Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. 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. You know. 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. Lost a couple pots back. 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. So it's not really that big of a deal, all. 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. Am I going to go through every single one. I'm just going to hit. 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. You know, Monster Stack was up, you. 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? You know? 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? Right? 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. I don't know. 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. You know, you just you. 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. You know. 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. Now. 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. Harder, right Like. 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. I play for fun. 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. You know. 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. Like what's going on. 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. Into Potlam and Omaha more. 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. Roller, that one was up. 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. Able to achieve that, So, you know, I. 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. Not looking to increase them. You're just going to stay packed with everything. 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. That they do. 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. Right. 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. I'm hitting you guys with it. 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. Right. 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. Like the most notable. 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. Now. 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. I do like. 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. Whatever that is. I always think that there should be something to play for. I don't. 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. No, we do. 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. Yeah, I blew it. You know, what are you gonna do? What are your top three spots walkable to get a decent sit down dinner during dinner break? Good question. 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. To plan in Hollywood, all that sort of stuff. 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. That's something you want to do. 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. Go about it. 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. It's a good one. 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