Hello everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the Poker Go Podcast.
My name is Donnie Peters. I am joined by my guy Tim Duckworth.
How are you doing? I'm ready for bed seven pm. I think we've
ever recorded this late before. Over there? What do you? What are
you? What are you doing? Huh? So, I'm just just tired.
It's been a long, long day of nothing, A long day of
nothing. Guys, I'm ready for are you sleep? Well? It's Friday.
It counts. Everyone took today off, you know it. I mean
most people take eighty percent of the year off. All right, So we
are going to wrap up the World Poker Tool World Championship. That's the lead
story here on this episode of the podcast. We're also going to touch on
ept progue because last time we left you guys with eighty five entries left in
the main event over in Prague, they did get down to a winner.
So we'll touch on that and then we'll get out of here. You know,
make this one pretty quick so everyone can go and enjoy their holidays.
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with Stormax. All that can be found on stormax dot io News and happenings.
Two things, as I mentioned, WPT World Championship Festival and EPT progue.
First things first, WPT World Championship Festival. It wrapped up last night.
I thought it was an incredible finish. To you, a great tournament,
I mean yeah, that's kind of like my takeaway. Initially, Daniel
Sepiel is the winner. He took home nearly five point three million dollars.
I think the original first place prize was like five point six and change.
But he made a small deal with Giorgio Soderopolis, who took home more than
four point one million dollars for his second place finish. This final table was
absolutely sick. I know Tim watched it. I watched it from start to
finish. I mean, the final six players that we got from this field.
I think when the field got down to let's say one hundred and twenty
something like that, you know, it was kind of like, who the
heck is going to make this final table? Not that it necessarily matters because
it's such a big event. It's a ten K. They had more than
thirty eight hundred players. There's more than five point six million dollars up top.
You know, everyone that makes the TV final table of six that the
WPT does, you know, is guaranteed more than a million dollars, more
than one point two million dollars. It's like, who's gonna make this?
But even if you get a bunch of unknowns, it's kind of like a
WSICP main event where it doesn't necessarily matter because the tournament is so big and
fun and entertaining and the prize money is just so absolutely crazy. That said,
I mean, I'm not sure you could have hand picked a better six
from the players as they got down. Sepiel is the winner. As I
mentioned, young kid, longtime grinder. I've personally played with them a lot
around here in Las Vegas. You know, he's very, very, very
good, as I think was evidenced by his play at the final table Georgia
Sodoropolis out of Greece. Been around, a long time crusher. Andrew Lucky
Cheweye Liechtenberger. He took third place for almost two point eight million dollars,
a career best score for Lucky Chewye. Pretty sure everyone knows Lucky Chewy absolute
crusher, been around forever, one of the absolute nicest guys in poker.
Another super nice guy Chris Mormon talk about a legend. I mean, this
was like the the online poker og, the og of OG's like he would
just play everything in anything under the sun online. I believe he was the
first person to eclipse ten million dollars in online tournament earnings. Doesn't play online
as much as he once did because he's married. He lives out here in
Las Vegas, so you know, online poker isn't, you know, as
big as it is rest of world, or as it once was. But
he still does grind online and he came into this final table did well,
got fourth almost two point one million dollars. Ben Heath another brit. If
you follow the high roller scene specifically, you'll know Ben Heath. He's always
playing the biggest buy ins in the world, whether that be at the ws
AP, whether that be out and some epts on some trit and stops.
Ben Heath is an absolute killer. He took fifth for almost one point six
million dollars, and then another super high stakes crusher, Arter Marturosian took home
just over one point two million dollars. He was eliminated in a bit of
a cooler spot blind versus blind first Daniel Sepuel. Sepuel had sevens Archer Marturosian
had pocket fives. Tim what's your takeaway from the conclusion to this event?
I thought, like you said, great Vinyl table. We nearly couldn't have
asked for anything better. It was great to watch it was. It was
from a learning perspective, it was very interesting watching how these guys were making
kind of the adjustments to the fact that, hey, these guys are all
world class players, so they got to play a little different, play a
little I felt maybe snug, and it was actually cool to watch. I
enjoyed watching the Final Table. I will admit. Once it got heads up,
I was out. I was done. I had to had to hit
the hay. But I was there for pretty much the whole the whole ride.
No, I mean it was great. It was massive money, massive
moments. I couldn't really ask for much better to to kind of cap off
the year in poker. Yeah. I tweeted today some of my thoughts and
they were basically that that I'm not sure you could get any more of a
perfect Final Table live stream, all things considered from a viewer perspective, and
and this was an event where I was a viewer, I was a fan.
I was sitting on the couch watching watch the whole thing start to finish.
I did fall asleep during heads up play because I was dead ass tired
yesterday. But if I dozed off for like ten minutes, woke up and
just you know, rewound and kept going. Not a big deal. I
thought the heads up was going to go for like it was gonna be one
of those like six hour matches, and I was like, I don't know
if I can whatever time it was eleven years, I don't know if I
could stick around. I mean, I thought the final table might go forever.
Yeah, I mean like like I'm talking like super high rollable plo forever,
like you know, we did that just because the pay jumps were big
and meaningful. These guys were pretty deep overall. I thought that like their
skill, like they wouldn't just go in there like just blasting it off kind
of with nothing like it would it would take some pretty big coolers. It
was also not even levels right still, Yeah, I mean it was.
It was the levels of forever. So but listen, I thought it was
incredible, you know. I thought the commentary from Henry Kane and Jesse Silvia
was a plus. You know, specifically Jesse Sylvia because he's the one who
you know, he's alongside Henry Kilby and Henry's calling the action. Jesse's given
like the strategy stuff, and I thought Jesse was just great, you know,
really really gave insight to the strategy elements that were at play. It's
also helpful that you know Jesse has experience and in a situation like this where
you know, he got second to Greg Merson in the WSPY main event,
where that that's a similar spot where you have these insane pay jumps, like
all this sort of stuff is happening that you really have to factor in.
You can't just go in there and just you know, blast it off.
So I thought that that insight that they provided was great. I thought the
production quality was very good. Could do without the whole thirty minute intro whatever
the hell that thing was. I mean, they got to get rid of
that, for sure, Matt Savage, you text me how to get rid
of that, Like, please, for the love of God, that was
dreadful. But other than that, you know what, I don't for the
event, it's fine. It was it was horrendous about it, but I
was so cringe. It was so cringe. You know what you do with
that? Like like that's something where like if it happens, then you put
that in the TV show if you wire, but like you don't need to
put it on the live show and listen. I don't. I've never seen.
I have never seen. I've done a lot of YouTube streams in my
day and I've watched a lot. I have never once seen a YouTube chat
unanimously be on one side, and they were unanimously against this. So that
was funny. Anyway, It was all good fun. They had a just
just so everyone knows if you didn't catch it, they had They had a
beatboxer, They had a breakdance team. They had a freestyle rap group where
where each person in the group made a rap of the person that they were
introing. So like, somebody did Daniel Sepiel, then somebody did in Georgio
Soda Roppolo's like that, you know that they each did something, and then
they introduced all the WPT town members and it was it was a whole whole
thing like you would expect from the WPT. But I digress back to the
final table. Daniel Sepiel like like the hand that's going around the most.
Happened pretty early on. So yeah, Andrew Lucky Chewy Liuchtenburger comes in with
a pretty big chip lead and Daniel Sepiel just goes at him. Pretty early
on. Chew he opened the eight ten of diamonds. Sepuel three bets the
king ten of hearts. Chewi calls it comes four to three three one heart,
one diamond. I think it was like the four spades as well.
He goes check bet from Sepiel. Call from Lichtenberger. Turn is uh a
diamond? I forget what the Nina diamonds? Maybe turns a diamond. Check
from Lichtenberger again, Sepiel stays on the gas bets once again. Uh.
Lichtenberger calls, He's now got you know, a pretty good ace high on
a paired board, and then he's also got the nut flush straw as well.
River's a three, so puts three threes on board. Chewy checks,
and Sepiel just goes for it all in, like and this is like,
you know, I mean this spot like it's it's easy to see this from
the couch and like I'm sitting there like I'm like, he he has to
go all in here, like this is this is a pretty clear spot for
him to go all in. That said, good luck finding that, like
in the moment at this final table with the money that's on the line,
knowing that if Chewi calls, you're out, like and you just looked like
a total asshole on on TV, like you know, all that sort of
stuff. I've played with Sepiel enough, you know, around town to know
that he has this in him for sure, and he found it. He
used a time extension, but ultimately he announced that he was all in.
I thought in the in the moment that we might get a little more of
a tank out of Lichtenberger, Like I was like, man, now,
if Lichtenberger finds this call, this is just out of control. But he
folded relatively quickly, so you know, I think, you know, Sepuel
there can certainly rep a tunnel full houses. So you know, good on
him for for not backing down in that moment, and uh, you know,
playing to when I thought. I thought Jesse Sylvia throughout the course of
the Final Table really did explain a lot of the situations and a lot of
the dynamics well. And one of one of the things that he said that
I thought was really good was about Sepio where he's he's, he's he wasn't
just like throwing caution to the wind entirely in terms of ic M, but
you could certainly tell that he was playing for first place a little bit more
than the others were, and ultimately it worked out for him because he won
won the Dam Tournament. So overall, you know, it was it was
a lot of fun to watch Sepuel play. It was a lot of fun
to watch all these guys play. I thought Ben Heath played really well.
You know, Marcha Rosian was there for a pretty short period of time.
But when in the early going, like he started to kind of build build,
build, and it was like, oh oh, like here comes archer
Marz Rosian, who's like, you know, all these guys are super super
good. Chris Mormon was like, he found a really good check raised bluff,
he found some good folds when he was behind, like in tricky spots,
like it was just it was awesome. And then the other like really
big hand that got kind of stuck out was three handed. This reminded me
of a not it's not as much, but it reminded me a little bit
of Jonathan Duhamel, John Raisner and Joseph Chong. And what I mean by
that is you're three handed, Okay, you got Lichtenberger and Sepiol have the
majority of the chips between them, and they're pretty much tied but Sepiel has
like a slight lead, and then Sortuopoulos is shorter. He's not like you
know, on fumes, but he's much shorter. And they give Lichtenberger the
ace king, they give Sepiel the two jacks. The money goes in.
And why it makes me think of the racer Duhamel Chong is that you know,
you had Duhamel and Chong just go to war and racer just like sat
on the sidelines and watched this happen and then picked up a couple of million
dollars in a paye jump, which is exactly what Giorgio Sodaroppolos did because the
money goes in between the ace king and the jacks between the other two and
Jorjio Soderoppolos is like, oh my God, like here we go. Even
if Chewie would have won the hand, chew he loses the hand and gets
eliminated in third place. But even if he would have won, like Sepio
would have been crushed. Right, So like Georgio Soderoppolos is like, oh
my God, like you know, found money. Here's like an extra one
point five million that I just you know, landed in my lap, so
it was it was super entertaining from start to finish. This is one where
like I'm like, you know what, I'm probably gonna watch it a few
more times. Like it was that good from kind of all the different aspects.
It wasn't. It wasn't really slow. All the play was very high
level. The commentary was extremely good and insightful, which which I really liked.
You obviously had the element that like, you know, listen not to
dump on our own stuff, but like I know, we do a lot
of events, and like the play is super high but like a lot of
times they're playing for like two hundred and fifty K, three hundred k first
place, the structures are much faster, the stacks are much shallower, you
know. So it's it's not the same, right, same with like Triton,
Like that's kind of what you get out of that stuff. This was
w s AP Main Event Final table feel, but with really really really good
players. Not the players of the Man Event Final Table aren't good. But
I don't think you see the same collection of all the people that were at
the final table that we saw here, right, Like you get a lot
of wild cards that make the Bisaby main event file table, and they're kind
of all over the place, you know, but this one was everyone was
was totally on point, so it was it was a real real treat to
watch. They did miss the guarantee in the event, which on the last
podcast you said that they were gonna miss. I was like, I think
they're still gonna make it. They fell short by two point four to two
point five million. In that range. They got three eight hundred and thirty
five entries in this event. The guarantee was forty million. It was a
ten thousand, four hundred dollars buying with ninety eight hundred dollars going to the
prize school, so they needed four thousand and eighty two entries in order to
get there. Fell a little bit short, but they I mean, listen,
kudos to the WWPT because they came out and they basically just owned it,
took it on the chin, and then I think everyone just moved on
and that was it, which in a lot of things in life, I'm
a marketing guy, I'm a pr guy. Like I will always say,
I always advise at any time, like most of the time it's best to
just sort of apologize and or own something. And move on when you ever,
like did not deny something or like try and deflect blame or make excuses
or whatever. It always lingers like in anything, right, But if you're
just like, you know what we missed, we messed up. Okay,
whatever, cool or give two and a half million dollars to the players.
Let's go next up. You know, right after they missed, you know,
the numbers came out that they I mean, I wasn't there at the
win at the time. I don't. I don't know if you were,
but I know there was a press email sent out at like at like seven
o'clock at night, and it was like, hey, all media, seven
point thirty in this room. Adam plisk is going to be there, you
know, face to face, answering your questions. I mean, listen,
kudos to Adam Pliska. He doesn't have to do that. Like he didn't.
They could have just sent out some sort of note, this is the
prize pool, this is my quote. Whatever. No, he faced the
fire, you know, and and and gave some good quotes. You know.
He said things like I'm just reading from poker dot org who did a
story on it. You know, he said, like we knew the risks.
In my mind, we've succeeded. You know. They talked a lot
about how it's really about kind of kind of building something and giving back to
the players and the community and all that sort of stuff. You and I
kind of touched on it, you know last time. Is that when you
when you want to make an event as big as they want to make this
event, you know you're gonna have to swing for the fences, and with
that does come risk. So you know, that's that He also said,
you know, when you're when you're doing a stretch goal, you're essentially buying
an options contract in the future. That's you know, that's an interesting way
to look at things. So, I mean, I know in the past,
people have, you know, venues, events, operators, whatever,
have misguarantees and it's it's always kind of had a negative effect going forward.
What I mean by that is the operator or the venue is less likely to
put on the same guarantee the next year. Maybe they scale it back,
maybe in the in the most drastic sense, the event gets canceled, maybe
even more drastic measures. You know, people get fired for missing guarantees.
Like all that sort of stuff is kind of crazy to me, you know
that, like you're gonna miss these things once in a while, especially when
you go out there and you swing for forty million like the WPT did here.
I think that you and I were on the same page going in,
and it was, you know when we heard that they were gonna go to
forty million, even before the announcement came out. You know, we kind
of heard that this was like the conversation, well, you and I think
you would agree with me that we thought forty was a little crazy, you
know, like why like why do you need to go to forty? You
did fifteen, You smashed it, You got more than twenty nine, almost
thirty. Like, in my opinion, I think you should have just went
to thirty and just been like, you know what we did fifteen, We
just about doubled it. You know what, this year, we're gonna we're
gonna guarantee the thirty total. That's what we're gonna do, which I think
would have worked right Yea, Now it seems like they don't care because they're
just owning this and it's great and whatever. So I'm not gonna say that
them missing by you know, two point four to two point five million is
gonna ruin this going forward. It sounds like everything that I've heard is that
they're ready to run this back next year in the very least the same forty
million dollars again, if not, I wouldn't be surprised if they up at
fifty, because I mean, if if you're willing to go fifteen to forty,
you might go to fifty. The plan, listen, the plan all
along might have been because so here's what we know. We know they have
a three year contract, right, that's like out there. So the plan
might have been, go let's go fifteen, let's go twenty five, let's
go fifty. I don't know, something kind of like that. They did
fifteen. They almost doubled it, you know, they got twenty nine plus
million. So then they're like, you know what, let's just throw a
little bit of a bit of gasoline on this. Let's go right to forty.
Like I think they're still trying to push, So I would not be
surprised if they come out and say fifty million. So yeah, I mean,
I mean, the only way they do that is to be honest.
If Paradise WSP Paradise doesn't happen, I don't necessarilyrely agree. I mean,
yeah, I don't necessarily agree. I don't know. I mean, would
you agree that if they if WSB Paradise was or not, they would have
made forty million? Yeah, So I think it's a big enough factor.
Whether it's one hundred entrance or three hundred entrants going to fifty is I think
a risk they should not? Yeah, I mean I also shared on social
media that I just I don't like the fact that you know, you and
I've talked about this before, Like, I just don't like the fact that
these two brands went head to head in the manner at which they did in
December, Like I ultimately listen, I'm I've said it many times on these
airwaves, I said it many times elsewhere. I'm all for competition. I
think that that certainly pushes people to be at their best. It pushes the
fakers to go away like they can't hack it right, and and it makes
things grow. That said, like, I think you can have that the
competition while also having cooperation. And what I mean by that is the WPT
comes out there. They swing massive last year, they do extremely well.
Everyone's raving about this festival. Blah, blah blah. Right, they come
out this year forty million. WSP could have just put their Bahamas event in
January, which it's still competitive to the WPT World Championship, It's just not
right on top of each other. Right, it's like, oh, okay,
you're gonna do something in December. You're gonna do forty million. Okay,
fine, we're doing x million in January. Like that's what we're doing,
and that's how you kind of go head to head like because people are
still going to compare. That benefits I think it benefits both brands better because
players can play both a lot of people. I mean, first of all,
there was a lot of stuff that was a out of people's control,
like the travel issues. People just got delayed going from Bahamas to try and
get to the WPT. So that was just an issue that you can't really
control or plan for. That said, you know, you're gonna get all
these pros that are playing both fire and multiple bullets in both all that sort
of stuff. So it's better for the brands in that sense because everyone could
you know, those people can both, those brands can both do well.
It also benefits the players because if you're a pro like you're gonna get a
shot to play both, right, you know, like I I think that,
you know, the WPT and the WSP essentially made players choose one or
the other in a way, and if you didn't, if you didn't choose
like one one and zero percent the other you chose, you chose like sixty
percent the other. Like someone like a Jeremy Osmas, he was basically in
the Bahamas for everything, and then he came back for the main and some
of the bigger stuff. At the WPT, well, you know, you
have a lot of that sort of stuff. A lot of the lot of
the Europeans probably chose the Bahamas simply because of like the tax situation, whereas
they might have just bit the bullet on the tax situation largely like they do
when they bite the bullet on going to the WSP in the summer, on
the tech situation, just because it's so big that like if you win five
six million, you don't really care about the taxes at that point, it's
like whatever, you know, it's like, Okay, this is a good
problem to have, not a big deal, right, So you know,
you see them avoid the smaller stuff. In the US, they avoid a
lot of our stuff, for example. But when it comes to the WSOP
type of stuff, which the WPT World Championship Festival is, you know,
it gives off WSP type of vibes like they're gonna just come out and they're
gonna fire for that. But if you give them the option where they can
get that sort of thing somewhere else, then they're probably gonna choose that somewhere
else. Now, I would say that a lot of those Europeans probably would
have just done both if you had them separate, because it's so big.
So so yeah, that's kind of my little shpiel on that, Like I
think you can still have that, you know that that competition. And I
also like just kind of if you're the WSOP, like you kind of own
the whole year in a way. You like you kick off the poker calendar
in January. You're like, PCA is I mean, it hasn't been announced.
It's not happening this year. You know, we've heard they might move
it somewhere. We've heard various things kind of all over the place, but
they announced the EPT schedule. I know nothing about a PCA, so as
PCACH is done, as far as I'm concerned it's done until you tell me
it's not done. Right, So you own January. There's no more Auzzie
millions. It used to be it was PCA and it was Ozzie Millions in
January. Right. Yeah, you might have ha like a WPT Lucky Hearts
or you know, a Borgota Winter Poke Rope and something like that used to
be thrown in the mix, but it was really always just PCA and it
was Ozzie Millions. Both of those are gone. You could have had January
you kick off the Basify kicks off the poker schedule for the year. Then
you of course have the entire middle of it, you have June and July.
Then you also have BASIP Europe later on, right, So it's like
you have like three things you kind of control the whole year, like you're
the big dog. Whereas like this seemed like it was kind of just thrown
together, and you know, it was really just it was it was an
effort to just go head to head with the WPT, and I would just
rather see the two brands. Listen, you don't got to be buddy buddy.
I mean, I get it right, but you know, kind of
like I would liken it to how the NFL and NCAA football kind of like
it's like you know, NC douaba, Yeah, you can have the Saturdays,
like you can have the Friday night game like we got Thursday, we
got Sunday, Monday night. Like that's kind of like, you know,
we don't need to fight for those I there were some other events that wrapped
up, and there are there are actually what two more events going on at
the WPT World Championship Festival. Still, you had the WPT Prime Championship that
it had reached the final table. They run a little bit of a delay,
just a little bit of a reset here, ten five hundred and twelve
entries in this one. It actually cracked the top fifteen largest live poker tournaments
of all time, which I updated the article on PGT dot com. I
think it jumped into fourteenth place. So I'm pretty sure that entire list was
all di disipy events nil until this event happened. So had a five million
dollar guarantee. It got over ten million dollars in the price school. Calvin
Anderson. Everyone knows Calvin Anderson, a well known professional poker player. He
won it for more than one point three million dollars. You had the WPT
Big One for one drop, I think we might spend a little bit of
time on this one one million dollar buying. WPT paired up with Big One
with one job for the Big One for one job seventeen entries. What do
you think about that number? On the day, I said twenty two,
So it's even less than I thought with all the adjustments. It was tough
because there's at least two and a half three guys that would have played at
that made the World Championship final table. Yeah, yeah, there was.
There was two guys for sure, Art to Mars Erosion and Ben he like
for sure, right yeah, and then and then he played the super high
rollable so he's like the half guy that you're talking, Yeah, exactly.
And then there was also a twenty five k that was on and there was
some people stealing that running open was the chip leader in that entering day two.
He ran deep, so like there was a lot of I think even
like even before the final table the WPT two World Championship, Alex Foxen's Yes,
Alex was was ran really deep in the World Championship, So so yeah,
I mean you probably missed out on. I would say you probably missed
out on for sure three entries, if not a couple more, you know,
like if you get I don't know, how do people view Orpen these
days, Like do they view him as like more of the recreational type,
So if he plays, then maybe somebody that's on the fence is a little
bit more inclined to play. I don't know, Like justin Bonomo said,
like he originally tweeted that he was, you know, started selling action.
Then he tweeted later on that like, hey, I'm dropping mark up because
I don't think the field is going to be a soft and he was saying
that he also heard that it might not even run. So like, if
a couple of people get into this that he likes, does he then play?
You know, that's another one thing he did think. So, yeah,
so a couple of more fish as they were whales, however they want
to refer to it. Yeah, we might have seen Bonomo in Uh,
that's a tough part and it just probably probably falls a little bit on the
scheduling of the whole series. Maybe not having this on the back off of
the main event would have potentially got us twenty five, maybe even thirty plays.
You never know. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean I
think all things considered, you know, I think seventeen is obviously a decent
number for a million dollar buy in. I I don't know. I originally
thought it was going to do extremely well, might draw like thirty. Then
kind of as we got close, just talking to some people, some people
were like, I don't know if it's going to run. I don't know
if it's gonna get six entries like all that that sort of stuff. So
another person that was, you know, at least supposed to play, but
ended up not playing, Ethan Yao aka Rampage. You know, he was
talking about how he's gonna fire, he's gonna sell money on State Kings,
all that sort of stuff. He didn't get in there. So so yeah,
I mean, I think they were definitely missing, you know a handful
of entries that that could have pushed this thing up over twenty entries total.
That said, seventeen entries. The winner was Mikita bad Ziakowski. He took
home more than seven point one million dollars. He beat is It Mario Mossbeck
in second place. Dan Smith finished in third. Isaac Hackson. Isaac Hackson,
who's been having an outrageously good year on the Felt, took home one
point two million dollars. Nick Partangela was the bubble boy. Unfortunately. I
think it was Ace Queen into Ace King for that. So yeah, that's
the the WPT big one for one job. I don't know what their plans
or appetite would be to run this one back next year. I would say
no, it just seems like, I don't know, it didn't hit like
I think a lot of people thought it might hit, So I think maybe
they you know, this one just doesn't happen. But I've always, even
going back to the WSP ones that had it, I was always like,
this needs to have kind of a World Cup type of feel where you do
it every two or three or four years, because that's you just need that
sort of stuff. With a million dollar buying. You can't just be slapping
him out there every single year. An event that you and I have both
said that the w SP needs to add a senior's high roller ten thousand dollars
buy in what was it fifty in higher for this one. I think it
was fifty dollars. So the WPT had one ten thousand dollars buying five hundred
thousand dollars guarantee smashed. They tripled it. They got one hundred and sixty
two entries. Daniel Lowry takes it home. The original guarantee on the prize
pull is five hundred k. Lowry almost won that for first place, three
hundred and ninety four thousand dollars and change for taking it down. So very
cool event here, you know, I know, one sixty two. Like
you hear that number, You're like, oh, it's not that big.
I mean that's big for an event that is limited, right, I mean
you're only drawn from people that you know have our fifty and plus and then
they also have to have ten thousand dollars in higher So I like it.
You and I said over the summer that the WASP should add one of these.
I definitely think that they should. You know, I think that the
ws AP number would probably be well over two hundred, you know, just
because WSP just crushes. They might even get over three hundred. I mean,
look what the seniors and the super seniors does, right, yeah,
I mean you could do. I think a senior's high roller for sure.
At the dobasp so that would be cool. The WPT Alpha eight returned.
I have no idea when the Alpha eight was last held. I just know
that it's back and it's different. So this Alpha eight twenty sixteen I think
was the last one. Yeah, I mean it's listen. I have no
idea what this was called Alpha eight, Like, I don't know why they
just didn't call it like the fifty K like super high roller or high roller
or whatever the heck. I mean this seems like, in a way an
insult to the Alpha eight brand that it was. I mean, the Alpha
was an entire like tour. It had those twenty special tables, the tables,
everything was like white, you know, like it was super pure.
It was luxurious, like it was the best of the best, like,
and it had one hundred thousand dollars buying. So this they bring it back,
it's just put into the one drop section. Doesn't like have any special
branding of its own other than the trophy, which the trophy is insane by
the way, And it had a fifty K buy in, which I don't
like either. If you drop the buy in, you gotta go to eighty
eight eight hundred and eighty eight dollars, right, isn't that the play?
Alpha eight do the eights? I mean, isn't that the play anyway?
Ren Lynn aka Tony Lynn wins it one million and forty five thousand dollars.
He beat Jason Kuhn and heads up play Jason Kuhon taking you know, six
hundred and seventy thousand dollars for his finish. Looking down the leaderboard, eighth
place, Isaac Aston, I mean, this guy, this guy this year,
I mean, just On, I gotta look up how much he's won
this year. If Hendon models like seven million, I mean it has to
be more. I'm saying it's gotta be more. I mean, if if
the Internet decides to work in my house, that's sixteen point nine yeah,
seventeen million. Yeah yeah, he's out of control. Out of seven million
in our events. That's what I was thinking. He's won everything, everything,
I mean literally everything. I mean, it's unbelievable. This guy this
year. I mean, I'm surprised he didn't win. He's his year.
Just he's twenty twenty three, would be sixty second on the all time money
list. Yeah, I mean, it's just banana. It's bananas. How
how big the money is I forget who you and I said, like,
could could be like a dark horse to like take over the the all time
moneyless lead. I want to say I might have said taxon, but I
can't remember. But who the heck knows? But absolutely a couple other just
quick highlights from the series. Mike Lea seems to be back, just comes
back. He wins the twenty two hundred dollars eight game, then he wins
the one thousand dollars plo, so he's back. Max Coleman, you know,
we know Max Coleman of course from the the PGT stuff. He won
the eleven hundred dollars horse event. You had Nathan Gamble wins the eleven eight
events. You had Nick Papillo, who's in the running for what is it,
like Major Player of the Year or something like that, and he won
the three thousand dollars Dealers Choice Tournaments. And then you had a you had
a ten thousand, five hundred dollars potlam in Omaha tournament. Kwan Zoo chopped
it with Jesse Loanis. Jesse Loanis Is he's been on fire for what two
three years now pretty much especially and then what else did we have we there
was a there was a three K, so there was a three I played
this three K. There was a three K with a what was the guarantee?
Three million dollars. They got more than six million dollars in the prize
school. First place was over a million, out of out of control.
Then they have running right now. Our buddy Jeff Platt made day two.
Our buddy Ben Ludlow made day two. Both have since busted, but shout
out to them for finding a cash. They had a sixteen hundred dollars two
million dollar guarantee kind of like a you know, a Closer Slash Series Savor
event in a way. You know, we I was joking at the table
that I played at early on. You know, we were all like,
yeah, this is like everyone's down right, Like one guy was up at
the table. One guy, I believe it. His name is Jordan Miller.
He's up. Everyone else is fucking buried, you know. So So
anyway, sixteen hundred dollars buy and had three starting flights, two million dollar
prize school. They got one of three million dollars in the prize school.
The two million dollars was guarantee. They got one of three million dollars in
their first places that were five hundred K. I mean, it's just like
it's just freaking bananas. Then they got they got a ten K what high
roller running as well that got more than one hundred entries. It's like three
hundred or four hundred k up top for the winner. So I mean it's
just like everything is just bananas at this series. I mean, it's just
it's just absolutely wild. Like it's kind of in a way a bummer that
they missed on the forty million when everything else is just smashing. But overall,
just a really really incredible series. You know, I'm already like ready
to get back in there and battle at the next one. You know,
I really think the WPT has built something really really awesome here alongside win because
you know, wins just win's kind of crazy. Like I mean, I
know, you know, the guys over at the win I know them as
well, not as much as you, but just just how much like the
win has climbed up the like the tournament poker venue ranks. Yeah, like
it used to be like in like I don't know how many years ago,
three four or five years ago, like the premiere I'm not counting the World
Series of Poker just because you just can't really count the World Series of pop
It's just such it's just so big and and the best that you just can't
ever count it. But like the other stuff, like it was always seminal.
Right now, I feel like it's the win, Like the win is
number one, and even in Vegas specifically it was, it was Venetian for
a long time. Now it's for sure the win. Like the Win has
the best tournaments. They they run them consistently. The venue is superb,
they have incredible staff, even even the staff and the dealers that they had
to add to their team for this series. Like a lot of the guys
are some of the best guys that are at Like we saw a lot of
those guys. The dealers were on points, Like I mean, there might
have been like one or two times a dealer was like I don't know,
dozing off, I guess, or not paying attention and like didn't like do
something correctly. But like there was no glaring mistakes, like nothing like that
like that. I and I played a lot like there was nothing really bad.
I didn't hear anything bad from a lot of people, so yeah,
I mean I thought, or I think what they're what they've built overalls as
a tournament venue in poker, is is the best of the best right now.
Like, I don't know what you know really tops it. I mean
maybe Seminole still competes with it is right there, but the win is right
there, if not better at this point. So it's it's pretty crazy,
you know. So I think the win is really setting the bar. Like
if you're a I don't know, if you're just a venue in general within
Vegas, like I would say if you're Resorts World because they're partnered with the
any like if you're Aria because you're kind of partnered with us, you're also
partnered with bet MGM. I mean like when win is like what you're striving
to be, right, I mean, that's that's what it what the best
of the best is. So it's cool to see. It's cool to have
that in our backyard. So yeah, what they've built in conjunction with the
World Popra Tour here I think is really awesome. Hopefully I mentioned the three
year contractor a three year deal that we all have come to know that they
have. I hope it extends much beyond that, like, I hope this
isn't just three years. I know, but you know, sometimes you know,
we're not necessarily the higher ups in these rooms. You know, maybe
things aren't working out as as sweet as we see them on the front,
and who knows, you know, I'm just saying, I hope this lasts
kind of forever. Like you know, I think it's it's good, it's
it's great. So yeah, I mean, in a perfect world, honestly,
I would love to have the win in December and Las Vegas. I
would love to have ept progue in the time slot that it is because I
think those are established and far enough apart from each other that they work.
And then I would have WSP Paradise in January, which I think would be
absolutely a banger of success. Like that would be something that like I would
be looking to like go for like qualifying CLUBGG, like qualifying WSP dot com
like stuff like that. But if I know that I can just play the
stuff at the wind and hang here, well then you know what's really the
point. But if it's at a different time, like yeah, like that'd
be pretty sweet, you know, And I think I think there's kind of
that void as we mentioned earlier, without PCA, without Ozzie millions to fill
that January window. And I think a lot of people in January, a
lot of people in the Northeast, a lot of people around the US in
general, are kind of looking to get the hell out of the weather and
go somewhere where it's a bit warmer. So so yeah, so that's what
I I think I would do there. All right, speaking of ept progue,
let's slide on over and wrap up their series over there. The fifty
three hundred dollars no limit hold, the main event, had a record setting
field. What was it, fourteen hundred entries or something like that, I
don't know. I mean they set a record, beat the record that was
previously held by last year's event. Winning the tournament was irishman Padrick O'Neill.
He took home a bit over one million euros equates to just over one point
one million dollars. He beat John Kite in heads up play. You had
Marley Spraggue taking home eighth place for one hundred and twenty three thousand, six
hundred euros. Now Ferrell finished in sixteenth place, Tony Mueller seventeenth place,
Steve A. Dwyer nineteenth place. So Ramon Callias he won the first PSBC
he took home or he took twentieth place. So really good turnout in Prague.
Every time I see Prague, I see it in the winter, I've
been there a few times. It gives me fomo that I want to go
back. Just the EBTs are incredibly run tournaments. They got a lot of
value, a lot of different stuff that you can play. And then being
in Prague in December, you know, in the middle of the holiday season,
is absolutely tremendous. So if that's something you are looking forward to to
doing in the future, I would encourage you to do so, because EPT
Progue is pretty incredible. Just looking through kind of some of the other stuff
that was on the schedule from EPT Progue. You had and just Niemuth won.
He won a five hundred dollars tournament. What's he doing? A thousand
dollars tournament? One thousand dollars hyper Turbot knockout freeze out, like the last
tournament that I would expect to be playing. He he won it. There
was a bunch of high rollers on here as well. You had Tone Tone
Mulder won the twenty five k you had only Chmian won another twenty five k.
Nicholas Astett won a ten thousan two hundred dollars hyper Turbo Knockout freeze Out,
So a lot of stuff going on that took place over at Prague.
What was the highest buy in here? Did they have a fifty k?
He made twenty five They did have a fifty k. The EPT Super high
Roller Tomas Adamski won that. I thought it was a really good ending to
the year overall. You know, WPT World Championship, we talked a lot
about that. If you haven't seen the Final Table live Steam, you can
find it on WPT's YouTube channel. I would highly encourage you to do so,
even if you did get spoiled from some of the stuff we've said here.
I think it's certainly worth the watch, you know, it's it's a
really really good watch overall, especially for anyone who is, you know,
trying to improve their game, because you can see a lot of really high
level play. Again, Jesse Sylvia does a really really good job of explaining
everything as it's happening. Henry Kilbain did a really good job of like asking
him the right question, so Jesse answered things, you know, pointed to
what was going on at the table. So yeah, I would highly encourage
you to check that stuff out. I think a heads up chop for Thomas
four hundred K. Yeah, okay. I think in terms of us late
next week, I think we should do an episode if you're around, if
you're willing, among no plans just because listen for Tim and I, January
is gonna be freaking massive, like it work wise, and not that you
guys care about our work necessarily, you care about the stuff that we do
because you're gonna hopefully consume it. If you don't care, you can just
turn this off and tell us to have off. Not a big deal.
But we have the conclusion to the twenty twenty three PGT season, albeit happening
in early twenty twenty four whatever. We have the Last Chance series, which
is January tewond through seventh. It's a series of ten K events. We're
going to be streaming them all and you know, as we've talked about before,
it's there's a lot on the line. Like the first thing is you
have Isaac Hackson's on top of the leaderboard. Is he gonna makeain his position
at the top of the leaderboard. That, of course, whoever wins the
leaderboard for the season wins a fifty thousand dollars bonus, so there is a
financial element there at play. That person will also go into the PGT Championship
with the most chips. Then you have people who are within the top forty
who are likely going to qualify for the PGT Championship Million Dollar Free World,
but are trying to better their position because points equal starting chips in the event.
Okay, so the better that you do, the more points that you
have, the more chips you're going to start the PGT Championship with. You're
gonna have people at the bottom of the forty that don't want to get knocked
out. You're going to have people that are just right outside the top forty
that are going to try and to get in. Then you have two dream
seats, so people you like basically Tim could show up win a dream seat
and like he could get in even though he hasn't done anything on the PGT
all season, and that's gonna work. Where we do We regularly do these
series leaderboards. I think a lot of people know about them. But instead
of having money up top for the winner. The top two point earners from
this series, the Last Chance Series who aren't already qualified for the PGT Championship,
those two people will win seats to go directly into the event. So
if you're someone who's grinded a lot of our events but hasn't had the success
that maybe you wanted, you know, you're sitting in like, I don't
know, one hundredth place and you're probably not going to make a run unless
you win like four events to finish in inside the top forty. Well,
you could just perform extremely well this series, be the highest finisher, and
you can get in that way. So it's called last Chance for a reason.
This is the last chance to get him. That's all going to build
right up to the PGT Championship that's happening January ninth and tenth, going to
be live streaming that one right after that was it? We take one day
off and then we come back two days off. Okay, two days off,
oh, no days off even but Jesus Christ, you're killing me here.
No days off. We go right into a new series that put together
PGT Kickoff. So we got that, which is what is that double points?
Double points? Five thousand dollars buy ins today the all two day events.
Yeah, try and get some new blood out there playing these PGT events.
Maybe they get a little bit of a boost on the leaderboard to start
the season, and then that can propel them to planing some stuff going forward.
And then what is it, a week or two or so after PGT
kickoff, we got Poker Girl Cup. I mean it's just like bang,
bang bang. I think I looked at it, and we have like it's
like eighteen to twenty days of live streaming in January, not including like the
three days that of Poker Girl Cup that go into February. So there's a
crap ton of streaming that we're doing on poker gro and the Poker Go YouTube
channel in January. So get ready for it. Enjoy your holidays, enjoy
New Year's because once January second rules around, we are, you know,
pedal to the metal, And I cannot wait. It's gonna be a lot
of fun. Tim's going to be there as well, doing a lot a
lot of the player liaison, PGG commissioner and live reporting stuff. So yeah,
I can't wait. All Right, that's gonna do it for us.
Sounds good. Have a good holidays buddy, Talk to you later. JA
Express, j Express