Speaker 1: Hello everyone, Welcome to a new episode of the Poker
Go Podcast. My name is Donny Peters. I am joined
by Tim Duckworth audio version today, And I'm saying that
because if you are unaware, Tim and I did a
video version of the podcast a couple of days ago
that is available on PokerGO dot com for poker Ghost subscribers.
So check that out. If you are a poker Grot subscriber,
let us know the feedback that you have on it.
I had fun doing it, had fun doing it. It
was our pilot episode. We'll see if a full series.
But yeah, what's going on, buddy?
Speaker 2: Not much.
Speaker 1: It looks like you just woke.
Speaker 3: Up no enough.
Speaker 1: I know your hair is a.
Speaker 2: It's a mess.
Speaker 3: We're trying to grow it out. Okay, just just give
me eight months. That'll be normal.
Speaker 1: Eight four months.
Speaker 3: How long did it take you for you to grow
your hair out to be like an acceptable length that fell?
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I mean, I had a
bet for twelve months, but I don't know or.
Speaker 3: Feel like I have to get through six months at
least before it's like somewhat manageable. So right now it's
in a very awkward stage. You're going to see me
in a hat a lot, and that's about it.
Speaker 1: That stays looks fine. I like the state, but I'm
just saying right now it's a bit messy, not that
anyone can see because it gains the audio only so
as as producer Rich Ryan would say, horrible radio, just
absolutely horrible radio. On today's show, Tim and I are
going to recap the twenty twenty four Poker Masters series
that just wraps up. We're going to hit on who
won the overall series, who won events, some honorable mentions
of course, lot to talk about there. That'll lead into
our discussion about the PGT leaderboard and any shakeups that
occurred there as a result of the points earned during
Poker Masters or maybe points not earned during Poker Masters.
We're gonna hit on the NAPT Las Vegas. We have
a new partnership with them. We also want to touch
on what's coming up from that series. We do have
a special giveaway that we are running in partnership with
the Poker Stars NAPT, so stay tuned for that. EPT
Barcelona recently wrapped up. We'll touch on the winners there
and also some I guess industry news coming out at
EPT Barcelona with some game integrity rule changes. The WPT
has an announcement, Buddy, the w ET has an announcement.
Can't wait to talk about it, and then questions for you,
but listen, I'll be upfront with it. We already did
the questions once. We're gonna do them again, so you'll
be prepped. It's the same questions, you know. So if
you saw the video podcast, same questions that I gave there.
Speaker 2: But we're going to change my answers, then you can.
Speaker 1: Do whatever you want, but you'll probably sound like an
idiot answers. You can improve your answers. How about that.
This episode of the Poker Go Podcast is brought to
you by the Poker Stars NAPT. The NAPT returns to
Las Vegas this November, running in November first through tenth
at Resorts World. The series is headlined by the fifty
three hundred dollars buying three million dollar guaranteed main event.
The schedule has buy ins from as low as two
hundred and fifty dollars all the way up to twenty
five thousand dollars, so there is something for everyone across
the festival. If you guys would like to learn more
about the NAPT Las Vegas. I would encourage you to
head on over to PokerStars Live dot com slash NAPT
slash Loss Vegas and for our listeners in Michigan, Pennsylvania
and New Jersey where Poker Stars is available to you,
be sure to check out the Poker Stars lobby on
the daily for qualifiers and a chance to win a
gold pass to NAPT Las Vegas for free. Tim and
I are planning on being at NAPT Las Vegas and
we hope to see you guys there if you do
go there. If you do come out to NAPT Las
Vegas and you are a Poker Grol podcast listener, let
us know, come up and talk to us. We obviously
love talking with our listeners and finding out who you
guys are. All right, Moving on to Poker Masters, which
this year was presented by the Poker Stars and APT,
Jim Collipy is the twenty twenty four Poker Masters Champion.
Four cashes for mister Collopy five hundred and twenty one thousand,
six hundred dollars earned. He picked up five hundred and
twenty two points that allowed him to top the series leaderboard.
He did so by making four consecutive final tables. He
finished at the final table in event three, four, five,
and six. He started off his run with a sixth
place finish and event number three for forty seven thousand dollars,
then a third place finish and Event number four for
one hundred and five thousand dollars. Then he had a
pair of runner up results event number five second for
one hundred and forty two thousand dollars, and then Event
number six second for two hundred and twenty six thousand dollars.
Tim Andagan talk about this a little bit more, but
before we do, I do want to throw it to
the interview that Jim Collapy did with Jeff Platt here.
Speaker 4: With our series champion, Jim Colbee. Jim, congratulations, four straight
final tables that's only been done once before at the
Poker Masters.
Speaker 1: What was this run like for you?
Speaker 5: This run was incredible. No Limit is definitely a game
I've played a lot of, but I play a lot
of games, so it's nice to perform well on a
big stage with a lot of guys that specialize in
specifically this format.
Speaker 4: Along those lines, when you look back at your poker careers,
this going to be an accomplishment that stands out to
you absolutely.
Speaker 5: I mean with this game, with this format, with these structures,
often there's a lot of close calls, so to put
a lot of stock into any given event kind of
this is the tree for the forest, or more of
the forest for the tree, either way. But it's important
to kind of look back and how you put it
all together, and when you have a leader opportunity, even
when you don't end up with any wins, this can
add up to a little bit more. And I think
that's what's most significant about it.
Speaker 4: Were we feeling extra patriotic this week, rocking the red,
white and blue shades or what?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think it's an important time for our country to
kind of come together and show up. And I hope
that at least I can remind some folks what it
means to show up.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts deserving winner? How did he do?
Speaker 3: I think what you were deserving in the fact that
he is, without doubt one of the top five PGT
tournament players, as in he puts in top five volume
of anyone in the studio. You know that's we're talking
rivals with someone like Daniel m'grind or Jeremy Osmus and Jim.
You know, Jim does play Pelo, does play hold, him
does play mixed games, so he's always supporting the PGT.
He's also you know, to me personally voicing his opinions
about how to make it better. So he does care
and it's actually pretty cool to you know, he didn't
get a victory, see him finish on top of the
lead aboard, take home that purple jacket and the prizes
that came with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not only the purple jacket was awarded to Jim Callipy,
he won the twenty five thousand dollars PGT passports. That's
good for PGT buyings across the tour. And then this
year on behalf of the Poker Stars NAPT he picked
up a gold pass. What is a gold pass, you
might ask yourself. A gold pass is valued at ten
thousand dollars, so some nice value there. It includes a
buy in to the fifty three hundred dollars ANAPT Las
Vegas main event, and then twenty nine hundred dollars worth
of hotel accommodations at resorts. Well, I believe it's up
to seven nights, and then eighteen hundred dollars in expense money.
So pretty good, pretty good winners prize there for Colopy.
I mean, listen, I think he performed extremely well. The
four consecutive final tables was two second place finishes were
notable and worthy of, you know, winning the purple jacket.
We have liked to see him win an event, sure,
but I mean that's not the goal of the leaderboard.
The goal of the leaderboard is to you know, get
as many points as you can to finish on top.
You know, I still very much enjoy how we do
this on the pgt where you know, we have these
series leaderboards and people chase some sort of prize, some
sort of title in addition to the event titles and
prizes that they cheat chase with each individual tournament. I
really do love that. I've always like been a sucker
for player of the year stuff, leaderboards, prizes, you know,
player of the series, et cetera. I would highly encourage
all tours out there to do very similar things. It
can be on the lesser scale, it can be on
a bigger scale. But you know, I think this helps,
you know, amplify poker, you know, kind of move it forward,
because I think people are drawn to this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: I think it also makes you know, the series fu
the final event, because you have this race, you have
people sweating, you have you know, we witnessed the first hand.
Jim was eliminated, you know, after registration closed and he
was sitting at the bar, he had a drink. He
was kind of sweating some action, seeing who could win,
what place this person needed to finish in, what place
that person needed to finish in. And then the people
also competing for it were like, Okay, I have to
you know, win or I have to get heads up,
or I have to finish fifth, you know, like Jeremy
Becker had to finish fifth. So Jim was, you know,
anti sweating Jeremy a little bit to busp so that
he could just have one less person to worry about.
And what's funny is Jeremy tweeted last night at one
of my tweets in reference to Jim winning, Jeremy says,
purple is not his color.
Speaker 2: So it feels like Jeremy's got.
Speaker 3: A little bit of a little bit of spite there
after putting in a you know, his own impressive performance
throughout the Poke Masters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was Jeremy Becker, it was Michael Monchek,
it was David Chen, it was justin Zachi. Where that
last group of Wilson and Brock Wilson, Yes, excuse me,
where that last group of competitors that could chase down
Callipye in the final twenty five k events. It was
actually interesting you you you referenced how you know Callipye
was sweating well two things. One, it was shades of
him sweating the PGT top forty to get into the
PGT Championship million dollar free Roll. By the way, quick
side note, I think we should change the name for
the free role. I think it should be called the
PGT Million Dollar Championship. That's just my new thing. I
thought of that today because I like writing.
Speaker 2: I keep writing million million dollar Championship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I just think PGT Championship million dollar free
roll is.
Speaker 2: It's a little like cumbersome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like, I don't know, I feel like
I feel like the word free roll doesn't do it justice.
Like free roll is like you play a free role
when you sign up for an online poker site to
like get started.
Speaker 2: Or like happens to have money changes.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think that. I don't think the money
should ever change.
Speaker 3: I think the money yeah, but went on it could
show the money, so I understand.
Speaker 2: But if it's one million, how if it goes up?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it should it should never go up. I
don't think. I think it should maintain there. And then
if there is some sort of increased budget to add
to it, I would increase like serious prizes or stuff
like that.
Speaker 2: I would be the best you've had all yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, Like listen, I'm a I'm a branding
and marketing expert.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was PGT million Dollar Championship.
Speaker 1: I kept every time I would write PGT Championship million
dollar free and we are way off the rails were
talking about. But I don't care. This is our podcast
and we'll do what we want. Like I I'm like,
this doesn't sound right. Every time I would write it
PGG Championship million dollar film, like this doesn't sound right.
It doesn't sound right, it doesn't sound right. Obviously you
want to get the million dollars in there, like you
want to amplify that. So I think PGT Championship million
dollar or PGT million Dollar Championship I think works the
best anyway, back to the Poker Masters, I don't even
remember what we were talking about. Oh yeah, all those players,
but yeah, shades of Jim Collaby sweating the top forty
sitting at the bar having a couple of drinks. I
think this year he was having looked like a margarita
or two or three as he's you know, sweat the
action to see if anyone would overtake him. He the
hand when Becker busted to get eliminated, he busted to
Justin Zaki. Yeah, and he you know, he tanked forever
on the river. Calopy's standing right there. It's this whole
thing he hands up here, going it off with seven's
on a king high paired board. Uh, Zaki has the
aces and and that's that, you know. So in that
moment for Collopy, because I think I remember Jesse Lonis
was at the table and asked Colopy like, while the
hand was happening, while Becker was tanking, like you know,
it's it's lose lose for you or what do you
want or something like that, And and for Collopy it's
it's it was Becker getting eliminated because he only needed
fifth or better minus the other guys, you know, possibly
going on to win. But so with Becker's elimination in
that spot short of the money, I think there was
around thirty players left thirty five like that. You know,
Zaki gets the chips of course, which boosts his stack,
but he ultimately has to win, so still still pretty
hard to achieve that at the end of the day.
But as it turned out, everyone busted before day two
of the event, so before the final table, justin Zaki
was the last player to go and call it be
locked it up. So, you know, good on Jim Callipy.
You know, we'll talk about him a little bit more
a little later in this podcast because I want to
hit on where he is within the PGT leader board.
But before we get into all that sort of stuff,
do you want to give some due to all the
Poker Masters winners that we had across the series and
hit on some thoughts there. Event number one, Spencer Champlain
one hundred and sixty K was the winnings for Champlain.
He turned a five hundred and sixty dollars satellite into
a five K seat, turned that five K seat into
one hundred and sixty K score. He topped fellow five
hundred and sixty dollars Satellite winner Jessica Vierling in heads
up play there sir to Satellite when as much as
make you feel good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the perfect, perfect heads unmatch having those
two satellite qualifiers get there. And it was also good
to see some you know, as we start going through
these results, you see some new names at the final
table that you know, if you're a regular PGT watcher, you,
to be honest, you do get used to the Chidwicks,
the Koons, the Petangelos, the Osmus and the grind these names,
and me personally, I like to see people that have
never made a PGT final table make it now. I
know for you and Remco and the people in charge
of content probably hate that. They want a grinder helmet
at every final TABLET.
Speaker 1: Don't you ever in that group doing so? No, I'm
I'm more listen. It's it's great to have all the
big names. Yeah, don't don't get me wrong, especially because
we know that that's what drives a lot of viewership. Yes,
but I also believe that there's a second element to this,
where you know, you the new faces coming into the
PGT that signifies growth, which is a good thing. And
then on the back end when it comes to the
content side, it's our job as poker go and be
in the production house and the content house that we
are to create these stories let people know who we are.
Like if you look at it, like let's say the
NBA for example, because I think they have kind of
the most pressing issue with this Lebron Steph Curry, etc.
Like they're almost out, like they're almost at the point
of retirement, so you have to find those next stars
and then you have to have them rise up. Baseball
I think did a horrific job with this. Like their
biggest star was what's his name out of Anaheim Trout,
Like Trout and then Otani as well. Otani now is
at least in a big market being as part of
the Dodgers. Trout is still buried with the Angels and
no one's ever watching that. Yeah, right, So it's like
you just don't have these these stars that are that
are magnified, and I think it hurts the game's popularity.
It hurts the growth, you know, hurts viewership and all
that sort of stuff. Like so poker like, yeah, people
can stay around longer. I mean, you can play poker
till you're seventy eighty nineties years old, whoever the heck
knows how old you are, right, But you have to
battle with the variants, like it's not always going to
be in Neigrania making a final table or a helmet
or an ivy or whoever. Right, it's just not going
to happen that way. It can go they it could
go long stretches, you could in theory, or you know,
it could be an entire season and Nigranny doesn't make
a PGT final table, yeah, and doesn't make a stream
like that could happen, you know. So it's our job
on the back end to tell people who these new
people are and not just constantly be like we need
a neig Granny, we need a helmet, we need this,
No like you need. We need to tell the story
of the tour, believe in what we're selling, boost these
players up, and all of that sort of stuff. So
I guess I would say that I'm in the middle.
I see both sides, but I'm with you that that's
seeing the new names, you know, is great, and then
also seeing them come from in this first event, come
from five hundred and sixty dollars satellite tickets, like you
can you can show up at Aria and play a
five hund and six dollars satellite if you're out there,
maybe you don't have five K, maybe you don't have
ten K, fifteen K, twenty five k, whatever, but you
can fire in five sixty, win a seat, and then
go from there. So I think that that's great. There
was a funny little, I guess side story that came
out of this first event. It had. It had one
hundred and thirty one entries, which was what largest Poker
Masters event ever.
Speaker 3: Not just five K. None of them hold them that
we've ever done in the studio as well.
Speaker 1: Bang so sweet. At one point, Jesse Lonis and Ren Lynn,
who are you know? Friends? They have a lot of
friendly banter back and forth. They're competitive. They're always gambling
with each other, not only you know, playing against each
other in the poker tournaments, but like side bets and
stuff like that. They make a side bet on the
number of entries. I think when they made it there
was like six or seventy players or entries in the field,
and Ren had one hundred and thirty two entries and over,
and Jesse Loanis had obviously under one thirty two, the
bet was for ten thousand dollars. We get to the
close of registration, that final break, everyone has registered except
one person. The clock says one thirty one. Jesse Loans
is out of the tournament, with a chance to re enter.
He would not re enter because if he re entered,
it would hit one thirty two. That five K entry
would essentially cost him fifteen K because he would have
to pay renlin ten K. So Jesse Loan is who
It's also interesting is that he was I believe in
this other side bet, so this must win the jacket
side bet between six or seven players where they each
put up fifty K. Now, obviously somebody has to win
the jacket to collect all the money, either three hundred
K or three hundred and fifty k or whatever. But
the fact that he would pass on the chance to
get points by playing a tournament to not let ren
Linn win the money was just funny to me how
that all shook out. So that was that was pretty comical.
At the close of registration in event number.
Speaker 2: One, do you think his decision was the correct decision?
Speaker 1: I mean, I would I would have just I would
have fired in the ten k and heard the fifteen k,
the five k and then paid the ten cap and
just whatever.
Speaker 3: I think Ran even offered him some kind of like buyout,
not like a full amount, but like a Holf price
buy it, and he didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: But I'm also coming at this with the fact that
I don't think ten k is like going to break
Jesse Lonis in any sort of way. So it's kind
of like whatever. Event number two, Jeremy Becker topped the
field for two hundred and fifty five thousand dollars, his
breakout high stakes win. His also also his largest career
score in first ever six figure score. You know, Becker
obviously got a ton of buzz what within the last
one to two years with all the daily tournaments around
Las Vegas that he was winning, most notably at Win
Las Vegas. He ends up this ends up drawing the
buzz of Daniel Legrand You and josh Aria, they like
start backing him and supporting him. This recent summer, he's
got this this bet against Land and Tice, So there's that,
and then yeah, he's been battling in the studio. He's
had a few cashes and he finally gets a victory.
So I mean, has he arrived? I guess I'll ask
you has he arrived on the highest stakes scene.
Speaker 2: I think he is this more.
Speaker 3: I think he's encouraged, both him and his backer is
encouraged to play more PGT events. Normally we come, we
see him play the fives and the tens and you know,
jomp out in the fifteens. Twenty five is depending how
he's going. But he played every event, played all light events,
multiple buyings, multiple re entries.
Speaker 1: Jes first in that twenty five K because he was
obviously in contention for the jackets his first ever twenty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think he's proven himself. He's got the
one victory.
Speaker 2: You know he can.
Speaker 3: He was, you know, in the running for the peple jacket.
I see, you know, come the next big series like
Poker Gold Cup, most likely we'll see something similar.
Speaker 2: Way.
Speaker 3: He's planning to play everything and he's just going to
continually put in the volume in the studio, play these
PGT events, try and you know, knock away at some
of these titles.
Speaker 2: He's got.
Speaker 3: He's got that taste of that six figure score much
better than winning a win daily for twenty three hundred dollars.
So yeah, I think he's arrived in the sense, but
maybe he was already arrived, but now it's just the
confidence and the he.
Speaker 1: Was arrived in the sense that he was a name,
but like it's weird and poker and you know, when
I first came into the industry, I remember going out
to the World Series Poker for the first time and
at the time, our boss was Gary Gates, and I
remember like he would usually go around and then eventually
I started doing this with with the team that I managed.
Speaker 2: Like you would.
Speaker 1: You would walk the field with some of the people,
you know, mostly the newer people too, and then you
would let them know, like who's who who we should cover, right,
so they have a base of people to cover. I mean,
I remember play being like being told like this is
so and so, this is so and so, this is
so and so, and like the one the one I
remember is when when we were in the Brazilian room.
I could still picture it was Tony Kuzino, first player.
He told me about Tony Kuzno hasn't won anything I
can remember since that day. So like, but because I
was told to cover Tony Kuzino, on that day. To me,
Tony Kuzno has always been a name, yeah, but I
don't think he's had any sort of success that might
justify the fact that he should be a name, you
know what I mean. So, like, yeah, Becker is a name,
and he's he's certainly popular within the pope community and
everyone knows who he is now. But it came from
winning the dailies, like people seeing his photo on the
you know, the win feed on Twitter, like this guy
won again. This guy won again, this guy won again. Right,
But so it's like he he hasn't done anything yet,
or hadn't at least like until this point. I mean,
he he did have some results this year on the PGT,
you know, and he started to the resume in that regard.
So so now it's almost like he proved it in
a way, you know, kind kind of similar to land
and Tice And you know, I just put those two
in the same bucket because they had this bed over
the summer. But like going into the summer, you know,
Landon was a big name and has had some scores,
but then finally he made that WPT final table and
it's like, you know, here we go, like here's the
big breakout run, the big breakout score on a major
stage for land Entice, right, so similar sort of thing there.
It's like eventually you need to be like, yeah, but
what are they actually done? Well? Landon had that WPT
run for a ton of money. Jeremy Becker now gets
this victory at the Poker Masters and was in contention
for the whole series, so you know, kind of a
jumping off point for them, but as it relates to
the Poker Masters one for Jeremy Becker. Justin Zachi gets
his second PGT winn of the season for taking home
top honors in of at number three two hundred and
forty four thousand dollars for him. Previously the twenty twenty
four PGT season, he won the fifth event at the
Poker Go Cup for two hundred and thirty two thousand dollars.
He denied Jeremy Osmas his first win of the PGT season.
Osmas has twenty one cashes but still a goose egg
on or in the win column for Osmas, and Zaki
was the one who denied him the win in this event.
Jonathan Little, the Poker gro Cup Series champion from earlier
this year. He won Event number four two hundred and
twenty six thousand dollars for him his third win of
the PGT season. Worth noting that Harvey Castro got second place.
You may not know that game, but very very young kid.
What was he twenty one or twenty two?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Twenty one?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What was the record that he set youngest ever
sinyal table on the PGT.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm confirmed, but very likely.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and basically set it for a day because
the next event was David Chen who's twenty one years
old and won Event number five for two hundred and
seventeen thousand dollars. David Chen, mit grat in computer science,
does some some writing for gto Wizard. He became the
youngest ever on the PGT winning that event, and then
he ultimately was in contention in the twenty five K
later on in the series as well. Isaac Haxton three
hundred and fifty eight hundred dollars for winning event number six,
Event number six and noven number seven Weber, both fifteen k's.
Hackston's the reigning PGT Player of the year. It was
his first PGT win this season. Before getting the victory
in Event number six, he had a sixth place finish
in event number four and a sixth place finish in
event number five, So Hackson was heating up a little
bit entering this event and then was ultimately able to
get the victory. Event number seven was all Brock Wilson's.
He had a big chip lead, hit a big chip lead,
what going into the final table, you know late on
day one. Ultimately was able to ride that out. Big
beneficiary of Seth Davies punting over his steat with it
was what yeah, but what was it? Six players left
or it was a short stack at the table, yes,
And that's why it was like kind of crazy for
what Seth Davies did he I believe it was button
versus small blind or maybe cut off versus button. I
forget exactly, but Davies opened got three bet by Wilson,
who had Jack's Davies elected to four bet. Jam Wilson
quickly called off and the ace three suited did not
come home for Seth Davies and he he came into
that final table like one of the top three stacks,
maybe even second in chips, and was out like right away.
I think he went out in sixth place. So yeah,
Brock Wilson did sell action to this event on poker Steak.
You know, I there's a lot of players that sell
action on poker Steak and a lot of players that
had success this series, and I just I think it's cool,
you know, if you're looking to sweat along with the action.
You know, Tim and I can't when whenever it involves
something that we're you know, streaming and working on. But
you know, head on over to poker steak dot com.
A lot of a lot of guys and girls that
are playing the the PGT tournaments are listing a ton
of action. Victoria Lifshitz had action on there. I know,
Jesse Vierlan had action on there. David Coleman lists action
on there, Jeremy Osmas, Aram Zobian, yeah, Aramzobe and Jeremy
Osmas has action on there right now for Super High
Rollable PLO coming up. So yeah, so there's a lot
of action to be had, you know for the PGT events,
and it pairs well when you are a poker Go
subscriber and you are able to you know, watch and
then also be like, yeah, I'm invested in so and so,
like I have a piece of Brock Wilson like, that's
really cool. He went on to win. So I win,
so I'm invested that way. I just like that tie in.
So yeah, poker steak dot com if you want to
get in on that sort of stuff. And then rounding
out the winners. There were eight events during the twenty
twenty four Poker Masters. Ben Tolering wins five hundred and
ten thousand dollars for taking home the twenty five thousand
dollars Nolan HOLDHM finale. Sixty eight entries in this one
was the field size that Toleraine topped. It was somewhat
surprising to see him in the studio, but glad to
have him. He topped Taylor von Kriegenberg in heads up play.
Toleraine is enjoying his best tournament year ever. He's got
more than five point one million dollars in winnings already.
He was second to Santos Servanna in the WSFP two
hundred and fifty k Super high Roller. He also has
some Triton scores of five hundred and thirty two thousand
and three hundred and ninety one thousand dollars. So big,
big year for Tollerene. You know, has always been a
successful poker player, you know, but but not always like
in the spotlight, I would say, but seems to be playing,
you know, some bigger tournaments this year and obviously having
plenty of success in them. So general thoughts, I guess
let's start at the top. The series opened big. I mean,
we hit on it with the one hundred and thirty
one entries in that first five K event, largest Poker
Masters event ever, largest field in a PGT Nolanan Holdham
event ever. But as you know, because you are the commissioner,
a bunch of names missed. Oh yeah, so like which
which tells? Which tells me that the see It tells
me a couple of things. One, the series could have
been bigger than it was. Like specifically, this opening event
could have been bigger than it was, but the series
as a whole could have been bigger than it was.
It also tells me that I feel like we're doing
an all right job getting new people in there, where
the numbers can look very good and they can grow
year over year, even with the fact that we're missing
all the names. So who missed? Who were you surprised
not to see? Like all these guys that that I
know you're about to say, are are we could put
them in the bucket of regulars like they play.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not calling out the guys that you know,
play one or two events, calling the guys that normally
play every event training our series especially, know of them
and hold them. Brian Kim, Brian Rast, Stephen Shiitwick, Frank Fernaro,
David Peters, as A Kimpton, Masashi, Oya, Nacha Barbera, Alex Livingson,
Max Coleman, Stephens Song, Joey Weisman, Dylan to Stephano, Philip
shing Lowis Spencer, Alex Condon, ed Sebesta, Anthony Who, and
I guess we can throw in you know, Phil hellm
With and of course I've got Adam Hendrix in there
as well. Now a lot of these guys have excuses.
I'm going to give it to him. Some went to
Australia to play the WPT event, Some are moving to Portugal,
some are just washed up, I don't know, broke. But
the fact that there's twenty five to thirty people we
can name that could have easily been in every event
not here shows that our opening event could have easily
been you know, one hundred and thirty could have easily
hit two hundred, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and that would be great. Like, you know,
I would love to see numbers continue to grow for
these series, you know, I would I would like for
them to grow enough.
Speaker 2: That we need a new studio.
Speaker 1: On the pgt well, I mean, I don't know if
that's possible, but on the PG TEA, we would be
forced to like have two flights two days for the
five k opener that we now do. Like that, that's like,
that's like the goal that I think we should kind
of have, you know, make it so you know, when
when you're tim when you're doing the schedule for the
next Poker gro Cup, you're like, shit, I need two
starting flights because we're gonna get two hundred plus players.
Like that, that's like that should be our goal. I
would like for us to put a little bit more
effort into satellites. I know, internally you and I have
you know, pushed for that a lot. So yeah, I
mean it's I guess i'll work in progress. But you know,
I think we did our right with satellites this time around,
you know, but if we can make them a little
bit bigger, offer them for maybe some of the bigger
events as well, then we can we can start growing
things as a whole. But yeah, I mean listen without
these names and and it's not even like you know,
like a let's say, I don't know Brian cam these
first on your list, here her Steven Chidwick for example.
I mean, that's anywhere from one to three entry. I mean,
you know, if they bust, they're going to max enter, right,
So you know it's it's even if there's fifteen names
on this list, that can be anywhere from thirty to
forty five additional entries in a tournament. So do you
do you have any like reason why things jump from
year to year? Is it just the general trajectory and
brand building that the tour is on? Is it? Is
it players are getting I mean you hear players all
the time. You hear our regulars all the time talk
about like you know, the leaderboard prizes and the and
qualifying for the million dollar free role at the end
of the year. Like is that something that's just drawing
new people in? Like what you know, why are these
numbers just continuing to grow?
Speaker 3: I mean over the last few years, Pokemasa's always seems
to be the biggest of a no limit hold of mages.
At the end of the day, all these schedules are
the same, right, five K, some tens, fifteen to twenty five's,
So there are real difference between this and the USBO
or the Poke Up. I think there's a lot to
do with timing. You know, we're talking September, talking post
World Series, so you know, some people have more money
after a good World Series. Some people have you know,
recovered their bankrolls, you know, you know we talk about USPO,
maybe people are saving their money for the World Series.
That's that's one reason. I think there's also been a
bit of a lull in poker since the World Series.
So you know that ends what July seventeenth, dish, We've now,
you know, a couple months out since then, people have
taken their break, they've recovered, they've spent time with family,
they've traveled, and now they just kind of they're ready
to play, ready to grind. So I think that's one
good thing about this, where the Poke Masters is a
couple months after the World Series where people just have
that itch. And then if we're talking about kind of
the brand it's been around for so long compared to
the others. It's you know, this was his eighth installment,
and I think this resonates as strong as like the
Super high Roller brand, whereas you know, Poke Cup only
three four five years old. People may not care as much,
but Pokemsa's, I think is just a bit more brand,
weaight than the others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, part of it is the luck
factor too. I mean, let's be honest, there's two kind
of luck factors involved with the series.
Speaker 2: Like this.
Speaker 1: One is the luck factor as it pertains two re entries.
You know, it can break a certain way where you know,
the players who wouldn't re enter or are busting out
and the players who would possibly re enter our getting
all the chips early, so that can kind of sway
the entry number. Also, I mean, if you look at
the first event, the five k Opener, you had Spencer
Champlin winning, you had Jessica Erling second in chips, you
had Nick Seward sixth place, you know for thirty two k.
So I mean the point of why we went to
having a five k opener was and some of the
players were actually talking about about it, and I was
I was eavesdropping where they were like, yeah, you know,
they should just make the opener a ten k but
this year, and it's obviously an extremely small sample size
because this is just one event of a bunch and
it just happened to break our way. But like when
you get a Champlin winning a Virling second, you know,
Nick Seward sixth, they're immediately motivated to then play the
next event and then hopefully they start going on a run.
And like that's kind of what you saw specifically out
of you know, Champling and Seward. I mean, Jess Verlin
played i think all the ten games, so she was
in there, you know, so that's great, but maybe she
elects to not play the ten k's if she doesn't
have that ninety eight thousand dollars score in the first one.
You know, I'm not sure. Champlain, you know, had that
first place, then he cashed the next event in ninth place.
Nick Seward had the sixth place in the first one,
then a fifth place in the next one. So it's
like like a Nick Seward, for example, or a Champlin,
you know, immediately you're like, okay, I'm possibly in the running,
and I can just kind of like keep rolling my
winnings over and basically like free rolling myself into the
next tournament, and you know Nick Seward like then he
had you know, another cash in event number three, and
then another cash in event number four, and like he
just kept going and going and go or sorry, another
cash in event number five. So like you just kept
going and going and going. So the point is is,
like we want to get people that might take a
shot in a five K, and it's easier to get
satellite people in a five K to then hopefully do
well and then spin it into the next events and
then maybe they make a run, you know. So that's
that's the goal with with having the five K as
the opener, and if you're a bigger player and you
want to skip it, I mean, by all that does welcome.
Speaker 3: Yes, we do have people skipping the five K, and
we've heard them say that, yeah, I don't want to
play fives and then they see these field sides getting
so big. They see the satellite you know, I think
there was eight satellite qualifiers or nine into the opening event.
You see these nine qualifiers, you see all these fresh
faces you've never heard of, and some of these pros
that lick in their lips, they're like, oh, I can
beat these guys, you know. So we're basically creating a
bit more EV for the pros, but we're also giving
opportunity to you know, fresh faces, newcomers, people taking their
shot where they can Hey, yeah, I can play this.
Maybe I got in for five hundred dollars, or maybe
I'll take a shot at a five K buy in
to play in the studio and potentially you know, be
on TV when you know, one hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean I like the five k's. I
think they're serious.
Speaker 3: There's an argument should we have two five kse that's
you know, I'd rather go the other way than as
you mentioned, you know, we should just make it a ten. Well,
we used to do that. I think five is great
because we get these new faces. You've said it, they parlay,
they keep playing. Maybe there's a you know, there's an
argument to having two five k's and then we go
in the tens.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it could it could be something where
you know, we maybe you do like two five k's
for the Poka Roo Cup, but then you start with
ten k's for Masters, just because Masters feels like the
more prestigious, more distinguished brand of the majors. So I
don't know, you know, there's options there, but yeah, just
wanted to put that out there. Turnouts overall, I think
held pretty well, especially for the two to fifteen k's
and also the twenty five K.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me just touch on that real quick. So
you already mentioned one hundred and thirty one entrants in
the opening event. That's the biggest five K no limit
hold and we've ever done. You know, we haven't done
a lot of them, that's something new for this season,
but still one hundred and thirty one entrance, ninety four
unique unique players, which is kind of pretty awesome. It's
also the sixth biggest five K field we've ever had. Obviously,
our PLO events just have smashing numbers. Heading on to
the ten k's event, two one hundred entrance, sixty four uniques.
That's the fourth biggest ten K held in the studio
during the PGT. Moving on to the fifteens, had two
fifteen's eighty four entrance, seventy six entrance. That ranks as
second and third biggest fifteen k's we've ever had in
the studio during the PGT. Finally, the twenty five K
that had a total of sixty eight entrance. That is
the third biggest twenty five K held in the studio.
These are all no limit numbers. Now, crazy thing is
sixty eight entrance. The next two best was sixty nine
entrants each. Here's the thing. I can call these people out.
Now we've already called some people, are going to call
more people out. Our boss carry Kats.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, before you get into this, I would just
like to make it clear and put it on record
that Tim is the one point out and Donnie is
not doing.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, our bus carry Kats, our other Lord and savior,
Daniel Negrando, Dan Shack, Chris Brewer, China Reim. That's five
people that are good for at least sometimes max bullets.
But just let's give him just one bullet. Let's say
they ran good and we're on there. Let's five people
missing from the twenty five K that would have put
us to seventy three entrants munimum, which would have been
the biggest twenty five K. No lemon hold him event
in the studio, Now, I get it. Chris Brewery, he's
running an off in ban for something. Gino playing table
one cash games, Daniel. I know you're often Counteda playing
pool and GG poker, cool Carrie and Dan who knows
what you're doing.
Speaker 1: But just saying, well, Daniel Legrony makes sense to me,
and he makes sense because the series wasn't going that
well for him, so there was no Purple Jacket implications
for him to come in and you know, even rip
off a win in the twenty five K.
Speaker 3: I think I think he skipped a finale once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if Daniel, if he even had a shot
to win and win the Purple Jacket, I think he
would have been in there. But that also comes in
tandem with the fact that he's sitting pretty on the
PGT leader he's currently fifth and we'll talk.
Speaker 2: On us a little bit later point stuff and not
showing up.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying like he's he's in an extremely comfortable
position and is never gonna fall outside the top at
least I think it's no. But I'm saying that. But
I'm saying if he's if he's like outside the top forty,
if he's like forty six, maybe if he does say Okay,
I'm gonna play the twenty five K. But that's that's
also why I'm so surprised that Carrie skips because because
he's outside the top forty and we know that, we
know that he you know, he told us he might
be missing the PLO series, et cetera, you know, due
to some travel. So it's like, well, there's like you're
running out of PGT events. I mean like at some point,
at some point it just becomes a volume game that
you just have to play and try and get the
cashes right, So, I mean, and then also like, yeah,
for some people they can, like for Daniel, you might
say like, well, you know, points do equal starting hips,
so the more points you get, the more starting tips
you have in the PGT Championship. Yes, but Daniel also
him into the year quality over quantity, so he's like
an understandable one. For me, Carrie is less understandable because
I'm like, you got to get the point.
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think he's kind of around oh, he's sixteen, so yeah,
So anyone that's like, you know, within striking distance of
the top forty and you know, I would assume would
have also played the twenty five K. Coupled with the
fact that this twenty five K was large, it's not like,
you know, you're rocking up to play a twenty person
twenty five K. No, there was sixty eight entries, so
and you also had you had a bunch of like
first timers in there. The two that stick out to me,
Jeremy Becker and David Chen, you know, because they were
in the running for the jacket, like they were going
to play. You know, Nick Seward was he talked about
how he was gonna play the twenty five K and
it would have been his first twenty five K ever ever,
excuse me, had he been in the running for the jacket,
but he deemed that he was probably gonna get ruled out,
so he didn't. But if he had like cash the
fifteen k or something like that, you know, or had
a little bit of a better finish, then he probably
in there as well. So so yeah, I don't know,
I'm just I'm not surprised with Daniel. I am surprised
that that carry. And and then also Dan Shack missed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I'm calling you guys out. You should have
all played no more. It's not even the fact that
they didn't play, get they all have excuses. It's at
the end of the day, it's all their money, their
own money. This is the fact that we were so
we're just literally one person off tying the record and
two people.
Speaker 1: You could have bought it.
Speaker 3: I'm very you could have bought it if I could
expense it.
Speaker 1: You're the one who runs around the studio while day
being like mister financed finance, a.
Speaker 2: Good financial decision not to play when you're as bad
as you.
Speaker 1: Could have got in there. You could have maxilate right
and just knitted it up to a cash Sean winterstyle,
three big blinds get in.
Speaker 3: But either way, yeah, one off tying the record, two
off setting a new record. But this is all good
stuff for the PGT. We're growing, we're expanding, We're doing
what we can to to put on a good product
for you know, the players, and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: I think, speaking of the players, this just want to
touch on this, this fifty thousand dollars side bed, which
I just thought was a fun little, you know, storyline
within it all. I think there was seven players involved,
maybe six, I can't remember. I remember Texas Mike Michael
Monsek saying that he got in, but he got in
for event number two because he skipped event number one,
but it's it's it's fun to me. It's entertaining that,
you know, these series and the PGT have become meaningful
enough that these guys are now doing like a fifty
thousand dollars per person must win side bet. Like that's
just interesting and that's kind of why I wanted to
bring it up. Some honorable mentions. I mean, obviously Jim
Collape winning is the headliner here, of course, but just
just some other things that that came out of the
series that I think are worth talking about. Two satellite
winners heads up in the first event, Champlain winning Railing second.
You know, we talked about that already, but just want
to bring that home that, you know, once again, when
we have these satellites ahead of the big made your series,
you can get in there. You can play at Aria,
you can turn five sixty into a five K and
go from there. Tim and I talked at length about
the great turnout across the events. Awesome to see breakout
win for breakout, high stakes win for Becker, and he
also challenged for the Lead award. Playing his first twenty
five K. Nick Sewart, his year continues to be hot.
He had five cashes and two final tables. At the
twenty twenty four Poker Masters he cashed four of the
first five events. You know, he won. He wont to bracelet.
Over the summer, I think he took the three K
six Max Nolan hold him down for five hundred and something. K.
Had some success recently down in Florida at Seminole, won
a couple of events there, took fourth place and another one.
Walked out of there with a lot of prize money
and then brings it to the studio for Poker Masters
and does very well. And you know, he's someone who
maybe he took a shot here and there in some
five K before. But I think we're now going to
see a bit more of Nicholas Seward at the Poker
gro studio. And he's he's pretty young. He's in his twenties,
I believe early twenties. So be on the lookout for
Nicholas Seward. And then you know, we talked about the
players like missing the twenty five K just overall quiet
series from the Grandeux, from Carrie Katz, Jesse Lonis, Alex Foxen.
You know, based on what we normally see from these players,
they really didn't make that much noise at all. They
combined between these four for six cashes for two hundred
thousand dollars, which again for them, that's pretty low. You know,
I think Foxin, I think it was Foxen had three
cashes and the other three had one cash each, So
you know, and and Foxen's cash is I mean, you
could tell, like just watching him on the streams, he
was just kind of frustrated, it seemed, with how the
series was going, you know, just really couldn't get anything happening.
Things didn't work out in his favor, et cetera. So
those guys a little bit down right now, but you know,
we'll obviously see big things from them going forward. As
it pertains to the PGT leaderboard, got Jeremy Osmas still
up on top twenty one cases. He does have zero wins,
but twenty one cashes is a crap ton of cashes,
twenty three hundred and sixty nine points, which puts him
five hundred and thirty four points ahead of Michael Rocco,
who is in second place. Jim Collipy he jumped up
into seventh. He's got fifteen hundred and seventy four points.
He's now very comfortable compared to last year. He went
from this series before the Pokemaster started, he was twenty ninth.
He jumped up into seventh. You know, last year, Tim
and I already mentioned it, but he was that the
final event, the final series PGT Last Chance, he was
sweating at the bar whether or not certain things would
break his way that he could get in the top
forty and then get into the PGT Championship. This year,
it feels like he is guaranteed to make it, I mean,
minus a miracle, so he's very comfortable. My question to you,
we know immediately coming up we have the PGT PLO series.
We got super high rollable PLO. I know you worked
with Champions Club on a PLO series that's happening down there.
We know Collaby can play PLO in addition to Nola
at Hold Them. Could he challenge Jeremy Osmas for the
POY title?
Speaker 3: I think he could, But the question is will he
really try to because you know, I would say he's
fairly safe position wise to make the championship. Does he
turn down his volume like he's probably gonna play the
PLO series? But I'm talking more, you know, whatever other
series we do if we if we have this bounty series,
you know, we do have Last Chance on the eve of.
Speaker 2: You know, to end the season, Like he could just
skip those Did.
Speaker 1: He played Did he played Super High Rollable PLO last year?
Speaker 3: No? I don't think he did, so I could see
him skipping the Last Chance if he's if he's pretty
comfortably in so I think maybe he technically could compete
and take on Jeremy, but I feel like he's, if anything,
he's probably going to wind down his volume at the
end of the season, especially with those no limit hold
the events. And you know what, Jeremy's got a pretty
impressive lead right now, and Michael Rocco, who you know,
we'll see if he shows up for anything soon. He
could also take his foot off the gas come Last Chance.
If he's got a four hundred point lead, five hundred
point lead over whoever's second at that point, he might
just skip that series and spend some time with family.
Speaker 2: So it's very Do you.
Speaker 1: Think Jeremy Osms has taken time off if?
Speaker 3: Yes, many people, Yeah, yeah, I think he could. He
could definitely do that, especially I'm talking specifically PGT Last Chance,
you know where it's January tewcond to seventh ish it's
you know, all ten k no limit hold on events.
Speaker 2: He's got his.
Speaker 3: He can't do much to improve on his on his
standings both the lead aboard now if he's gunning for
some GPI, if he's gunning for something else.
Speaker 1: More chips, Well, because you don't come in ce you
come in, haven't played.
Speaker 3: Some have the same chips. Remember, we may be changing it.
I'm looking at it this week. The chips might be
locked to position. So it doesn't matter how many points
you have in first. If you're first, you have you know.
It disadvantages Jeremy, but it advantages the people in those
mid twenties thirties to try and ladder up a few
extra spots to gain some big blinds. So we'll say
I haven't really locked anything yet, but that's the current
tentative plan.
Speaker 1: Some other movers on the PGT leaderboard, Jesse Lonas went
from fourth to third. Aromzovian went from seventh to sixth.
Kristen Foxen, who started the year heart slipped outside of
the top ten, is back into the top ten. She
went twelfth to tenth, moving into the top forty. The
top forty. Of course we always reference that, and just
so if you are unaware, the top forty is important
because the top forty players on the leaderboard, as long
as you have three cashes at least, then you qualify
for the season ending PGT Championship Million Dollar Free role,
which I have now renamed the PGT Million Dollar Championship. Okay,
So moving into the top forty, Ben Tolleran climbs into
thirty third, Shawn Winter gets into thirty seventh, Ren Lynn
into thirty eighth, Jonathan Little and thirty ninth, and then
falling out of the top forty because if you have
four additions, you're gonna have four subtractions. Joshua Adkins falls
to forty first, Steven Chidwick falls to forty second, Breschkuten
falls to forty fourth, and David Eldridge drops to forty fifth.
Most notably there would be Chidwick. He's somebody you could
probably always bet on being in the top ten of
the PGT leader board. So he's going through a bit
of a relocation right now. So he did skip Masters,
but I would anticipate we see him for some of
the other stuff we have going on, and then we'll obviously,
if you know Childwick's good enough, he's gonna put in
the volume. You know, it's just just a matter of
if he's here playing then then he'll get in. So
we'll see how that goes. And then we do have
some some players who are still outside of the top forty,
but did climb very nicely with some results from the
Poker Masters where they are very much now within striking
distance of that top forty. Taylor von Kriegenberg, he showed
up played only the twenty five k right at Poker Masters,
but he got second, so he climbs to forty third.
Brock Wilson moved up to forty eighth, Justin Zaki climbed
to fifty first, Jeremy Becker is now fifty fourth, and
Michael Manchek aka Texas Mike is now fifty ninth. For you, sir,
my question, okay, and it might be some people you
have already mentioned on this podcast, but who are your
biggest surprises sitting outside the top forty as things stand
right now.
Speaker 3: I guess Steven Chidwick's obviously the big one skipping poke masts.
I think he may have skipped a cup this other
year too, with visa issues with relocation issues.
Speaker 2: So that's I guess that's a big one to me.
Speaker 3: You know, I'd also say Alex Fox and Dan Chak,
Carry Kat Sam Several, Isaac Hackson, Lucky Cheery, Cris Brewer,
these guys that put in pretty heavy volume in the studio.
You know, things are just not breaking their way on
the PGT right now. But there's still a lot of time,
so we still have you know, they still have a chance.
I do want to mention, though you mentioned the top forty,
we do have a new rule this year. You have
to have three PGT cashes this season. Okay, so if
we look at the leaderboard, we take out some of
these people that only have two or one cash. Now,
I know, you know, for example, Jonathan Tomao World Champ
has two cashes. He will be in Texas. He already
understands the rules. He's going to be coming at one
point to try and get that extra cash. But if
we rule out, if we locked it right now, let's
pretend it's January. We get rid of everyone with one
or two cashes, and I'll tell you the guys that
jump back into the qualification. Steven Chidwick, he's in Taylor,
Wan Kregenberg, In breck In Brock Wilson, Samoulei Sapilia, Justin Zaki,
Jeremy Becker, Joey Weisman, Monald Kajo, Michael Munchak, Sam Lasquitz
or are in the top forty under the new rules. Obviously,
we have another thirty events to go PLO series, the
PLO Series in Texas some no limit hold them stuff,
so you know there's going to be some there's some
definitely going to be some changes. I know for a fact,
Joshua Adkins, who's currently forty first Big PLO Player, is
aware of the PLO Series. It's David Eldridge, forty fifth
Big PLO Player, also aware of the PLO Series. They
both have one cash. They're sitting just outside the top forty.
Hopefully they come to the PLO Series, get their way
in and maybe push some some of the people out
that are just kind of sitting on that fringe. So
I do like this top three cash rule does open
it up more. You know, we're looking at Sam Laskowitz's
in he's currently sixtieth.
Speaker 1: Sorry, yeah, and there are some people within the top
forty who don't meet that qualification yet. But I think
would well, he'll be favorites to meet it just just
talking with them and knowing that they're going to be
playing stuff. You mentioned Jonathan Tomile, you know he's got
two so he needs another one. But but he's aware,
as you said, I know, Brian Kim is aware. He's
also got two cashes. You know, he's been sending some
messages being like, hey, you know, when's this, when's this,
and you know, I'm looking for my third cash, et cetera.
So he's someone Matthew lemb.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say he played I think six
of the Polo the Masters events, Pucker Masa's events, didn't
get a cash, but he knows what he knows he
needs one more so he was trying maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And some of these other guys are just they're
PLO guys, you know, So I would like Elie Nakash.
He's a PLO guy, right, So you know PLO series
coming up, Super high Rollable PLO, the Texas PLO series,
so like you know, they can just you know, rip
off a cash or two in that sort of stuff
if they're playing that sort of stuff and then they're
in right, So so yeah, so it's it's going to
be interesting to see how it all shakes out overall.
I mean, I'm looking forward to it. You had most
of the people I put down nine names that I
was surprised or outside the top forty. You mentioned Chidwick,
You mentioned Fox, and you mentioned Soball, you mentioned Hackston.
I think Liechtenberger, Chris Brewer, Carrie Katz the two that
I had that you didn't mention Eric Sidel sixty fifth.
I know he doesn't put in like the most volume
on the PGT, but he always seems to perform very well.
So and we obviously know Eric's Sidel is very good.
The guy's a legend, so I'm just kind of surprised
to see him outside the top the top forty. He's
currently sixty fifth. And then Victoria Livshitz, who has put
in the volume and does have you know, a handful
of results, but not the biggest results, right, Like she
won an event, but it was during the PGT Texas
poke Ropen, so not the biggest or not the most
amount of points, so stuff like that, you know, but
like she made the final table of the twenty five
k to wrap up Poker Masters. She had some results
there like she's she's performing well, she's putting in the volume.
She just needs to kind of you know, for her,
I guess it's gonna be it's gonna be one of
two things. Either she's gonna find a big win somehow,
some way, right, like she's gonna show up to I
don't know. Maybe it's the Bounty Series, Maybe it's Last Chance.
Maybe she plays the NAPT Super high Roller, which does count.
We're going to talk about that in a second, but
you know, and maybe she gets a first second or
a third in something there and like she gets the
big point toll that she needs, or for her, it's
just going to be a volume game, right, you know,
she's going to have five to ten more cases and
just add up the points and then get in that way.
So I would expect you see a fair amount of
these these players get into the top forty. But but
of course, you know, you never know at the end
of the day. So you know, as always, Tim and
I will keep an eye on that. And then I
did tease it the NAPT Las Vegas turning to Resorts World.
So the twenty twenty four Poker Masters had a partnership
this year has a partnership this year where it's presented
by the Poker Stars NAPT That allowed for the winner
of the Poker Masters and that is Jim Collopy. He
picked up a gold pass which was again valued at
ten thousand dollars. It includes a fifty three hundred dollars
buy in to the napt Las Vegas Main Event, up
to seven nights of a hotel accommodations at Resorts World,
and then eighteen hundred dollars in expense money. So Collopy
was able to pick that up in addition to the
Purple Jacket and the twenty five KPGT passport bonus. November
one through tenth at Resorts World is when napt Las
Vegas returns. I'm a fan of the time slot much
earlier than f one, which the construction has started. It's
a bit of a mess out there. It's a bit
of a mess out there on this Vegas strip. This
year's buying for the napt Las Vegas Main Event fifty
three hundred dollars. Last year, Remember Tim and I had
a lot of thoughts on this. Sixteen hundred and fifty
was the buy I had a one point five million
dollar guarantee, so big increase very much in line with
with two things. One, it's in line with what the
old NAPT used to do, you know, before it went
away for several years. And it's also in line with
the EPT you know, fifty three hundred dollars like that's
right in line. The guarantee doubled from fifteen hundred up
to three million dollars. What are your thoughts on the
buying going up and the guarantee now being three mil.
Speaker 3: I think that you know, you're the biggest advocate for
the five K buying price point, and I think there's.
Speaker 1: Just a void. There's a void there in the US market.
I will I will die on this hill, even though
many people disagree with me. Some people say, you know,
thirty five hundred dollars is the correct price point? Whatever,
I think the five K there is a market for this,
and maybe the PGT should be involved.
Speaker 3: But this is definitely a market because you've got people
that play you know, fifteen hundreds, et cetera, that can
take that would take a shot, you know, the three K.
There's not much difference for people that play the highest
off the ten k's five K is I step down,
but there's bigger fields bigger value there, so I think
it is a good price point. It's perfect for this event.
Three million seems about right. Obviously, this is their first
shot out of five k, so we'll see where the
guarantee falls in line with how many players show up.
Speaker 1: Well they are. They are awarding I think upwards of
one hundred gold passes, so you'll get one hundred quote
unquote qualifiers via the gold passes to get into this event,
so you'll you'll have that to banker.
Speaker 3: They need what six hundred ish entrance or another five
hundred outside of the goal pass winners. I think it's
a great price point. I will not be part taking.
It's a little out of my budget, but for the
I will be.
Speaker 1: They got my money, and I'm far from you. I
will be on poker steak dot com.
Speaker 2: Let me rephrase this, which I'm pretty.
Speaker 1: I actually listed the events last night, so they are
which you can also do, sir, And you could play
for ten percent of yourself in.
Speaker 3: The play and that's why you'll find me in tonight.
It's two hundred dollars south point. Notly, you're just a
much better poker player than me, and I have I
have finally realized that my my max is like one K.
Unless it's like the WSP main event. I'm just gonna
play within my bubble. I don't want to try and
get better. I just want to play. I just want
to enjoy myself.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, Like, I'm not going to out
go out there and fire every single five K under
the sun. I'm not there yet and I'm not comfortable
in doing that. I'm not confident in my own play
doing that yet. But there are exceptions to the rule,
Like I think this event will draw a very good field,
a very valuable field that I'm willing to take a
shot here, right like when when you have a five
K with a three million dollar guarantee. It's in Las Vegas,
it's got Poker Stars in the napt branding, it obviously
has as a qualifier funnel both through satellites on the
Poker Stars platforms that are available most notably Michigan, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, and then also the gold Pass element
to things, you know, Like, I think there's gonna be
enough value there that I can take a shot in
this field, you know, So just like just like I'll
take a shot in the WSP main event, just like
I'll take a shot in, you know, the WPT World Championship.
Like these would be my three biggest buy ins of
the year. I just I think that they're they're good value,
you know, out of those, Out of these three, the
toughest I would say is probably the WPT World Championship,
then the NAPT Las Vegas main event, then the WSFP
Maine event.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: But for people like maybe you or others out there,
there are a bunch of other events. There's a five
hundred fifty dollars Mystery Bounty, it has a three hundred
K guarantee. There's a five hundred and fifty dollars NAPT
Cup also has a three hundred K guarantee. Yeah, there's
an eleven hundred dollars run good Open, four hundred K
guarantee in that one. So you know, there are a
bunch of options. I know, there's I think there's a
five hundred fifty dollars maybe it's five hundred, I don't
know the price point exactly, but Heroes event. There's also
a five to fifty eight game event, right, So, like
there's a lot of stuff on the schedule. There's a
I think there's a two hundred and fifty dollars event
three sixty maybe on there. So there's there's stuff for everyone.
On the higher end of things, the twenty five thousand
dollars Super high Roller and the ten thousand, three hundred
dollars high Roller are both now again in partnership with
Poker gro and the Poker Stars n APT Those two
events are PGT qualifying events, so you know, likely going
to get plenty of our players firing. I mean, they're
likely going to fire into the fifty three hundred dollars anyway,
you know. So now maybe they take that shot in
these two events as well. You know, somebody like a
like a Jeremy Becker for example, who now you know,
popped his cherry playing his first ever twenty five K.
Maybe we see him play this twenty five K as well,
you know, stuff like that, Especially somebody like a Jeremy Becker,
where you know, as Tim and I just talked about,
is right outside the top forty looking in, so if
he can get points, it benefits him. So you know,
with these players, you know, making the push to make
that top forty and make the million dollar championship at
the end of the PGT season. They volume helps, so
I would think that you're going to get a lot
of these people that do get into the ten thousand,
three hund dollars high Roller and the twenty five thousand
dollars Super high Roller. So those are on the schedule
for NAPT Las Vegas. I think they have I think
if you include the qualifiers that they have to the
various tournaments, there's like thirty six events, which is more
than they had last year. So I'm very much looking
forward to this series. I can't wait. I heard it's
in a new ballroom.
Speaker 2: By the way, as in upstairs.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, yeah, yeah, I just think it's in a
different ballroom. That's what I heard. I mean, I don't
know even if it's in the same ballom, it doesn't matter.
That place was awesome, you know. I'm just I'm just
saying that that, like even that it's not like they're
they're upgrading. So so yeah, so it sounds like you
and I will both be there playing in some capacity.
I can't wait. I think it's gonna be fun. I
think it's gonna be a good, a really good series.
So that's a NAPT Las Vegas November first through tenth
at Resorts World, just down the street from where we
normally are at the Poker Growth Studio. PokerStars Live dot
com slash NAPT slash Las Vegas, if you guys want
to check out the schedule, and then also you need
to remind everyone who's in Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
to keep your eyes posted to the Poker Stars lobby
for qualifiers, for opportunities to win NAPT gold passes and
all of that good stuff. Keeping it in the same
vein with Poker Stars. Gonna head over the pond to
recap EPT Barcelona, which the main event was another freaking banger.
Barcelona just crushes every single year. Stevensong one of our
goats one the EPT Barcelona main event for one million
at two hundred and ninety thousand euros which is one
million fourn twenty five thousand dollars. He chopped it heads
up with Andrew Hume I believe is the player's name.
They chopped it heads up. A song ended up coming
out on top nineteen hundred and seventy five entries in
this main event five k euro price points. They had
massive field in the estrellas like championship event that they
do there, all the high rollers show out well. I mean,
it's just Barcelona. This Barcelona stop is one of the best.
If you, you know, are forwarded the opportunity to be
able to go there, I would highly encourage you to
do so. It's in a great location, great time of year,
the casinos one hundred feet from the beach. The fields
are tremendous value. You know, it always does extremely well
in terms of drawing like more recreational players. Doesn't matter
to the buy in. It could be a five point
fifty euro it could be the hunter k doesn't matter.
You're going to get a lot of recks in there
that are blasting away, so tremendous value overall. Stephen Song
is what the greatest big field MTT player ever, not
one of I mean just some highlights from from Song's
career and I guess you know right before EBT Barcelona
has a super deep run on the wu Maniement this year,
you know, speaking of big field MTTs twenty nineteen at
EPT Barcelona coincidentally a twenty two hundred euro Nolan at
hold Them he won it topped five hundred ninety nine
entries there one hundred and eighty five thousand euro or
two hundred and five thousand dollars same year, twenty nineteen
first place out of twenty four hundred and seventy seven
entries in a WSP. I believe this was a one
K event, three hundred and forty one thousand dollars for Song.
Twenty two w twenty twenty two WSP five thousand dollars
six max. At the WSP nine hundred and twenty entries,
Song got second for four hundred and seventy six thousand dollars.
The WPT Prime Championship in twenty twenty two, five thy
four hundred and thirty entries, Song won it all for
seven hundred and twelve thousand dollars, and then twenty twenty
three the WSB Circuit event in Chicago, seventeen hundred dollars
main event, Song first out of six hundred and fifty
two entries for one hundred and eighty three thousand dollars.
Song is an absolute crusher. There is a reason why
Matt Clark and I draft him in twenty five K
Fantasy and hopefully we get the opportunity to do it again.
Although people might becoming wise to mister song the field
bonus king our goat. As I mentioned, the guy is
just a freaking crusher. If he's able to get a
hold of chips in a big field tournament. I mean
it's like good luck to the rest of the field, really, right,
I mean, like, how does he rank to you in
terms of a big field MTT crusher?
Speaker 3: I mean these results just speak for themselves, right, He's
an absolute base. Who can we talk about that currently
plays such high volume, that does this Like he used
to be dominating the sky, but he doesn't play that
much anymore. So, I mean he may have Stevensung may
have the hand on the crown right now, maybe just
about to put it on.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure who else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say Adrian Matteos, but he's kind of
pushed to hy rollers now, so.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean somebody that sticks out is Joe McKeon,
has has crushed in big fields over the years, obviously
be main event winner and has crushed a bunch of
other stuff. Darren Elias just with all the WPT toils.
The wpts are big fields, right, I mean Darren won
some small wpts as well. He won one in the
Caribbean that was really small, and he won one at
Aria that was on the smaller side. But he's also
crushed in big fields plenty of times. More recently, probably
Andrew Moreno comes to mind. You know, he had obviously
the huge breakout victory for him when he won the
WPT or sorry it wasn't a WPT, he won the
win millions, and then you know, he just continues to
crush in really anything that has a massive field. So
there's him, Brian Altman like always seems to does it.
I feel like anytime there's a WPT here, there's a
big event at Seminole or whatever it is, you know,
Brian even w CB circuit stuff like Brian Altman is
in the mix, you know. So so yeah, you know
there's there's all those guys. But I I still think
like out of all those people that we mentioned, I mean,
songs on top, I'd probably have to dive in a
little bit further and like really break it down, but
I mean song seems like the guy right, And it's
just it's incredible to with how much variance there is
in poker tournaments. And then you add in the fact
that when you get to hundreds, if not thousands of
players in the field, like the variance that is then added,
like it's just wild that he's able to continue to
crush at such a high level. And it it it
sounds like like from what I saw that he'll be
at n APT Las Vegas. He listed i think on
poker Steake the twenty five k super high Roller and
the ten K high Roller and then he's probably just
gonna play the five k on his own of course,
so he'll be there for that and maybe we see
you know, some more PGT related stuff even time you
tell me you're the commissioner. I mean, he had the
deep run in the main event, right.
Speaker 3: Just lost series, So yeah, he's that's pretty far out,
but I mean just takes a couple of results, you
back in contention, you know, well we're we're one hundred
and sixty seventh, but he's like four hundred points out
of like being in that that qualifying tier of forty
eligible players.
Speaker 1: So so I mean it could if he's if he's
able to put up some results at this at n
APT Las Vegas, if he's playing the twenty five k
in the ten k, like if he can find you know,
a decent cash in one, if not both of those events,
like that'll be a nice little boost and then you
go from there, right, So what else we got? Oh
abt Barcelona game integrity rule changes. So heading into the series,
I know Kenny Hollard who has worked with Poker Stars before.
I'm not sure if he still like officially works with them,
but anyway, he put on Twitter slash acts no use
of gto solver slash charts are similar anywhere in the
whole tournament area at any time, also not for spectators.
And then from the Poker Stars tournament rules it says
players are not permitted to use at the table or
anywhere in the tournament room area at any time. Game
theory optimal in then parenthese's gto solver software GTO charts,
whether used on electronic devices or otherwise, or any AI
tool or similar algorithmic software that is capable of affording
the user a competitive advantage in the tournament. That is
an absolute mouthful of a sentence and needs like seventeen
commas and they're not there. We also don't allow any
spectator to make any use of electronic devices with solvers
inside the poker tournament area. So it seems like the
Poker Stars and more specifically the EPT is the first
to like really take a crack at this in terms
of like putting it on their books. I mean, I
still have questions. I would I you know, my first
question would be like, well, what's the penalty, right? I mean,
is it is it one hand? Is it are you?
Are you warned first? Is it a hand? Is it
a full round? Are you kicked out of the tournament?
I mean I don't, I don't know, so I guess
TBD on that and unless there was stuff that I
just haven't seen yet. So there's that. And then I
just I wonder about the language that just says when
it says tournament area. And I always cite the win
with this because I play there a lot and I
know the situation as the floor is laid out, the
tournament floor, which is now right outside the poker room,
like it's on the carpet, which gaming floors are on
the carpet, like literally five feet from the edge of
the tables, there's tile and that's a walkway, and like
you know, they always say that like on the tiles
that's where like the kids can walk. But on the carpet.
The kids can't go on the carpet, right, So it's like,
is so is in like that case, is it that
close that I can just walk three feet one direction
and be quote unquote outside of the tournament area? So
I'm I don't know. Or is it like when you
walk into the casino you can't be on your phone?
Like I mean, you know, it's like I have I
have questions there? So yeah, I mean, how what do
you think you're you're a little bit more I guess
in these streets, you know, you deal with all the
PGT stuff and whatnot. You talk to the players a
bit more. So what are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: I feel like the way it's written is a little vague.
You mentioned what is the tournament area? Is that technically
could be the entire casino, could be the car park, right,
you need to find that a little better. What is
game theory? Optimal solver software? I might argue that I
learn a lot on Instagram. So if I feel like
Instagram is has gto stuff. If I'm following gto Wizard
on Instagram and they're putting out pictures with chart examples,
you know, then if I is that GTO solver software.
It's just really open to interpretation. The biggest issue I
have with all of these things is always how do
you police it? You know, are you hiring people, are
you expecting the dealers, are you expecting the floors. If
I'm sitting next to you and you're on GTO with It,
I'm going to call you out right, But habit, if
you're on you're checking your budget your family budget on
Google ducs, or you're checking your GTO charts on Google ducks,
am I just going to call the floor over like hey,
for he's cheating? You know, Like it just it opens
up so many issues, and like, yeah, if it could
work perfectly, if there was if it was able to
be easily policed, I'd be all for it. But personally, like,
if this comes up on the PGT and you know what,
it hasn't because we still see people looking at the stuff.
And I have no issues with people using you know,
any solvers, any anything to help them get better, because
I think it's a fair plan and even playing field.
Everyone can sign up to OCTUPI, they can sign up
to GTO with It, they can sign up to Pilo Mastermind.
You know, everyone has the equal chance to do this.
I would just say the easiest rule is, you know,
no phone usage while you have a lie while you're
in a hand like a live hand. And that even
needs to finding because you know when the cards are
getting dealt out technically your hands live, but you might
be sending a text message or checking something. I think
that's fine. It's when you're committing chips to a part
when you're playing a hand, you shouldn't be able to
look at your phone. In case this chart, that's an
easy way to police it. I don't think you need
to get up. I think you can sitting your seat
and look at gto Wizard as long as you're out
of a hand. So that's how I would enforce it.
On the PGT. We haven't really had anything come up recently,
but that's how that's my approach to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just it's gonna be
something that needs to be continually ironed out, you know,
and like the rules are going to need to be
molded however people want to mold those going forward. I
did just want to bring this up as it relates
to you know, Poker Stars and the EPT because it
does seem like they're the first to kind of take
a crack at some new verbiage in terms of this rule.
I mean, the EPT is I think, always at the
forefront of everything in many cases, and sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't. And I only say that because you know,
for example, was it first card off the deck? Seemed
like a total disaster back in the day. But you know,
like there's stuff like that. But you know, if they
feel like it's in the in the the benefit of
the game and the players, then then I think they're
going to try it, and we can sit here on
the sidelines and see how it works out. You know,
I don't I agree with you that I don't think
it's an issue in our PGT events, But that's also
not to say that it might not become an issue
at some point. So you know, worth worth monitoring, worth
you know, staying up to date. But but yeah, well
we'll see how this this plays out, and we'll see
if you know, other big tour operators World Poker Tour,
wsp et cetera, adopt you know, similar stances, similar language
as we see on on the EPT with this sort
of stuff, maybe you know it's going to take a
few iterations of the language of the ruling from the
EPT to kind of get their their final you know,
hardened stance on where everything is, and we'll see how
that goes. Obviously, this is going to be a talking
point heading into next summer, next World Series of Poker,
because this all blew up as a result of the
World Series of Boger. I guess if you're the WSOP specifically,
and your officials there, like the the one kind of
saving grace that you have is that it happened right
at the end of your series and you didn't have
to deal with it, like in the moment. You can
take a breath, sit back and see how things play out,
have longer conversations, be an observer of what places like
the EPTR are doing with these rule changes, and then
craft your messaging your rulings entering next summer so that
benefits them. They can they can just chill out and
be like, Okay, let's see how this works out. Let's
see how that works out. Let's talk to the operators,
get some thoughts and opinions, and then and then we'll
talk about things. But because this was such a big
deal coming out of the main event, thewas Man event
this year. Then I think, you know, coming into next summer,
while it's it's it's died down on the w SP
front right now, it's going to rear its head once again.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are going to bring
it up, like, oh hey, how about the rules? Is
this going to be addressed? You know, we're a week
out from the WSP. Is this what's the rule here?
So we'll see how that all goes. So part of
this is just stay tuned and we'll talk about it
more as it comes. This episode of the Poker Gol
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crypto is easy. So our next topic here, the WPT
announces dates. But I thought they already announced dates, So
so the WPT on September sixteenth, So a couple of
days ago announced the specific dates for the four big
events at the WPT World Championship. They announced that the
WPT World Championship, that is the ten four an event,
will take place December fourteenth through twenty first, the WPT
Prime Championship December eighth through fourteenth, the Ladies Championship December
fourteenth through fifteenth, and then the Seniors Championship will take
place December eighteenth through nineteenth. Back on April fourth, several
months ago, they announced that the WPT World Championship would
take over Las Vegas at WIN Las Vegas from December
third through twenty third, so December third through twenty third
of the overall series dates and then I just outlined
the specific dates for those four tournaments. They also included
in the messaging that the full schedule will be announced
in one week, so next to Monday or Tuesday. Yeah,
we're getting the full schedule. Obviously. The big thought here
is that or is how does this align with Dobasipy
Paradise Wasipy Paradise If everyone remembers December sixth through nineteenth,
the two biggest events as it would pertain to conflict
with the WPT World Championship are the twenty five thousand
dollars Super Main Event and the ten thousand dollars GG
Millions Championship. The Super Main Event that is, of course,
the event that has the fifty million dollars guaranteed prize pool,
that takes place December twelfth through nineteenth. If you look
on WSP dot com, you can see that that has
four starting flights across December twelfth through fifteenth. And then
you have the ten thousand dollars GG Millions Championship that
has a five million dollar guarantee and that takes place
December sixteenth through nineteenth, and there are four flights across
December sixteenth through eighteenth, so a little bit of overlap there.
It does look to me that the WBT did time
it where you could play the Super main Event and
if you bomb out on all the starting flights, or
maybe even if you bust out on day two, you
can still hop on a plan and get back. But
we don't know the like if they're doing two flights,
three flights, four flights, whatever they're doing for the WPT
World Championship. So it does look like, you know, the
WPT is kind of aligning there. So we'll see. I mean,
what do you think? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Kind of initially, obviously we don't know what the guarantee
of the World Championship main event is, right.
Speaker 2: WPT could it be?
Speaker 1: And I'll get that next.
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna I'm gonna bet a lot of money
that it's more than the five million of the ten
KGG millions Championship. So if you're a poker player, would
you rather play a five million dollar guarantee of enn
for ten k or a potentially forty million dollar event
for ten k? I'm probably gonna go with the forty million.
I'm now looking at this and like analyzing the dates.
I am so much more bullish on the WBT World
Championship than I was originally. I don't think this ten
kgg millions is anathy. The only reason you would play
that is if you were not coming to Vegas at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it could be a question of where
do you think the value is? Right?
Speaker 2: So the value is the win?
Speaker 1: See, I don't know. And I say that because listen,
I recall last year and the year before I play
at the win. Almost every time they have a series,
I play with them in a lot. They were constantly
pumping WPT World Championship satellites. Last year you saw a
crap ton of whether it was Andrew Nimi, brad Owen, Rampage, whoever,
playing on WPT Global. I mean that they had Jeff
Platt playing on WPT global, like you know, playing these
qualifier events. I don't know if I'm just missing the
marketing on that, but I just I don't feel like
I see it.
Speaker 3: This difference is you're switched on and aware of these things.
Are we really sure ninety percent of the poker players
are also noticing these things?
Speaker 2: Because I'm going to say, no, they're not noticing that stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I yeah, but I I think like I
think a poker player would would know like the big
hitting topics like oh, they're going to qualify five hundred players.
But if you don't see that anymore, then how do
you know whereas WSP is pushing, they're who plays. I
don't know, man, Talking to these guys, I think I
think they're fairly into it. I mean, I know they
blank on a lot of stuff, but I think this
sort of stuff, you know, I think there are right,
So I think there's gonna be I think there might
be more value in that in that ten K plus. Listen,
you're already there, you know, you probably already send some
sort of package or whatever to get into the room.
You know, the discounts that you can get into. They
also have this million dollar invitational, the Super Savior, a
million dollar free roll thing that takes place on December eighteenth.
Speaker 2: So let this one.
Speaker 1: There's things that keep you there in the Bahamas, So
you know, I just find it interesting also, like I
think part of it might be wait and see. And
what I mean by that is like you might go
to the Bahamas with the plan to leave on December
fifteenth or sixteenth, and say, now, let's just change my
flight because the field's down here incredible, Like I don't know,
you know, so we'll see. I mean a lot of
it's going to depend on probably how many package winners.
GG Poker says that they're sending to this sort of stuff,
So I don't know. I think it's interesting how it
all lines up. What I will say is that now
we don't have the guarantee for the WPT yet. Okay,
it was fifteen million dollars in twenty twenty two. They
got like twenty eight million in it. Then they went
to forty million and they missed. They got like thirty
eight million, right, they missed by two or two and
a half million or whatever. Last year, the WPT World
Championship ran December twelfth through twenty first, which was ten days.
This year December fourteenth through twenty first is only eight days.
So they had four starting flights last year. Are they
going to have fewer starting flights this year to fit
into the eight day window versus the ten day window?
Are they gonna chop off a day from the back end?
You know last year they had two, three, four, five, six,
then the final table. Do you just like take out
day six for example, but then you still need to
take out one more day somewhere. So also, you know,
the structure for the wt World Championship has been sixty
minute levels on day one, ninety minute levels on day two. Personally,
I felt like the structure is a little too good.
Maybe I'm crazy for saying that as a player, but
I feel like you could get away with sixties on
day one and day two, maybe seventy fives on the
day two. So you know, my question is knowing that
they've allotted two fewer days to this year's event versus
last year, Like what is where is the change going
to come from? And then also I feel like if
you come in with two fewer days for the event,
there's no way you're going to come anywhere near the
guarantee that you did last year. So while you're bullish,
I'm bearish on the guarantee aspect.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, theologic makes makes sense. Yeah, we we
don't know how they're changing, you know, maybe they're doing yeah,
less starting flights, but.
Speaker 1: They had they had three starting flights the first year,
and then last year they had.
Speaker 3: Four starting Maybe they go back to three, but they
play a little later, you know, they play a little
deepest so people can bus.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's three with unlimited reentry, because I think
it was one.
Speaker 2: Remember they add that. Maybe they add day two registration,
you don't know.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it was freeze out per flight. I can't remember.
Speaker 2: It definitely wasn't unlimited entry, so oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure it wasn't unlimited entry. And I want
to even say it was freeze out per flight.
Speaker 3: You could anat I mean, chopping at day six off
somewhere is very easy, Like you's got to change the
level here or there, or keep them at sixty minute levels,
stuff like that. So yeah, we really have to wait
to see how it. You know, I just hope they
don't drop the guarantee, keep it the same.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I just don't see how there's any
way that they dropped the guarante. They don't drop the guarantee.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know has there been any We
would have to go through the last twenty years of
WPT history, but has there any been any times where
they've done something like this where they've had a big
guarantee and dropped it, Like you know, seminoles seems to
be the main place for guarantees on the WPT, But
have they ever gone back?
Speaker 2: Is it precedent?
Speaker 1: No, not that I can think of. But you know,
is there precedent for going from fifteen million to forty
You don't know. So it's like that, and it's in
the in and of itself is a massive outlier, like
you would you would never jump to that, So it's
almost like you could probably just phrase it if you
pull back, which I am anticipate that they are. You know, listen,
we tried, we missed, We understand the climate, not a
big deal. But if we roll out twenty five million,
that's still huge. Like it's not you know, like that's
I think you just kind of have to take it
on the chin and own it, as opposed to if
you're if you try and hide it or deflect, I
think it just ends up looking worse for you versus
if you know, you just say, yeah, we tried to
go to forty, we missed, we understand the climate in
that timeframe, and you know we're going to go this
direction because we think that that's beneficial. And I think
you can then shift the messaging too. You know, at
the WPT we always put the players first, and they've
always said that the players are first. So once you like,
in a way admit defeat on the guarantee battle in December,
then you just shift it back to the player experience stuff, right,
And I think that's how you can how you can
ultimately win as best as you're going to win, if
not win overall. So that's what I would do. That's
the messaging that I would I would put forth. But
I don't think if you like try and hide that,
you're pulling back. It's it's gonna work. And I don't
think that if you come out with forty again, it's
gonna work. I mean, unless they have some crazy way
to do it. But you know, I just I just
couple the fact that I see two less days being
announced for it. I haven't seen as many qualifiers being
pushed for this sort of stuff. So I'm just I'm
curious for what's happening, you know. So, and I think
I think whin Las Vegas recently they dropped their Fall
Classic schedule, which takes place in October October fourth through
twenty eighth, and there's there's a satellite on the schedule,
satellite to the WPT World Championship. Three seats, I mean, yeah,
but I feel like these were just like there was
multiple five seat guarantees or there was a three and
then a five, like on all of their stuff, and
now it's just again, it just doesn't feel like they're
pushing it enough, which which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
It just tells me that that there's not the motivation
to push it because the guarantee ultimately won't.
Speaker 2: Be that big.
Speaker 1: Like if you know you have a forty million dollar
guarantee that you got to hit that you missed the
last year. You got to be throwing out satellites, you know, left,
right and center. So that's where I'm at with that.
So I think that, you know, it seems like we're
close in terms of the WPT guarantee being announced. I
will say this, they're doing a damn good job of
making sure that we talk about it over and over again.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The more they the more they hold out, you know,
the more they just put the breadcrumbs out there, the
more we continue to be like, where is this, Let's
talk about it some more, you know. So so I guess,
you know, kudos to them. I don't know if they
do that on purpose or if that just happened to
be a byproduct of it all. But it's working, okay,
it's it's working. And then just quickly on, So the
WPT Prime Championship same days, even days last year versus
seven days this year. Last year was the seventh through
the twelfth. This year is the eighth through the fourteenth.
So there's that, or sorry, last year was the seventh
through the twelfth. Then they delayed the final table to
the nineteenth, so so that'll be the same. And then
I also thought it was interesting that that last year
the Ladies Championship was three days and this year they
only have two days, So are they, you know, anticipating
a smaller turnout for that event as well. Last year
was December sixth through eighth. This year is December fourteenth
through fifteenth, is what they're listing. So so yeah, we'll
see how that all goes. But that could also be
maybe they do like a December fourteenth and fifteenth and
delay the final table. But I mean, but wouldn't you
put that on the schedule, Yes, you know, to let
people know that if you come out and play this
in final table, you might have to wait a week.
I think they should go nuts with this opener. If
they bring it back, the six hundred dollar opener, I
think it should be like a two and a half
or a three million dollar guarantee. I think they should
go nuts with the Prime Championship. That one K you know,
it got more than ten thousand entries last year it
was a five million dollars guarantee. Obviously blew that out
of the water. I think they should just come with
a ten million dollar guarantee.
Speaker 2: There, WHOA, that's big.
Speaker 1: That's how That's how I would attack this. I would say, okay,
because if you if you look at the WSFP Paradise
schedule and we've gone over this, the buy ins are massive. Yeah,
the lowest buyan is twenty five hundred dollars the lowest
buying like it's not like you know, and but that's
understandable because are you really going to travel to the
Bahamas to Atlantis, where we know it can be pricey,
and then just play a bunch of five hundreds? No,
I mean you're you're gonna play big stuff. Yeah, right,
so like you're gonna go down there, You're gonna play
a twenty five k, a ten kf five K, one
hundred k, fifty k, like all that sort of stuff. Now,
if you're WBT in the win, go the other way,
you know z when these people are zigging like you know,
so then you can you go nuts with like the
the one K Prime Championship, which aligns with everything that
I've seen from the World Poker Tour in the last
year a year and a half. Everything's been prime prime prime,
and it's been like less main tour, So push that.
So I would come out swinging with the six hundred
dollars one at the start last year was six dollars
one million dollar guarantee. I think they could easily do
six hundred two and a half or six hundred three
million easy. I think that's easy. And then I would
double the one k, make it a ten million dollar guarantee,
and I would swing for the fences there, which which
also takes less pressure off you pulling back on the
guarantee for the World Championship event, because if you say, hey,
we're pulling back here, but we're amplifying this stuff over there.
Because they already know the big players, they should have
a good idea that the big players are probably going
to go to the Bahama, But how do you get
the people that aren't going to the bombs? You have
a one K ten million dollar guarantee, that's what you do, Yeah,
or make it a one K fifteen million dollar guarantee
of your funeral? All right, seven man, they didn't settle
on last year. I would tell you that you have
a better chance of hitting a one K fifteen million
dollar guarantee versus hitting a ten K forty million dollar guarantee.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, probably.
Speaker 1: So anyway, all right, let's move on. Final little segment here.
Questions for you, buddy, Questions for you. I got five
of them, Okay, I want you to answer these seriously, okay,
like put your professional cap on. Don't just give me
the jokes, uring you be serious. The first question has
to do with the last topic that we just talked about,
WPT World Championship. We have the dates for the series,
we have the dates for the festival. I told you
that they're two less days for the World Championship than
the World last year. My first question is if it's
up to you, you're in charge, and you can, you
can say that you're in charge of WPT, You're in
charge of win whatever it is. You're in charge of
the guarantee. If the guarantee misses, it's on you, buddy,
it's on you. It's on your company. So if the
guarantees on you, what is the number you are coming with?
And we will see with your right Because they said
next week we're getting the guarantee.
Speaker 3: I mean I already touched on it. I wouldn't go
back down. I'll keep it at forty million. The fact
you're telling you I have to pay for it myself
out of my pocket.
Speaker 1: Well, no, the company, like you're in charge of you No,
I get it.
Speaker 3: I would have Can we go back twelve months where
I started a very intensive satellite program to make sure
we have hundreds of qualifiers because here.
Speaker 1: Because clearly that's not the case, Like clearly all that
stuff has happened. So because because that stuff would have
been already happening and we would have seen it. So
right now, like let's say you're in charge of WPT
and WIN offices. You're in all these meetings, right You're
you're the top dog. You're Adam Pliska, Like they're coming
to you with their suggestions, their analysis, whatever. But you
have to make the final call. You have to say, like, Okay,
I've taken all the information in, I've reviewed it all.
I got it. This is the number we're going with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going with forty.
Speaker 1: Wow, you're insane. You are out of your mind.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't, I honestly cannot believe. I can't believe this
is a This is not a real answer for you.
Speaker 2: Do you think I'm comfortable with it?
Speaker 3: Not?
Speaker 1: You are a knit There is no way you're going
forty million.
Speaker 3: Going forty But like I said, if you're going to
put me in charge, that means we also have the
ability to go back in time a year.
Speaker 1: And no, you don't have the ability to go back
in time right now.
Speaker 3: I'm not going down. I'm not I'm not losing this battle.
Speaker 1: Do you think that let's say, let's say they've decided
on forty, do you think they could still like roll
out satellites and stuff. I mean we still yeah, twentieth, Yeah,
you have some time.
Speaker 3: You just go crazy on WPT Global. You you work
with all your partners around the world in Leuchtenstein and
Australia and run satellites like give like every seat is valuable,
you know, And there's there's once like we talk about
this once. You know, once you have some you hit
say twenty five satellite qualifiers, you make a big deal
about it. Then you hit the fifty, then you make
a big deal about it, You push it on. You
just keep you just ramp up as much promotion as
possible to promote that, Hey, we have I don't know,
I don't want to use the word dead money, but
we have some dead money in this. We have satellite
qualifiers and one there set for twenty dollars or a
free roll, and you look you're a bit behind the
eight ball.
Speaker 2: But doesn't mean you can't. You don't just give up.
Speaker 3: You have two months, right, well three months, you two
and a bit months whatever to really just go ham
on doing as much as you can to make sure
you don't miss that guarantee. Tell when more milestone. We
need a weekly use milestone satellies. We need step programs global,
we need step programs and milestones and everything. Just to
be all in, you have to be like two x
three x all in triple punt shoving.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we obviously don't know what the guarantee is,
I mean, if the guarantee is fifteen million, then then
that's stuff that you're talking about. They're just not going
to do, probably right, But let's say you did. You
did settle on a big guarantee. I mean, you could
even do things like if you play the Prime Championship,
you get break free entry to the World Championship, like
like stuff like that. Yeah, you know, it's just I mean, yeah,
I know that that obviously costs money, but marketing costs money.
I mean that's just the world we live in. So
all that sort of stuff. I think I will be
very interested to see what they come with. Of course
they said they said we're getting the full schedule a
week from this announcement, which happened a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: Set with thirty five million.
Speaker 1: The reason why I would be upset with thirty five
millions because I think that is a very stupid number.
Five million is like thirty five million is like if
you're gonna do thirty five, you just do forty first
of all, Like, there's what is five million?
Speaker 2: It's five million?
Speaker 3: But like if they drop it, like what are they
going to jump it to?
Speaker 1: If you drop it, I think you go twenty five,
twenty or twenty five, which is an increase over the
first year, which I think can help you be like, listen,
we took our shot last year. We missed. You know,
maybe maybe it wasn't the correct course of action to
go from fifteen million to forty million, which I think
you and I would both agree, and we talked about
this before. Was wild that you would ever do that,
Like just absolutely wild. I mean, if we're going to
wind back the clock, which is what you're talking about,
you would you go to thirty million last year? Because
you got twenty eight or twenty nine, right, so you
just up it a little bit and you say, Okay,
we're going thirty like that's what we're doing, you know.
So I think pulling back to twenty five is is
like the community will will. I mean, they might make
a big deal out of it for a day or two,
but honestly they'll get over that. Now, if you do
something insane like come with ten million, I think you're
just then you're like, you're insane in the other direction, right.
But I think if you do pull back, which I
anticipate that they do, I think you need to come
with other stuff. So that's why I say, like, hey, yeah,
we're going twenty or twenty five million for the World Championship,
but we have this ten million dollar one K, we
have this three million dollars six hundred, you know, like
that sort of stuff. I mean, there's there's a WPT
coming up at Seminole in Florida. Their opening event is
a four hundred dollars two million dollar guarantee.
Speaker 2: Jeez.
Speaker 1: So it in my mind, everything that you do at
the quote unquote World Championship Festival of your tour should
be bigger than anything that's done on the rest of
the tour for the rest of the year. That's why
I say, if you open with a six hundred one
million or six hundred two million, I say, well, Seminole
did four hundred two million. Yeah, you gotta go point then,
So I'm like, just you know, six hundred two and
a half, six hundred whatever, you'll hit that. That's it's
easy to hit the numbers on the low buying scale
because that's where the volume comes from in poker. Like
that's why the WSP Colossus, the WSP Gladiator, like the
Mystery Millions, like all that sort of stuff does fifteen
twenty twenty five thousand entries because it's easier to get
entries from those price points than it is to get
entries from the high price points. So that that's where
I would go. So I would I would say, hey, yeah,
we're pulling back, but we're offering this like it's more basically,
we're making the WPT experience, which I think not only
do they hold at the highest regard, I think the
community holds the WPT experience at an extremely high regard.
We're making the WPT experience more accessible to everyone, not
just the ten thousand dollars player, the five thousand dollars player,
et cetera. Like we're making it accessible to the six
hundred dollars player, we're making it accessible to one thousand
dollars player, and everything from from six hundred up to
ten k. The WPT experience, the player experience that we
built the foundation of this company on. That is what
we are pushing and making accessible to everyone. That's how
I would go about it. That's the selling point. Anyway,
back to the questions, So you said forty, there's no shot.
You're out of your mind, all right. You've been really
into fitness and working out lately. We all know you're
you're sending me pictures all the time, like you got
your shirt off. It's just it's you pictures.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about.
Speaker 1: You did send me a picture with your shirt, but
you send me a picture with your shirt off, dripping
sweat in your garage.
Speaker 3: You said coffee, and I'm like soon and I took
a photo. I was still working out, not sending you
pitches out of context.
Speaker 2: Let's get that click.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't ask you to send me a
picture of you naked.
Speaker 2: I was not naked.
Speaker 1: I mean, with how short those shorts were, you were
basically all right. So here's the deal. I saw your
abs in that photo. You don't have a six pack yet.
If I were to give you the option to have
the body from the neck down of Christiano Ronaldo, so
you're chiseled six pack, it's incredible and you could have
that body forever with doing extremely minimal work. You know,
you don't have to like be in the gym four
hours a day to maintain and stuff like that. But
the catch is you have to cut all ties with poker.
You can't work in the industry, you can't play anything,
you can't even be a Poker gro subscriber and watch
the game. Are you accepting the chiseled abs of steel
and the body of Christiano or are you sticking with poker?
Speaker 3: This is the easiest question about it, ask me, and
this answer is no, taking what not taking Christiano's body? Wow,
I can get that eventually, hopefully, fingers cross, I'm not
giving up poker for that. That's too cheap of a
price point six pack.
Speaker 1: Nine, I mean, okay, who knows? All right, if you
had the power to force one poker player to play
a full schedule of PGT events for an entire season.
Who would it be and.
Speaker 3: Why gotta be my boy Phil Ivy. I just want
to see him in the studio playing every event, you know,
I think the go to answer is is feil Helm
with but he does come and play events. So I
want Ivy in the studio grinding five k's grinding ten,
k's grinding, the fifteens, the twenty five is playing everything.
Speaker 2: That's my goal.
Speaker 1: I would say I got a couple. I would say
Jason Mercier, Sean Deeb, Jason kuh I want to see
Coon in the fives and the tents play and everything.
I want to see if he really is the best
of the I mean he probably is the best of
the best, of course, yes, but I want to see
it in action.
Speaker 3: D would be good. I would take Deep over over Kuhn.
I'd take Mercier over D. But I'm also thinking, like Ivy,
I think draws better if he get if he makes.
Speaker 1: At Ivey is obviously a good one, you know, I'm
I I just am picking those other ones because you
took ay, you know, so so yeah. Another one that
somebody brought up recently in one of the YouTube chats
for our live streams Vanessa selves, that's a good one, Like,
you know, have her come back like she was obviously
at the top of her game basically when she walked away, Like,
you know, having her come back, that would be cool
to see her in there battling and seeing how she
she does against the field these days. So so yeah,
all right, same question, but pick an athlete or a celebrity,
so not a poker player. And if you had the
power to force that athlete or celebrity to play a
full schedule of PGT events for an entire season, who
would it be?
Speaker 3: And why is Lebron James? The layup answer here is that,
like would that bring the most cloud or most athlete?
Speaker 1: I mean, Lebron would be amazing, right, I.
Speaker 3: Feel like it has to for thinking about the grow
trying to grow the PGT in a way, I feel
like has to be an American, has to be someone
in sports that has an audience that is in that
age range of that can gamble.
Speaker 1: If you injected, if this worked out, this hypothetical and
you were able to put Lebron James in events, I
would think there would be a lot of people that
would be like if I just go play this five ky,
get to play with Lebron James.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: I mean they that had that like there are there
are you can probably count them, you know what.
Speaker 3: No, no, got a number of people who have that pull.
I think I'm changing my answer. Lebron James is good.
I think Lebron James's audience skews us and younger. Okay,
and it also skews NBA. Like following basketball, you don't
really need a lot of money, you just watch basketball.
I'm thinking I need to think of a richer sport.
So I'm thinking golf. I'm thinking Tiger Woods because the
people that want to sit and play with Tiger Woods
have the money to play ten k's twenty five ks.
So I mentioned you have twenty five's and fifteen's and
fifty k We bring the fifty k's back, bring the
hunter k's back. I think there would be a good
appetite for people that want to play poker with Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods is my answer. Now change it, Lebron, You're out.
Speaker 1: Mine would be a completely selfish answer, but it would
be Charles Barkley because it would be an f.
Speaker 2: And right it would be. That'd be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just him, you know, you know, Barkley Gambles like,
it would just be like absolutely wild.
Speaker 2: That would be a good one. Yeah yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: Not that it would necessarily do anything in the It's
just like more of a selfish answer, but that's what
I would pick, all right. The NFL season is, uh,
moving on to Week three. You're a Broncos fan, so
I mean, you're not going to answer them for this question.
Who is winning the Super Bowl?
Speaker 3: I mean the chunky answer is the Chiefs, right, but
the Jets look pretty okay.
Speaker 2: Last night, so I don't know. I'm going with the Chiefs.
Speaker 3: It's hard to bet against Pat Mahomes.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: How it's a boring answer, but well yeah, but still
I don't want to see the Chiefs wing. I'd rather
say anyone else. Lions would be good, Jets would be
pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: The Lions would be great. I think the Lions are
the Jets, And honestly, if it was, that would be
like my ideal super Bowl matchup Lions versus the Jets,
because both teams are pretty good now, they've just had
a drought forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like.
Speaker 1: Just the the heartbreak and the devastation that those two
fan bases have gone through, and then the chance to
win the Super Bowl, and then you would you would
get guaranteed jubilation and guaranteed heartbreak, like in the same game.
That that's my ideal matchup.
Speaker 2: That is it?
Speaker 1: That is it?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: All right? You got anything else for me?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, We've been talking for hours. Yeah, this is the
longest podcast ever, but it doesn't. Rich good luck, Rich
is right, all right? Cool as always. Oh, I have
to tell people about one more thing. Sorry, and if
they're at the end of this episode, then you know,
great cool NPT Gold Pass giveaway for Poker Goro subscribers.
If you are an annual subscriber to poker Go, you
have a chance to be entered into the NPT Gold
Pass giveaway and then ultimately win a gold pass. So
would highly encourage you to if you are a monthly
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dollars off your first year of a new annual subscription.
The drawing for that is on October first. You have
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an annual subscriber, and then we'll do that drawing. In
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We'll play in the NAPT Las Vegas main event and
hopefully win the damn thing or finished second to me, whatever,
whatever you guys want to do. All right, that's going
to do it for us. Long show, but a good show.
My name is Donny Peters, his name is Tim Duckworth,
and we will talk to you guys later.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Jennie,