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. As always, please like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening to the Poke Rel Podcast. We're trying to continue to be the number one poker podcast in the land. We cannot do that with all of our without all of our listeners out there helping us out. And if you would be so kind, please leave a review and send it on into podcast at PokerGO dot com. This episode of the Poke Rel Podcast is brought to you by our friends at storm x, the exclusive cryptocurrency partner of poker Go. Storm x makes it easy to earn crypto cash back. All you gotta do, I've said it many times, I'm gonna say it again. Head on over to storm x dot io, sign up, start shopping online, and start earning cryptocash back. They also have storm x Sports now which allows you to play some Pickham contest to earn some storm x currency. So if that's a If that's your flavor, then get on in there and participate in some Pickham contest 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