Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the
Poker Go Podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Donnie Peters.
Speaker 1: It is Tuesday, June twenty third, twelve forty four am.
The plan for today's show is I'm not really going
to touch on what happened at the World Series of
Poker today. Once again, got onto my computer a little
bit after midnight. I started looking around the tournaments and
stuff is still happening. Like the Milli Maker, I think
it's done for the day in real time, but because
they're on a delay due to the streaming, it's not
really being reported on in real time, of course, so
I don't really know what's happening there. You got the
fifty KPPC is still playing out, This twenty five hundred
dollars tournament still playing out, The one KPLO is still
playing out, so you know, all this stuff is still
playing out. I'm not going to stay up much later
then getting this podcast out of the way and then
trying to get some sleep. So what we're gonna do
on this episode is I'm going to go through the
numbers through the first fifty events. Told you guys, I
had been tracking things. I went through some of the
stuff this evening and kind of put some thoughts together
some maybe I'll formulate it in real time as we
go through them, but I'll touch on the numbers through
the first fifty events. Remember the w SIP this year
is one hundred live poker tournaments, so fifty is exactly
the halfway point. Event Number fifty on the schedule was
the fifteen hundred dollars buy in Millionaire Maker that I
made a little bit of a run in made day
three today ultimately busted. And then I got some mailbag
stuff that I promised you guys I would get to,
So we'll get to that on this episode as well.
If you guys haven't done so already, I would really,
really really encourage y'all to go back to the last
episode on this podcast feed or head to the Poker
Goro YouTube channel and check out our first episode of
the newly launched Face the Ace podcast. My coworker Remco
rinkim longtime colleague and friend of mine. He is the
host of that show. The first guest was the one
and only Jeremy Becker. This is a long form sit
down podcast, one on one, hence the name Face the Ace.
Remco sits down with somebody from the poker industry and
just tries to dive into you know, who they are,
what makes them tick, how they got started, a little
bit in poker, their story, all that sort of stuff.
It's a really, really, really good podcast. I listened to
Jeremy's when they recorded it. I listened to it again
today and I love it, and listen. I'll be completely
honest with you guys, I am partial to Remco's interviewing ability.
I've always thought he's one of the absolute best, not
only in poker, but in that type of format. You know,
he asked the right questions. He's not shy to follow
up with things. He's inquisitive, so, you know, through it all,
I think Remco did a really good job. You know,
Jeremy talks about a little bit about his background and
how he got into the game. He talks about instinct, observation,
feeling the energy at the table. You know, he really
talks a lot about how he doesn't use solvers. He's
more of an experienced guy and in the moment guy,
that sort of stuff. You know, all of his poker success,
working with Daniel mcgroney, with Josh Are who are his backers,
in a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I won't say too much more on it, but just
just highly encourage you guys to go out there. It
is available in audio and video format, so either on
this feed or on the Poker Go YouTube channel. We
have another episode coming hopefully next week from Andrew Lucky
Chewiye Lichtenberger, and then hopefully we'll be rolling those out
just about every week that we can. We can get
a good guest and Remka' is gonna deep dive with them,
So go check that out. That's the Face the Ace
podcast on the Poker Gol podcast feet So I guess
first things first, before I dive into these numbers, just
let me quickly tie a bow on my million maker
run more than eleven thousand entries in the field. I
made Day three that took place on Monday. I came
in with a little bit over thirty bigs, kind of
a not so hot start to the day, got down
to a little bit over three hundred k, and ended
up doubling up with pocket fives versus ace Queen. My
opponent hit an ace on the flop. I rivet a five, baby,
because that's how we do a little bit of chaos
in the hand with me going all in over a
raised guy making the call, dealer dropping the deck, pushing
him the pod. Was a little bit of a frantic
moment for a second there, but we got it all
squared away, and yeah, so I doubled up there, ended
up building up to around nine hundred K.
Speaker 2: Lost a couple pots back.
Speaker 1: I think I played okay in some spots, you know, definitely,
as you always do. You know, you have some some
questions after things, so I'm gonna have to look at
some stuff. My My last hand was just a pretty
standard aid as king preflap. Razor had two nines. We
get the money in pre his nines held and that
was that two hundred and seventieth place out of you know,
almost twelve thousand entries in this thing, eleven seven hundred
and something. So turned to my uh, well, I guess
three K because I was in in twice to this thing.
So turned three K into eighty one hundred dollars. Pretty
good run, you know, just hopefully you can just keep
stringing together playing well. I thought I played, at least
for what I think my pokerability is. Thought I played
the lights out on day two A couple of things.
I wasn't happy with very slight things, but overall thought
I played really really well, probably some of the best
poker I've ever played in my life today felt really
good as well. Didn't get to play like super long,
lasted I think two and a half hours or something
like that, maybe three hours before I busted, So you know,
I don't know. I just lost a couple of pots here,
ended up losing that big hand with the Ace King
to bust, and that was just that.
Speaker 2: So it's not really that big of a deal, all.
Speaker 1: Right, let's get into these WSOP numbers. So again, I
just looked through the first fifty events. I know we're
a bit past fifty because the Millionaire Maker is a
multi day event and that whole thing, But we're going
through the numbers one through fifty.
Speaker 2: Am I going to go through every single one. I'm
just going to hit.
Speaker 1: On some top line things here. The first thing that
I noticed is the headliner events, and I put headliners
in quotes on my little rundown of notes here. Those
events remained big, and by headliner events, I mean the
Monster Stack, the Colossus, the Millionaire Maker. I would throw
the Mini Mystery Millions into this one as well. You know,
those are the headlining events. I guess you could also
include this seventeen hundred dollars US Circuit Championship in there,
But the problem is with that one is you can't
really compare it to past years because this is a
brand new event on the schedule for this year. Same
with the ten k Gigi Millions high Roller. Basically, headliner
events is like anything that puts something special in the
name that then transfers over into the structure that hopes
to draw people in. You know, all those events, though
they did pretty well. You had more than twenty thousand
entries in the Mini Mystery, Millions, you had almost twelve
k in the Monster Stack, and in the Million Millionaire
Maker you had the Colossus had over sixteen thousand entries.
Speaker 2: You know, Monster Stack was up, you.
Speaker 1: Know, about two thousand entries or so from twenty twenty five.
But you know, there was some finagle into the structure here,
which is going to kind of be a theme through
some of this stuff. Millionaire Maker, you know, slightly slightly
down about about two hundred and thirty entries are so
down from last year, so they're they're kind of just
on part I mean, overall, those numbers they all draw.
Are those events, I should say, so they all draw
really well. I guess it's a question is are they
holding up because of the changes to the structures? You know,
the Monster Sacked, the Colossus, the Millionaire Maker, those all
those events all had multiple starting flights, so multiple day ones,
and then each starting flight had its own Day two,
so it allowed you to make a Day two play
a bit longer into the structure, bust, you know, get
back into another Day one if it was available, and
go from there. So did those maybe pump the numbers
up a little bit?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: I guess you would want to look at the data
that we don't have, which is you'd want to look
at unique entries and see how those compare year over
year and if the unique entries are in fact growing
up or growing up or staying the same or whatever.
Next thing that I noticed, you know, looking at the
numbers here mixed games, they seem to be having a moment.
Here they seem to be performing pretty well. You know,
this is one of the one of the trends that
kind of pops out the most. You've got some pretty
healthy gains across the board, I know we touched on
a couple of these in the various episodes and we
talked about the events. But you know, you have the
fifteen hundred dollars no limitduce to seven single draw was
up eighteen percent, dealer's choice fifteen ars, dealer's choice was
up ten percent. The Big O had a huge jump
up forty three percent. I don't know if that one
might have had two starting flights or not, but either way,
still big jump there in entries. Even you know, even
if it has two starting flights versus one, it still
shows that there's demand to be able to uphold having
two starting flights in an event like that ten k
Big O. Nice jump there, thirteen percent. Raz got a
nice boozt ten k Raz even that one jumped up
sixteen percent. So you know, there's a lot of jumps
in a lot of these these mix game tournaments, and
that's that's good to see, you know. I think I
think that for some time there was this kind of
underlying current with things that mixed games might be dying
and no one cares, and people just want to play
nolam at hold them, and then secondary to that, they
want to play PLO. But I mean, I think it's
pretty clear looking at the numbers this year that mixed
games are healthy. You know, they seem pretty good. The
participation is on par with past years and if not
up you know, so that's that's great to see. And
if you do want to loop in or lump in
the PLO stuff into the mix game, so basically anything
non no limit hold them, then I think it bodes
really well for that sector of variants that are available
out in the World Series of Open. You can also
see from the numbers that pot limit Omaha does very,
very very well. This is impossible to mix now some
of the stuff, I think, if I remember correctly, might
have an additional starting flight or two in there. But
either way, you know, these events potlomon Omaha is definitely thriving.
People love to play it, even even just some of
the anecdotal stuff of like walking around the World Series
of Poker and talking to people and talking to people
who you know, I know play poker and they want
to play poker and whatever, and they want to get
into or they already are into pot limon Omaha much more.
You know, it's definitely booming, you know, I know, Joey
Ingram shout out to Poppy out there, you know, made
a big thing for many years like this is the
great game of potlm and Omaha. And he might have
been a little bit ahead of his time, you know,
not that potlomon Omaha wasn't growing at the time when
Joey was championing that message. But now it really does
seem like PLO is absolutely crushing, and you know, it's
gotten to the point where I'm I'm starting to just
wonder if the WASIP really needs to take a hard
look at Pot limit Omaha, specifically in terms of increasing
the amount of events they have on their schedule, you know,
for next year and beyond and and maybe even you
do some some gimmick style things on the side where
you do like a Pot limit Omaha Player of the
Year or or something, you know, where it's just the
pot limit Omaha events. I don't know, I'm I don't
know if any of those things are right or wrong,
you know, I'm just I'm just throwing out ideas because
I see the numbers and I see how many people
really want to be playing pot limit Omaha. Like can
you do a I don't know, can you do a
pot limit Omaha Mystery Millions tournament. You know, yes they
have a potlamit Omaha Mystery Bounty, but can you I
think they have one of those, but you know, if
they don't, forgive me, but could you do like a
one with a million dollar prize pool guarantee? Like, can
you just start doing crazy stuff with pot limit Omaha?
You know, once upon a time it was like, can
we start doing crazy stuff with the nola at hold them?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I remember when they did the first one K nolanan
hold event Like that shit was bananas at the time,
you know, and then you started thinking of all all
these kind of crazy things that you could do with
these big field Nolam and Holdham tournaments. Could you start
doing some of that sort of stuff with Potlam and Omaha.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like with the health that it's
showing from this variance, then yeah, maybe we could start
exploring that. I mean, I wouldn't go slapping out five
to ten events like that on the schedule, but maybe
you just put one out there and you make it
a huge, big ordeal and make it a huge thing.
I don't know, I really feel like if you were
going to be all in on potlam and Omaha as
the World Series of Poker. This might be the time,
Like this definitely might be the time. And I think,
you know, Tim Duckworth and I have been kind of
talking about this, you know, for maybe a year year
and a half or so, spawning the fact that you know,
we were doing the PGT PLO series that always did
really well. I know some polo events that have done
well elsewhere. We did the Texas PLO roundup that always
did really well down at Champions Club in Texas.
Speaker 2: You know, you just you.
Speaker 1: Could see, you could see it, you could here, you
could feel it, like so Potlomon Omaha is here, and
you know, there's probably more of it to be had
if the WSP wants to get out there and get
after it. On the other side of things, things that
might not be looking so hot, it's these mid stakes
Nolanman hold them events, you know, that's where it seems
like we're getting the biggest hits. You know, we got
the two K no limit was down I think forty percent,
maybe maybe slightly more. The three K Nolan hold Them
was down right around the same a little bit more
than forty percent, The five K eight handed was down
eighteen percent. You had a five hundred dollars freeze out
event that was down six hundred. Our Deep Stack that
was down for this section though, like the two K
to three K and the five K, those events being
down as large as they are, you know, maybe it's
just that, and then coupled with, you know, some of
those smaller buying events which are less gimmicky than those
headlining events that I talked about at the start. Maybe
it's just that. Listen, here's a people are picking. They're
picking the big headlining events, the giant field marquee events. Again,
that's Monsters Stack, that's Millionaire Maker, that's Colossus.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We have about to start is the Mystery Millions. We
had the Mini Mystery Millions back at the beginning. I know,
a new event for this year, but still one of
those headlining events. And we're still going to have the
Gladiators of Poker coming up, you know, we have the
mini main events coming up. You know, So maybe it's
all those events that if somebody's going to pick something
to play, that's where these people are going to gravitate towards.
I mean, heck, that's what I gravitate towards right, like
that that's what I like to play.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't like to play the Mystery Bounty tournaments. I'm
just not a fan of that format personally, so I
tend to skip those in the live realm. But you know,
I'll definitely make a point to play the Monsters Stack
the Million Maker. You know, I didn't play the Colosses
this year just because I couldn't fit it into the schedule.
But you know, I love the Colossus tournaments, you know,
so stuff like that, and I think a lot of
people are just they're they're just drawn to those events.
So the recreational players that come out, even the serious
recreational players, you know, they love the Giant Field Marquee events,
and then that stuff in the middle, and it's and
that stuff in the middle also a two K, a
three K, a five K, like that's also the stuff
that's it probably feels a bit.
Speaker 2: Harder, right Like.
Speaker 1: If you're somebody who's not a serious pro, I would
put myself into that category, Like I'm more of a
serious recreational I have a real job.
Speaker 2: I play for fun.
Speaker 1: Yes, I take it extremely seriously, but you know, I
still do it on the side. I'm not a professional
poker player. I'm gonna go after the events where I
think I have a better shot, and those tends to
be the one where I find more value in the field.
And that's going to be a million maker, that's gonna
be a colossus, that's gonna be a monster stack.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I might find some time to play a two
K or a three K if if I can swing
it and if I can feel comfortable and that sort
of stuff, But I'm not going to go out of
my way to play those events. You know, those are
kind of more of the the hardened pros are going
to be making up the large percentages of those fields.
You know, I look around a three K, I look
around a twenty five hundred dollars. I look around a
two K or a five K, and the tables do
seem pretty tough, you know, Versus you look around these
these millionaire makers and these monsters actually.
Speaker 2: Like what's going on.
Speaker 1: This is the greatest tournament in the world, you know.
So I think that's where people are just generally gravitating towards.
You could also have you know, some effect here of
you know, like what I was talking about when I
was talking about Potlam and Omaha, where a lot of
players these days are saying, you know, hm, I'm going
to be getting into Potlam and Omaha more, or maybe
they've already gotten.
Speaker 2: Into Potlam and Omaha more.
Speaker 1: Just with everything that's going on, maybe they're opting to
play a PLO event versus you know, playing a five
K or a three K, you know, depending on how
that schedule breaks up. And then as it pertains to
the schedule, there's just a lot of crap going on
at the World Series. There's a lot of stuff that's
number one, number two, Like there's a lot of stuff
going around in Vegas. So maybe there's just some congestion everywhere.
I mean, there is congestion everywhere for sure. I think
that's undeniable. So you know, it's just it's harder to
get all these numbers, you know, just booming, booming, booming again.
I think the numbers are holding kind of overall. But yeah, yeah,
I think that's that's kind of where we're at. If
we are seeing a squeeze, it's definitely with these these
mid stakes. Nolan had hold them events specifically as for
the high roller stuff, So we're talking twenty five K,
fifty K hunter K. I mean even the two hundred
and fifty K Super high Roller happened already did see
some declines here. Twenty five K high Roller went down
about fifty players or fifty entries, twenty five K six
MacX down around ninety entries. The fifty K took a
pretty big hit down around ninety entries. Two hundred and
fifty K Super high Roller was down. Now the hunter
K high.
Speaker 2: Roller, that one was up.
Speaker 1: I guess you should also loop in the twenty five
K Heads Up Championship because it is similarly priced. You
know that field size did double, and I know that
part of that is structural because they did expand the
bracket from capping at sixty four to capping it at
one to twenty eight, and they did allow if you
played one A and you didn't make it through, you
could play one B. But still that that does demonstrate
that there is demand for a twenty five K heads
of poker turn That demand is there, and they got
there ultimately with having one hundred and twenty eight entries
in a twenty five K heads up tournament. So I mean,
that's that's a feather in their cap to be.
Speaker 2: Able to achieve that, So, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know when it comes to these these high roller events.
My thought here is that this is probably where you're
seeing the effects of two things happening. One, I think
this is probably where you're getting the biggest effect from
the new tax law, the ninety percent rule with the
tax law probably here. Two something like bitcoin being down.
I think these are the players that would be affected
the most, Like, like, those are the two things that
I think pertain here. You know, I just feel like
that community is more into the tax stuff, They're more
invested in bitcoin. So that's kind of where I am
with the high roller stuff. I think the high roller
schedule at the WSP is still very good, and they
offer kind of the right amount of stuff. So you know,
maybe these numbers showing the decline that they did, maybe
it just means that, you know, next year, you're.
Speaker 2: Not looking to increase them. You're just going to stay
packed with everything.
Speaker 1: Right, So just some overall stuff here. Once again, I
don't think poker is necessarily shrinking, you know, I think
you got those big headlining events. Monster Stack gets nearly
twelve thousand, the Millionaire Maker almost twelve thousand, Colossus got
up over sixteen thousand. I believe it is now the
fifteenth largest live poker tournament in history. The Mini Mystery
Millions drew very well, of course, more than twenty thousand
entries there so, and if you know, I talked about
how I possibly want to compare them not only to
last year, but to a previous year, and that year
was twenty nineteen. And shout out to my friend Jeff
Walsh for putting this on my radar, because twenty nineteen
that was the last pre COVID year. So I guess
if you were to like map a momentum of or
map the trend of poker field size is like it's
going kind of one direction from you know, two thousand
and six, seven eight, and then it's building and then
it drops off because of you know, black frighting and
all that sort of stuff, and it starts kind of
building back and then all of a sudden we get
smashed with this pandemic and just like kind of everything
falls off the cliff. Twenty twenty WSP doesn't really happen.
They do the main event, but it's like the online
to live hybrid, like it's just not the same and
then twenty twenty one comes around, you got to do
the whole vaccine card masks, like the whole thing, and
then you know, we're kind of like building back building,
back building back so it like really threw everything off.
So like, where are we now compared to where we
were before that crazy pandemic happened? Right, and the numbers
look really good. I mean I have my spreadsheet color
coded in terms of like if this event happened in
twenty nineteen and if it happened in twenty twenty six,
is the trend? You know, if it's up, it's green,
if it's down, it's red. And I see a whole
heck of a lot of green. In fact, I only
see one, two, three, four red. Now there's a bunch
of yellow, meaning that event didn't happen in the two years,
so you can't really compare it, but it's overwhelmingly it's
like twenty might be thirty, maybe thirty are green or so,
so it's like compared to twenty nineteen, like things are
up now. Of course, that comes with the fact that
a lot of that has to do with structures have changed.
They might have added starting flights, they might have added
re entry rules and stuff like that. But I still
think that at least as it pertains to these headline
any name brand events again, Monster Stack, Colossus, Million Maker,
you know those events, they still do draw the poker
population incredibly well.
Speaker 2: That they do.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's pretty safe to say,
you know, I think the players in those events they
like reasonable buy ins. So on the low end, you
have the Colossus five hundred dollars. On the higher end
of that sort of event, you've got fifteen hundred dollars
for the Millionmaker and the Monster Stack. So those are
pretty reasonable price points, right. They offer huge prize pools,
Like people know that when you're playing one of those events,
you're going to get a huge prize pool. It's there
isn't a guarantee on the event, but it's basically guarantee.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You're getting big fields, you can you can win life
changing money, and it's not only just first prize. It's
like you make the final two tables or though for
a lot of people winning thirty k is going to
do a lot of really good things in their life,
and you can do that in these tournaments when these
fields are so so so big. I think the players
that that gravitates towards those events. You know, I feel
like they want to feel like they have a shot.
And if you're the more recreationally player you are, the
more you're going to gravitate towards an event where you
feel like you have a shot. So if it's a
choice between let's say, putting two bullets in the Monster
Stack for fifteen hundred dollars each, are going to play
the two thousand dollars Nolan hold them or the three
k Nolan hold them? I think you feel, without a doubt,
coupled with all those other things that I mentioned, you
have better shot to win more money at a more
palatable price point in something like the Monster Stack or
the Millionmaker. So that's why you know those draw very well.
I also think that PLO it's no longer a side show.
It is right there. It is booming, it is growing.
So you know, I talked about how there should possibly
be more PLO or you know, maybe starting to dip
into the gimmick side of PLO a little bit more
so that that can definitely happen mixed games. Yes, they
are still a distant third to nolanm at hold them
in poo, Yes, but those seem incredibly healthy, incredibly healthy,
so traditional midstakes Nolan at hold them events those took
a hit. So that's the two K, the three K,
and the five K. Those are some rather significant declines.
And I think that's it's not like where I should
think you need to remove those events from the schedule,
because you know, the two K got nine hund and
sixty eight, the three K got thirteen hundred, the five
K got five seventy, like those are still fine numbers, right,
but it's probably you probably don't want to add multiple
of those events, right. You're probably just fine with the
ones that you have, and that's what you're gonna keep
doing every single year. So I think also we might
be seeing the player pool being split a little bit more,
and that comes, you know, both in the variants that
they're opting to focus on. I talked about how some
of those players might be choosing to you know, maybe
they skip and Nolan and Hold them event to play
a PLO event. Maybe there's people a heck that are
skipping Nolan hold events to play mixed game events, right,
that could be happening. There's also a lot of venues
right here in Las Vegas that are doing big things.
You got stuff at Aria in partnership with bet MGM,
you got the Win running big stuff. You got Venetian
running big stuff. Of course, everything that's happening at the
World Series of Pover is you know, going all summer
every single day. You know, there's just there's stuff freaking everywhere.
You got the even the kind of on the smaller side,
you got stuff at the Orleans. I think you have
stuff at the Golden Nuggets. So it's just there's just
there's stuff everywhere. There is so much stuff to play.
And then you know, you never know on schedule timing,
like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go through this,
you know, with with with such a fine comb that
that I'm just I'm picking every little thing apart, like,
oh well, this one was shifted by seven days here,
and this one's off by you know, a whole month
in the schedule, and then everything that goes around and
I'm not doing all of that. So everything that I
say isn't exactly apples to apples. I'm just trying to
paint a bigger picture. I know there's been a lot
of conversation about oh, the numbers are down. The numbers
are down. The numbers are down. I mean, yes, but.
Speaker 2: I'm hitting you guys with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, but I don't know, I kind of
feel like they're not as bad as we might be
making out to seem. Like, yeah, the mid stakes Nolman
hold them stuff. Those are taking big hits. The high rollers,
those are down, but the mixed games are up. The
PLO is pretty much crushing. I mean, if you just
want to look at the first fifty events this year
by number versus the first fifty events from last year,
this year's got one hundred and sixteen thousand plus entries.
Last year had one hundred and four eight hundred, So
you're up in total entries, right of course, you know
that can be what I'm saying with It's not exactly
Apple's taples. It depends where certain things following the schedule
and whatever. But you know, overall, I think poker's okay.
Like I think it's okay. I think you just we're
at the time in the industry when when people just
don't need to be, you know, tripping over the front
of their skis with giant guarantees and tons of events
and all this crazy stuff because it just the demand
might not be there yet, so don't go too crazy
with the supply. That's just where I'm getting at with this.
I do also need to say that I do not
know fully how untouched these numbers are. And what I
mean by untouched is like we know the day one
plus the day two situation, some of the re entry stuff.
Maybe that's kind of pumping up these numbers a little
bit in some of these events, you know, Yes, I mean,
I have this good feeling, I think that things are okay,
you know, I just don't. I don't know fully if
all the positive things that I am seeing are more
of a result of structural manipulation than anything else. And
it's not to say that some of these structural changes
can't be absorbed by the community, because I think they
certainly can't. It's more about there's definitely a sense out there,
and you can see it on social media a lot,
that there's a large portion and a growing portion of
the community that is feeling a bit squeezed by the
late registration and how lengthy that is the individual Day
two is and how it kind of can seem like
a trap at times that you just get sucked into
these tournaments. So it's a lot, and I just I
don't want us to get too far ahead, that we're
so far ahead and then all of a sudden something
falls off a cliff. Because I think poker is generally,
overall in a pretty healthy place. I think these numbers
do bear out that things are healthy. But let's just
not go too buck wild with things. You know, everything's
got its own it's you know, three day ones and
their own day two's, and late registration for so much
time and like all this sort of stuff. Let's not
just go too crazy with it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so overall I think it's okay. You know,
I don't think it's bad. I don't think it's overwhelmingly
awesome like everything's up, like money's falling from the sky.
It's great whatever, you know. But you know, I think
the big field no limits stuff, the stuff that attracts
the recreational players, that's pretty good. There's a lot of
value still to be had there. Those numbers look like
they're holding strong. Mixed games are doing well, Potlam and
Omaha is doing well. Yeah, we see some pullback on
the high rollers. Yeah, we see some pullback on the
mid steak stuff, and maybe some of that mid steak
stuff we kind of maybe see throughout the rest of
the year.
Speaker 2: Like the most notable.
Speaker 1: Stuff would be World Poker Tour stuff, just because they
operate in that price plint of like the thirty five
hundred to five K range most often, So we'll have
to keep an eye on that and see how they go.
But you know, I think it's okay. You know, so
the sky is not falling, none freak out out there.
I think the numbers are holding pretty strong. And the
one thing that I would say is that if there
was a time, I think I've said this before, but
if there was a time to get into potlam and omah,
it feels like that time.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into some of these mailbag questions, comments,
emails that were sent in that I owe you guys
got a handful of them here, so let's just get
right into it. Doug wrote in said in massive field tournaments,
our payoffs too heavily weighted to the top. If you're
in a field of ten thousand players and finished one
hundredth meaning you outlasted ninety nine percent of them, it
seems like you should make some pretty freaking big money,
but the five the top five to ten spots hog
such a huge chunk and there's not much left for
players to be ridiculously but fall short of the found
say well, I mean, I get it, but you know,
the money should be up top, Doug and into everyone
out there. I will say that I'm not totally on
this trend of paying fifteen percent that I do a lot.
I know they do a lot of at the WSIP.
I think it should be more closer to twelve and
a half percent. I'm just kind of over the fifteen
percent thing. I think you should be paying twelve and
a half or twelve percent of the field and let's
just go from there, which you know, speaking to Doug here,
that would then allow you to have some more money
to put towards some of the other places.
Speaker 2: I do like.
Speaker 1: Having, you know, having the money up top in poker tournaments.
I think that's part of the fun is playing for
all the freaking damn money up top and chasing that goal.
And I don't think that they're they're too bad overall,
you know, I mean, I think it's I think it's fine,
you know, because when you when you think of it,
like in terms of buyings, I think it's still pretty good.
I mean I just finished two hundred and seventy out
of almost twelve thousand entries in this million Maker. You know,
the buying was fifteen hundred. I got eighty eight hundred dollars.
I think that's plenty fine. You know, I played for
two and a half days of poker, a little bit
less than two and a half days of poker, and
I had a nice return on my money. And you
know it was almost what six buyons that that I
won back, and I thought it was you know, I
think it's a really good you know, I would have
loved to be playing for more a bit deeper in
the tournament, but yeah, I think overall it's it's not
the worst. And part of the you know, they always
say in tournaments, the money's up top. You know, the
money is in the first the top three spots or
the top five spots or whatever, and that's why you
need to play accordingly to give yourself the best chance
to not just hit these min cashes like you have
to be putting yourself in a position to you know,
be able to go on and make a final table
and make a top five or top three, or heck,
even win the damn thing, you know, because that's what's
gonna pay the bills. And yes, some of that may
mean you are busting before the money in some spots
because you're adding a little bit more risk into your game,
but that's just what you gotta do. Doug also said
he said, kind of related, but should big tournaments allow
players to discuss chopping at the final table? Yeah, I
mean I think so. Yes, I'm always down for chopping.
I personally subscribe to the deals should be allowed. But
you should also have to leave like a percentage to
play for, like call that five percent, call that ten percent,
and call that twenty percent.
Speaker 2: Whatever that is. I always think that there should be
something to play for. I don't.
Speaker 1: I really do hate when players just say, yeah, let's
just chop it, shake hands and go home. You can
have the trophy whatever.
Speaker 2: No, we do.
Speaker 1: I don't like that, you know, I like I think
they do it on the ept where it's the Hey,
you have to set aside a certain amount to play
for and you can do whatever you want with the
rest of the money. So it allows you to, you know,
reduce some variants. You know, if you're or lock up
some more money, which is a good thing, of course,
but I like being able to ultimately play for it,
have a winner, and get a little bit more extra
in there. So I like that side of Nick Denny.
Shout out to Nick Denny for his kind words, but
he said you should have played the family pod jingle
with the cartoon puking song after the or with the
with a cartoon puking song after pot just before telling
my sick kids story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I blew it. You know, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: What are your top three spots walkable to get a
decent sit down dinner during dinner break?
Speaker 2: Good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, a lot of the restaurants
in Paris I think are pretty good, So I mean
I would start there. Now, obviously you're probably fighting with
some crowds there. I would probably I think, listen, I've
never done this, but I've been told you can make
it to Aria, like you can walk there within fifteen minutes.
So I would definitely say you can headlen over to Blaggio,
you can headlen over to Aria, you can headlen over.
Speaker 2: To plan in Hollywood, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: I will always tell people that when you are trying
to get dinner on a dinner break. It's always benefits
you to try and set up some sort of friend
that goes there ahead of time. They can get the
dinner or get the table or whatever, and you can
you can come back out, or you can join to
meet them, and then maybe if you have to leave early,
you can go from there. Not too far from Horseshoe.
I don't know if it's really walking. Plus it's outside,
but Naked City pizzas like kind of not too far away.
If you're in for some pizza and some wings, I
would check them out if.
Speaker 2: That's something you want to do.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to really say this because listen,
I don't eat dinner breaks and dinner. I hate dinner
breaks in Boger tournaments, and I don't like to eat
when I'm there. But you know, if you got some
money to spend, I would just say walk over to
Blaggio and get a get a nice meal over there.
Lars said my two cents, the dinner break will remain
a fixture in Poger tournaments. What else can you get
a thousand gamblers one and a half hours to spend
their hard earned money at a casino restaurants or a
machine called cash Inferno or something. Eliminate dinner break, eliminate
the built in capitalist opportunity. I agree, this is why
I think venues do this. I disagree on the idea.
I think there are other ways to get people to
spend the money in your casino while improving the overall
experience of playing poker at your venue. I'm not a
dinner break eye. I think that they should be gone
and you should be doing different things. If you're an operator.
For example, let's say this this million Maker that I
just played. You know there was a dinner break on
day one and day two. What I think is a
better way to go about it is eliminate the dinner break. Okay,
but instead if you get to a certain point, or
if if you're in the tournament, you get a voucher
for X percentage off. Like let's say you're playing day
one of the Millionaire Maker, right, they have the I
think it was a seventy five minute dinner break on
day one. Well, instead of having that seventy five minute
dinner break, just have a regular fifteen minute break and
then allow people to get out of there an hour earlier.
So let's say you get out there around nine o'clock,
you know, just for argument's sake, but give them, you know,
a fifteen or twenty percent off voucher as part of
their buy in to this, And it's only good at
certain restaurants within your venue. Right now, those people are
financially incentivized to go spend money, which are You're probably
making a decent amount of margin on anyway, so the
fifteen or twenty percent off shouldn't really hurt you. So
I think you can do stuff like that. You know,
that's a better way that I.
Speaker 2: Go about it.
Speaker 1: That way you have, I think you have a better
playing experience without having to deal with a dinner break.
You also have a better nighttime experience in the fact
that you get out at a reasonable time, you can
set up a nice dinner with your friends, you can
go there. You can of course take advantage of the
little discount that you're getting. So I mean, yes, there
are going to be some people that leave property and
go elsewhere, but there's people that leave property and go
elsewhere anyway on dinner breaks, so that doesn't matter, right,
I think that's going to be kind of a wash.
So that's how I would do something, because I believe
that any operator in the space, the winning operator within
this space in the next five, ten, fifteen years, will
be the operator that focuses on experience first and above
all else. So how you can improve the experience of
going to play poker at your venue or at your
tour or at your series like that is how you
are ultimately gonna win. And this is my personal preference
on how you know, or at least one thing on
how you would do that. Eugene wrote in doesn't really
have a question, but he did want me to get
a message to Daniel on the ground. I don't know
if Daniel's listening, if he is still hear it here.
If not, maybe I'll find him in person and I'll
bug him about this. But Daniel, sorry. Eugene said that
he got into mixed games. He was watching some of
Daniel's kind of instructional videos that he put on his
YouTube channel, but they seem a little bit out of date,
so he's got to freshen him up. You know, some
of the stud rules and stuff might not really apply anymore.
So all I'll say to Eugene is listen, I will
see what I can do no promises here, but I
will see what I can do. Justin Budd said, it
was a pleasure to meet you at the Monster Stack.
Thanks for the shout out. I did cash and busted
on a cooler the last level of day two. Well,
congrats on your cash. You did better than I did,
he said, He enjoyed it. Definitely will play again next year.
Luck in the main and all the other events you play. Justin,
it was a pleasure meeting you. Don't stop emailing in.
It was a lot of fun. Also a shout out
to Henry Toohey, thank you for the kind words. And
then I do have to get one thing out of
the way because there was a few different messages about
the streaming and the coverage and as it pertains to
poker Goro, so you know we I've seen them come
through the email inbox, They've been on social media as well.
So I do just want to present some clarity here,
and that clarity is that poker go is no longer
the rights holder or the group making the editorial and
coverage decisions. So I know that's a bit of like
not really anything. You know, the w s AP is
running all those decisions directly. Our role for the summer
is simply production support. A lot of the questions we
just can't answer, Like, I'm sorry, guys, I don't have
the answers for you. I know, my friend Jeff Platt
has been out there on social media, you know, just
answering every single question that that gets thrown his way.
You know, I've seen them firsthand. He's NonStop grinding on
Twitter answering questions. So you know, on one side of things,
you guys can go back a few episodes. You can
watch the podcast episode, the interview that I did with
Jeff Platt when we talked about the streaming plans and
the coverage, and not to throw anything more on Jeff's plate,
but he's very accessible on Twitter. He has been responding
to everyone, So if you do have a question, you know,
throw it his way. But but that's really all I
can say on that. I don't I feel like I
don't want to ignore the people that have been asking
us questions, so I'll just say that, Listen, we don't
make those decisions anymore here at Poker Grow. We are
partners with the World Series of Poker on the production
side of things, yes, but you know, the questions do
have to be sent their way, so you know, hopefully
that doesn't annoy you guys too much with with my
answer there, but you know, just full transparency there. I
know we always do harp on transparency on this podcast,
so just wanted to let you guys know unwhere the
things stand. And no, we are not ignoring or at
least I'm not trying to ignore the questions that are
coming on social media, that are coming via email. But yeah,
but that's that. That's the podcast. As always, it was
a pleasure to talk poker with you guys. Another day
at the World Series of Poker is done. Maybe I
have no idea. It's one thirty in the morning. I'm
going to go to bed. Shout out to Rich Ryan
producer Rich for getting this up in the morning. As always,
don't forget to check out that Jeremy Becker interview with
Remco Rinkim on the Face the Ace podcast that just dropped.
Speaker 2: It's a good one.
Speaker 1: We are going to have Andrew Lucky Chewy Liutenburger coming
out in a few days as well. We'll get back
to recapping the WSOP stuff on the next episode. I
plan on plane the fifteen hundred dollars freeze out on Tuesday,
so wish me luck out there. My name is Donny
Peters and I will talk to you guys next time.
J