate some buzz, all that sort of stuff, because we do
want to continue to be able to, you know, deliver seven figures plus
in bonus money every single year, and if we do that, you know,
we obviously have to generate some stuff on our end, and that's the
the impetus behind all of this you know, and you know it gives people
an additional shot. I would say, you know, you treat these like
you treat them sponsor exemptions in a golf tournament, stuff like that. Right
now, it's going to be hard probably for one of those sponsors to make
a run. Now we did see it from arden Chow this year. It
can happen. But you know that can be a good story as well,
right So I don't think it's the worst thing at the end of the day.
So I like it. I like the change, all right. So
that's the dream Pass stream seat thing, whatever you want to call it.
I'm sure Tim will be bugging me to share details as we come along.
It's been, honestly, it's been a wild like start to the year,
just with everything with Last Chance, with the championship, we have the kickoff
kicking off today, which we're going to talk about next and then we have
Poco a couple later this month. So it's just been go, go go.
The PGT kickoff event. Why don't you tell us you know a little
bit about that one. It's it's brand new for this season, so why
don't you tell us a little bit about that what it is and you know
why. It's I guess meaningful to the PGT. Yeah, it's as the
name sounds. It's kicking off the twenty twenty four season inside the Pogo Studio.
Starts today, which is Thursday, January eleventh. Five events, the
first four or five K buyings. The final one is a ten K buying.
Every event starts at one pm, plays down to the final seven.
They're going to come back the next day. We're going to stream those final
tables on poker Go. The niche the twist to this series little gimmicky,
but we thought, hey, if you were going to get you're going to
do something like this has to be at this side of the year. Double
points for all cashes, so people that are going to play this going to
grind, they can shoot up the leaderboard. You know, I even heard
our poker Go commentator Jeff Platt is going to be playing today, so he
could be on top of the PGT leaderboard tomorrow. That's kind of crazy,
but yeah, you're gonna get a little head start on the players with the
double points, and the goal is that, hey, you get off to
a good start here in these slightly smaller buying events that maybe you come play
with the big dougs next week at the Poker Go Cup. You come play
uspo Plo series, you know, all our events because you got this little
bit of a head start. It's a way to try and you know,
boost the fields a little bit in the bigger buying events. And yeah,
we'll see how it goes today. Yeah, I mean kind of. I
guess a big picture plan of attack of ours for this PGC season PGT season.
Excuse me, I'm by the way, I'm battling like the fucking colder
flu and it's driving me up the fucking wall. Anyway, shout out Remco
who like came into the commentary with the other day and was like I'm sick.
I'm like, oh cool, amazing, love you hate you, get
out of here. So but we want to make the PGT a little bit
more accessible right now. Of course, we have to balance that, you
know, going back to the whole like compromise thing. We have to balance
that with the fact that, yes, this is a high stakes poker tour.
You know, it's high rollers. That's what we want to feature,
of course, but you know, having a select number of five k's a
year is still pretty good overall. So we're gonna have these four We're gonna
kick off Poker Girl Cup with a five K. There's always like five k's
via the PLO series and stuff like that. So yeah, there's gonna be
a handful of five k's, so maybe we'll see, you know, kind
of some different faces rise up. You know, I really want to see
some players that we don't always get to see via these like this PGT kickoff
series, like have some success, parlay that into the Poke Girl Cup and
go from there. Like that's what I'm looking forward to the most. I
don't know if that's going to happen, right, but that's what I would
like to see come out of this whole thing. So so yeah, that's
my big I don't know my big hope. I guess my big wish for
the twenty twenty four PGT season, we're going to kick off pork rol Cup,
as I said, with the five K, which is also a lot
of fun. Porker Cup has some some slight changes right to the schedule.
What are they this year? Yeah, it's going to be starting with a
five K. As you said, We've got a series of ten k's,
two fifteen k's, and a twenty five K finale, basically making that finale
you know, as we've just touched on more accessible to the wider playpool that
are used to playing our events. So you know, instead of having this
big job from tens all the way up to a fifty, now it's ten,
fifteen to twenty five. Ideally you could play all eight events. You
know that it hits that play pool a little stronger. And yeah, we'll
see how the twenty five K FINALI goes first time. We're going to try
that. Hopefully it gets a you know, super big turnout and definitely change
the way the season kind of you know flows and dictates for these no Living
hold them series. And then for all of you audience members out there,
viewers out there, we are live streaming all the file tables from PGT Kickoff.
We are live streaming all the file tables from Pork Yo Cup. So
these PGT kickoff events are two day events, bring back the file table the
next day, so kind of going back to our normal schedule. That means
I don't have to go into do commentary at eleven thirty at night. So
starting tomorrow, which is Friday, for five days in a row, we're
going to be having the PGT Kickoff file Table live streams, which will be
a lot of fun. Rimco and I will be in the booth for those,
and then starting on the twenty six that'll be the first final table for
the Poker Girl Cup, fourth edition of the Poke Girl Cup, Tim,
can you name the winners? The previous winners? Yes, Carry Katz,
Jeremy Osmas, Daniel Mgarana. Easy, Wow, I mean, of course,
yeah. I mean that's just not that's not that hard. But I
had to put you on the spot. All right. We're gonna do a
couple of predictions here quickly for the twenty twenty four PGT season. We'll see
how we do with these. We need to look back at how we did
for the pg Poker Tour or the PGT Championship once. Maybe we'll do that
on the next episode. I don't know, maybe we won't if we did
really bad. Who knows? All right, who's going to be who is
your twenty twenty four PGT Player of the Year, sir? I'm gonna go
with Alex Foxen. And the reason is, like we've mentioned, some of
the buyings have dropped, some of the points have changed a little bit,
I think Alex is more likely to you know, why to scheduled then Steven
Chidwick and Isaac Hackston and Daniel m'greanor, and obviously he's still very good.
So that's my kind of who I'm leaning with right now. Okay, I
went with Jeremy Osmas. Yeah, I think he's gonna just be in there
battling in all these events, you know, five K, ten K,
fifteen K, twenty five K, whatever it is. Maybe this is the
year we see him take the leap to play super high rollable, you know,
depending on what happens with that, which we haven't in the past.
I know he was on the fence last season, so maybe you know,
he gets over that fence this season. But you know, Jeremy always performs
very well, you know. I I think that, you know, living
here in Vegas, I think that that helps, right, you know,
because you can just drive on down put together a high volume. So I'm
gonna go with him. So yeah, uh, will Daniel Legrn you finish
inside the top forty of the PGG season. And the reason why I bring
this question up is because he's got a new plan of attack for twenty twenty
four it's quality over quantity. So is he going to finish inside the top
forty if despite the fact that he at least he says he's going to play
a lower volume of a schedule. So this is a little bit of a
trick question because the top forty might not necessarily mean that is slightly different to
qualifying for the championship, which is the top forty eligible players. Right,
So I would I would think he's not going to cash three times. No,
no, no, no. What I'm saying is that, Okay,
last year's leadable, Daniel Wyman, had his one cash, he was in
the top forty, but he wouldn't take He wouldn't under these years, although
he'd be finishing in this forty eligible man, come out, Okay, that's
I just wanted to clear it up one hundred percent. Yes, he'll be
in the top forty eligible for the PGT Championship. Yeah, and I'm with
you. I agree. You know, even if he does play a lesser
schedule. He already said, you know in that in that video he did,
you know, reviewing his twenty twenty three stuff, and then you know,
talk about what he's going to do for twenty twenty four. Maybe he
doesn't come out for you know, these five k's as part of the PGT,
but but most specifically his WSOP schedule. Right, if he's not going
to play you know, the fifteen hundreds, the three k's, that sort
of stuff, and he's only going to focus on the big stuff, then
I really like his chances. You know, he can he can be better
prepared for those, better focused, you know, better you know, a
better mental state, all that sort of stuff. You know. Just again,
the quantity quality sorry, the quality over quantity approach. I think I
think could uh do very well for him. You know, I think it
might be easy. I feel like every single year, because he hasn't won
a bracelet in Vegas and so long, that we're always like, yeah,
he's gonna win, when he's gonna win, when he's gonna win one,
you know, So I feel like it might be easy to kind of back
off that in a way, but maybe it actually works the other way,
where just the fact that he's able to put forth better quality of play and
not worry so much about the quantity of the tournaments that he's blasting in and
then he does extremely well. So yeah, I think he's going to finish
inside the top forty. I think he could do pretty well overall, probably
you know, top fifteen, top ten, even with a lower volume,
which is you know, of course great for everyone involved. Steven Chidwick.
Okay, So Steven Chidwick has finished the first year of the PGT he finished
eighth on the leader board. Second year he finished first, was the PGT
Player of the Year, and then this past year he finished third. So
is Stephen Chidwick going to finish inside the top ten once again for a fourth
year in a row. I feel like we have to say yes to this.
How can you not say yes? Yeah? I mean he he has
to put in the most volume. You should have said top five when we
finish in the top five. Well I was, I honestly thought he finished
in the top five of the first year, but it was just outside eighth,
so I was gonna go with that, so I'll say top ten.
I mean, yeah, he's he puts in an insane amount of volume,
right, plays everything PGT related. He plays a lot of the different games
in terms of like PLO and Mixed, et cetera. So he you know,
he's gonna be out there likely playing those series. I mean he's and
he's a freaking robot man. Like nothing seems to affect this guy, Like
it doesn't matter how good or bad he's running. He's just gonna play his
game and play the best that he can and the results are gonna come from
it. So yeah, I think that he's gonna do extremely well. And
I think he's just a shoeing to be in the top ten every single year.
Now there is a world where he just doesn't put the volume in,
right, I don't know what that looks like. I don't know when that's
ever gonna come, you know, does he just kind of to be like,
hey, I'm just going to kind of back off this year in general?
I just don't see it, right, you know, when when I
hear Steven Chidwick on some live streams talking about how he basically lives out of
a suitcase, right and just travels from stop to stop all over the world,
I don't think this guy's ever slowing down. So I would expect very
much the same for this next series. He played all the last Chance events,
right, Yeah he did. Yeah, So whatever he's I mean,
he's for sure gonna put in a huge volume I think, And then yeah,
he's gonna vision in the top ten, probably top five. If anyone
was a sure bet to do that, it's got to be Steven Chidwick for
sure. All right? Who will be this season's breakout player on the PGT.
I think it's very obvious. I will tell you that. I put
down three names. Oh wow, I think it's obviously going to be Jeff
Lennon. He is gonna, God help much give me a serious answer.
I actually don not this about I will say this. I will say this
for the listeners out there, is that we might say someone who might already
have broken out in general poker, but this is specific to the PGT,
Like you want to have a breakout on the PGT, right, so continue,
Yeah, I'm looking at like, to be honest, I'm going back
to PGT Sprint series we ran, which was our first kind of foray into
the five k's. You know, we have these five ks. Now,
two names that we played all those events that never really played our events,
Mark Ioli and Jeremy Becker. Now, I mean these guys are known in
the Vegas poker world. Obviously, Jeremy Becker wins every win tournament ever hosted,
but that success outside of the PGT now we're doing some more five ks.
We have this double points. Obviously they know what they're doing. Maybe
we see someone like that kind of breakthrough, you know, win a couple
of events, stop playing some more ten k's, do well there, you
know, want to compete for the points race, et cetera. We see
someone like that, some Las Vegas locals that you know, take a little
step up and you know, run like the sun. I like your train
of thoughts. My three are David Coleman, who played all the PGT last
chance, maybe not the final one, but played the majority of them.
He did not play them all because he won the cod Player pokatur at the
Venetians, so you had to skip out on some events. Way to go,
David Coleman, so boost to his bank. Well good, that's in
my favor. Yeah, but he's played a lot of PGT events in the
past. I think last season he finished the season with forty three points,
so nowhere near like the top forty or anything. Yeah, but he's someone
who I think can play a lot of these five k's. Very good player
can have some success there. He always he usually would play like the ten
k's and then kind of go from there. You know, if he had
some success, maybe you play a little bit bigger, et cetera. So
I'm kind of picking him to have some success via these these five k's and
ten k's and then and then go from there. I also got Kristin Foxen.
Of course, she's not a breakout player in terms of like the grand
scheme of poker, but I think we can get her into the top forty.
She was close this year, right, you know, so I think,
you know, she can put in a lot more volume this year get
her in there. And then I got Eric Baldwin. You know, we
saw him, We saw him a lot more last season, right, specifically
in the ten k events, and he did have some success there. I
think we see him a lot more in these five k's and ten ks that
we're going to be doing this year. Very good player, you know,
lives here in Vegas. You know, he eats breeze and sleeps poker like
that's all he does. So yeah, Eric Baldwin, you know, the
King. Let's go. Those are my three. I like him. Yeah,
So I think overall it's a it's a pretty good group of people.
I mean, generally, I think you and I both agree it's it's these
ks, like we got to see what we get from them, Yeah,
and who comes out? So yeah, all right, I don't think we
have anything else to talk about, now, Okay, good, all right,
that's gonna do it for us. We will, I don't know,
we'll regroup after the kickoff series. We'll talk about how that series went.
Hopefully we have to talk about Jeff Platt number one on the the PGT kickof
That would be cool, you know, I mean that's exact, like,
that's exactly what this series is built for. You take a shot at that
five K price point. Maybe you have some success in the first one.
You take a shot in the second one, maybe you have some success again.
Next thing you know, you're the next lattis Tomas Aalskis. You're playing
all this sort of stuff and you're on the PGT. Let's go. So
yeah, that's exactly what the PGT kickoff is built for. All right,
that's gonna do it for Tim Duckworth and myself. My name is Donny Peters.
Appreciate you guys as always tuning in. Let's go PGT Season twenty twenty
four. Let's make it the biggest and the best yet, and we'll talk
to you guys next time. See us night. The Chenny expressed, okay,