Speaker 1: Hello everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the
Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. His name
is Tim Duckworth. It is Sunday evening, December twenty seconds,
and we had a pretty big show today. Two big series,
well three big series in December wrapped up, or at
least two of the three wrapped up. One I think
is still in the very very taal end of things,
and those are of course WISP Paradise, WPT World Championship,
and EPT Prague. Tim and I are going to hit
on those three series. Then in a few days we're
gonna have another episode for you guys where we hit
on some of the latest PGT stuff as we lead
into the PGT Last Ants Series and PGT Championship. Busy
couple days here, I guess, in the final days of
twenty twenty four. But how are you, sir? How you doing?
I feel like it's been a while since we've been
on a podcast together.
Speaker 2: It has been a very long time, but good. I'm
looking forward to getting through Christmas. I mean, you know
how it is with kids, just getting through getting through Christmas,
you know, because I feel like, once you.
Speaker 1: Own I'm literally by the way surrounded by presence, Like
I can't like move my chair in my office. There's
presence everywhere. Some reason, my wife decided to wrap them
and just like leave them around me.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just feel like once the presents of open
Christmas lunch has had, you can start ripping down decorations
and like get ready for the new year. That's the
bit I like, to be honest, ready for the new year.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not in charge of any of the decorations,
So do.
Speaker 3: You put up any anything else?
Speaker 1: No? Not really, I mean whatever my wife asked me
to help with, yes, but I tend to just leave
her in charge of the decorations for all holidays. That's
her jam. She can do whatever she wants and whatnot. Obviously,
if if I need to, you know, do some some
stuff that she can't do or that she doesn't want
to do or whatever, I'm happy to help out. But
other than that, it's it's her jam. Like this year,
I mean, we don't. We never really put lights outside,
like a lot of lights, just because it's a it's
a hassle to put them in the house and you
know whatever, So we never did it. And then I
came home one day and there's just lights all over
the place. But she had like those ones that she
got them from her parents and they're the ones that
you just put over bushes in the front of ardor what.
So nothing's like, you know, nailed their stable to the
house or anything like that. But I was surprised when
I turned the corner and we have a house red
on the corner, and I was like, what the hell,
what are all these lights? What the hell is going on?
But but yeah, so I guess that's our new thing
for this year. But it is that time of year.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So as I said, WSP Paradise, WPT World Championship in
ept progue. First things first, of course, do need to
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Earning crypto is easy. So we're going to go in
the order of WSP Paradise first, WPT WO Championship second,
and then EPT Prog third. Not necessarily any really rhyme
or reason to that order. I think I just based
it off of the fact that first place prize won
in each main event was the biggest for Paradise, second
biggest for World Championship, third biggest for Prague. So that's
the order I went with. Don't read into it much
more than that. It's just how we're going to be
talking about things. SOUBSB Paradise, of course, the uh I
Guess Monstrous Series out of the Bahamas Atlantis down in
the Bahamas. The headlining event, of course, was the twenty
five thousand dollars buying Super Main Event. I always want
to say super duper main event. They should just really
put the duper in there. If they're going to put
the super in there, why not. This one had a
fifty million dollars guarantee. That missed. That missed. Did you
say it would miss did I? I can't remember what
we can't remember what we predicted. It got close, though.
Total of nineteen hundred and seventy eight entries, thirteen hundred
and seventy eight of those entries came from the live
portion of the series, six hundred came from the online
portion of the series, so nineteen hundred and seventy eight entries.
The overlay was five hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It
looked like, or at least there was a lot of
talk out there on social media that the overlay was
going to be much worse than it ended up being.
You know, people were talking about multiple millions of dollars
of overlay. It obviously did not amount to that in
the end. I will say that I think there's a
fair amount of skepticism out there, just the fact that
the online qualifiers or the online entries. I thought I
saw it was like five twenty or something, then all
of a sudden it was six hundred. So I'm just
kind of like, I have no idea what it is.
But nevertheless, they came close five hundred and fifty k
of overlay, which is good for anyone that played in
the field. Winning it All. China's Yanan Zoo wins it
All for six million dollars. Hello, that is a hefty
chunk of change. He defeated Brazil's Marcelo Aziz Junior in
heads up play. Aziz took home four point six million
dollars from a free roll. I guess he got in
from a free roll on Gigi Poker. Then went on
to finish in second place for four point six million dollars,
which is absolutely insane. Mastapha Kanet third place for three
point six million, Live Beree, she was back on the
felt don't see her much these days in the poker sphere,
but she was back and she finished in fourth place
for two point eight million. Christopher Win two point one
million for his fifth place finish. Michael Adamo, your boy, Sir,
Kangaroo Crew, he has he has returned. I mean, we
haven't seen that guy in forever, I feel like, but
he was back and he was doing his thing. He
finished in sixth place for one point sixty five million.
Justin Bonomo. We're going to get into a little controversy
that surrounded justin Monomo. He finished in seventh place for
one point three million. Badim Lapuka Lapaca, I'm probably butchering
that name.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Vidin one million dollars for eighth place, and then George
Lehman seven hundred and fifty k for ninth place. Do
you want to mention. Tenth place finisher was none other
than Chris Moneymaker five hundred K for mister money Maker,
which is pretty incredible. But listen, we have to give
our flowers to Zo, the twenty four year old champion.
He started playing online, according to what I was reading online,
mostly from pokernews dot com, started playing online when he
was eighteen years old. So he claimed to have played
millions of hands online, both cash games and tournaments. From
watching the live stream, I watched a bit of the
stuff that was happening both WPT and Paradise as much
as I could. Zoo looked the part, played the part.
He pulled this crazy, wild bluff against Michael o'damo, which
it was an incredible bluff. Yes, I think it was
even better or got a little bit more shine in
the spotlight because it was against a domo, and normally
it's a domo who's pulling these crazy bluffs, right, So
I guess just quickly on that hand, between Adamo and Zoo,
the blinds were two million, four million, which is just
freaking wild to even say. Under the gun Zou race
to eight million. He had ace jack off. Adamo defended
from the big line with ace ten off. It came
ten to seven to four with two clubs tennis spade
seven club's four clubs. Adamo checked zou bet six million,
which was just over twenty percent pot. Adamo made the call,
turns the nine of hearts. Adamo decides to lead for
what was just over twenty percent pot eight point five million.
Zao opts to raise with his ace high to twenty million.
Adamo makes the call. Domo does have the best hand.
He did flop that top hair, top kicker. River is
the queen of diamonds. Adamo goes for a check. Zoo
goes for it forty seven and a half million, which
is seventy percent of the pot. Adamo folds And that
was the bluff heard round the world, at least for December,
because I'm sure we'll have another one coming up soon.
But that was really kind of the I guess coming
out party for Zo. It in a way like, Hey,
I'm here to win, I'm here to go up against
the best. It doesn't matter that this is Michael O'damo.
You know, he's the crazy guy who puts players in
tough spots. I'm gonna put him in a tough spot.
And it ultimately worked out. What did you think about
Zoo's play or this bluff anything.
Speaker 3: He's just he's just lost it. He's just not good anymore.
Speaker 2: Obviously, you know, he used to be the greatest in
the world, and he's just he's falling apart on the
world's biggest stage. He's just it's just disrespectful to the
Australian flag, is what I have to say.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, you want to talk about falling apart
in the world's biggest How about Tony Parker?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that I mean that was.
Speaker 1: NBA Legend of the San Antonio Spurs. He's down.
Speaker 3: Did he play with the Charlotte season He's last season?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's so he gets in a hand with was
it bow Ding? It was early in the event, or
at least earlier in the event. Ding opens with the
min rais. I think the blinds were eight sixteen. He
made it thirty two K, folds over to Parker, who
has pocket kings. He makes it sixty four K, so
essentially a click, it goes back over to Ding. He
jams Ace Queen. I can't remember if it was suited
or offsuit, but nonetheless he jams Ace Queen Parker tanks
forever and folds the kings, just an absolutely outrageous fold
that almost sent Ali Najade off the top of the Atlantis.
I mean, just I would have had to leave the
commentary book. To be honest, I'm not sure I could
have continued after that. I mean, I don't know what
Tony Parker was doing, but that's what he did. Anyway.
That's a sing.
Speaker 3: Let's let okay, let's think about this.
Speaker 2: How much poka do you think Tony Poker plays outside
of this when he comes to the World Series and.
Speaker 1: You're folding kings?
Speaker 2: No, but like, bro, maybe he just thinks that like
when someone remember how it used to be back in
the day when someone three Bayu they had kings or races.
Maybe he's got that mindset, so he's just like the
guy has to have ass is not all the way.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's probably what he's thinking.
Speaker 2: Is probably very simple, basic logic and kind of understandable
for someone that does not play poko. You know, I'm
not saying I'm saying it's a good follow I'm just
saying I'm trying to get into his head.
Speaker 1: Well, according to what Tony Parker told Poker News. He said,
I folded pocket Kings. I heard. I don't know. They
told me that he had Ace Queen. But it's one
of those games where you just have to go with
your feeling and how you feel the guys at the table.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's a field player. I love it. He's
my favorite player already.
Speaker 1: Now it was Ace Queen Offsey. By the way, it's
just it's an absolutely positively outrageous fold. I mean, one
of the worst folds I've ever seen in my life.
It just has to be there's nothing good about it. Anyway,
back to this event, uh so Yin Enzou, twenty four
year old Chinese player comes out on top. I will
say that these Chinese players, by the way, they're going
to be a problem, and like in a good way.
Like they're like these You see a lot of these
young Chinese players taking to poker and you have no
idea who they are, and they start coming to the WSP,
they come to big events like WSP Paradise. There was
a bunch of them that I ran into it WPT
World Championship. Like you see them all over now and
they're just so good and they're young and they're fucking hungry,
and they're fierce, and they don't give a crap, as
evidenced by the fact that Zau just you know, decided
to go for it against Adamo in this hand with
this crazy bluff. I mean, these players are extremely good.
So I'm just saying like they're going to be a
problem in the sense that, you know, don't be scared
or don't or sorry, don't be surprised. I should say,
if you know, next WSP you have like fifteen of
them them winning gold braces something something like that. Right, Like,
they're much like you know, the Brazilians kind of came
onto the scene more recently, like years and years ago.
It used to be like the Brazilians are off of poker,
like go to Brazil for all the LAPT events. It's bad,
they're horrible down there. But now a lot of the
Brazilians are some of the best players in the world.
I feel like we're gonna start seeing that with some
of these Chinese players, and probably, you know, on a
more broad scale, the Asian players in general. They're just
playing a lot more. They're super sharp, they're all studying
and they're doing their own thing, you know.
Speaker 2: So I quickly pulled out my stat stock, but it
needs a lot of updating. But twenty twenty three World Series,
I was just thinking, as you're talking about the Chinese players,
I was like, oh, they won a lot of bracelets.
Speaker 3: At you.
Speaker 2: They won six bracelets with ranks equal second with Canada,
the most bracelets of the twenty twenty three World Series
of Poker.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go already, coming on.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go on record right now that says
twenty twenty five dovs. But they're gonna win the second
most bracelets. It'll be USA number one, just because USA
has the most players, of course, and then it's going
to be China number two for sure, Like I'll bet
on it.
Speaker 2: It's really out of who like Canada to China, Brazil, Germany, Australia.
Speaker 3: That's kind of it, right, I guess England.
Speaker 1: England is kind of like I feel like, not so
much anymore. I feel like they used to be. I
feel like they just don't have that many as many
players as they once did. Yeah, I mean not that
not that the players that they don't have aren't really good.
I mean they are, but you know, it's just not
as many as it once was. Canadians I feel like
aren't as many because of the whole tax situation, you
know that sort of thing. A lot of the a
lot of the really top Canadians like don't come and
put in massive volumes like they might come for the
main event or some of the really big high rollers,
but not putting in those huge, huge volumes that they
used to. So you know, it's tricky. So yeah, I'm
gonna say China gets the most second most bracelets next summer.
That's my that's my bet. So yeah, crazy win here, obviously,
crazy event in general. I'll get your thoughts on on
a little bit more of that in a bit, But
I do want to hit on this Bonomo controversy that
kind of dropped out of nowhere, I guess just because
it's he fired off a tweet saying like they so
he was wearing. So it turned out to be a cafia,
I believe. If I'm pronouncing that correctly, which is, for
lack of a better terms, it looks like a scarf, okay,
and it's worn in support of Palestine. Palestine right, and
Bontomo of course, has been extremely vocal on on social
media about what's going on over in the Middle East, right,
and you know, he's obviously very polarizing on this topic.
I'm not going to get into all that sort of
stuff because we're not going.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 1: But what is interesting here is that he tweeted out
that the doubs a p was going to disqualify him
from the event. What he said was down to sixteen
players in the twenty five K Superminis informed me that
I will be disqualified from the tournament if I don't
take my kafia off. He said, pretty fucked that they'll
run a charity tournament for the IDF, but won't let
me wear a scarf because it was made in Palestine. Now,
that last part about the tournament for the idea, if
there was a charity tournament down there, I don't think
from what I've heard that it was directly for the IDF.
It was more for like widows and children and stuff
like that, people who have lost loved ones, lost parents,
et cetera. So we're just gonna leave that to a
side for a second or all together. But it's it
seems pretty crazy that the wasby took this stance. To
be honest, I mean, I don't have a side here,
like I'm not going to side with Bontamo for what
he believes in or side for the people on the
other side. I'm not here to make my opinions heard
on that. It just seems like he's I mean, I'm
sure they have some sort of rule on the books
that they can kind of do whatever they want. They're
gonna deny political statements that sort of stuff, But it
seems weird that you would all of a sudden do
this now and then It's kind of interesting that it's
juxtaposed between the fact that they had this charity tournament
there it's Bonama who's so vocal when I'm I'm sure
there has to be plenty of times where there's been
something similar worn by someone during the summer, right, Like,
there's just so much going on that like somebody has
to have something on, Like, for example, if I show
up wearing a a Maga hat, isn't that kind of like,
you know, is that is that? Like I mean, are
they gonna say, oh, no, you can't, you can't do
that like that type of thing.
Speaker 2: I think there was some talk where you know, these
this this, these streams are going to cut into episodes,
these episodes would be going to network TV. Uh, and
that's where it was going to be an issue. Whilst
the IDF Tournament it wasn't streamed. It was just an
event that was held where it wasn't you know, gonna
be on network TV and affect anything like that. So
from that aspect, it kind of makes sense. I actually
spoke to Palestinian friend of mine that I play soccer with,
and he says that that like that item is you know,
in a way the I don't even know how to
say this probably, but it's becoming like synonymous with the
whole kind of Palestine.
Speaker 1: If you wear it in support of Palestine like that,
it's one of those things that if you're I'll say,
an outsider, but like if you know, if you're I mean,
I would bottom was an outsider in the sense that
he's not there in the middle of it all is
what I'm trying to get it. And you can wear
it in support just like when I mentioned the Make
America Great Again hat, Like you wear that in support
of Donald Trump or the Republican Party, Like that's just
what you do, right, yeah, wearing if Tim shows up
in a Denver Broncos jersey yes, that's what you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and like it's there's no statement on
this For those who haven't seen on this scoff, it's
literally just a white and blue patterned scarf that Bonomo
was wearing over his shoulders, so he wasn't wearing it
like a headband like you know some people might think.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm not against the decision if it's based on a
reason such as what we've kind of discussed, like the
whole TV aspect. I just think the WSP should have
been ahead of that, you know, instead of letting Bonomo,
you know, come out and say what everyone's to say,
he should have they should have said this is the
reasons why and immediately kind of issued not a statement,
but like maybe via social said something just to like
calm the whole noise that this ended up creating around
the social universe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was just extremely interesting
and very bold, to say the least, for the w
s B to take this stance, because I mean, you
take this stance as an organization, I mean you're kind
of picking aside in a way, you know, like you
have to you have to, I guess rule on equal
footing in a lot of situations. So you know, what
if something happens during the summer where somebody's playing at
Bonomo's table and they're supporting something, you know, by by
wearing a garment or wearing a T shirt that says something,
or a hat or you know, maybe they have some
sort of chip or sorry card protector or whatever it
may be, and Bonnamball calls it out, but they don't
do anything. Then like then it then it becomes a
whole another situation. So it's just I don't know, it
kind of like weirdly opens this can of worms that
I just never thought that the w SP would would
go down because I'm also not I'm not sure that
a lot of I mean, you mentioned the TV stuff,
like what a lot of people even draw the or
connect the dots or they just think, oh, he's wearing
a scarf.
Speaker 2: I think the majority of the world would say is
a scarf?
Speaker 1: But that's what I mean. So like they're like they
made it into something that it that maybe people didn't
or would have never thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, which I think it's some other question of interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, if it's GG producing episodes sending it to
a CBS or something, and then CBS being like, no,
you kind of have this, you know, because obviously they
would understand the more logistics behind the political stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I thought it was I also
thought it was interesting because this is now the two
biggest WSP event events, like in a row WSB main
event in the summer and now this WSP Paradise Super
main event, where there's been like some controversy that in
a way is kind of taken center stage. Like you
had the whole laptop Gate stuff happen and that really
like took the spotlight away from Jonathan Tomio's win in
the summer or at the end of the summer, and
then here, I mean, for you know whatever anywhere from
twenty four to seventy two hours and you know, like
we're talking about it on this podcast, a lot of
people have been talking about on social media like it's
almost like let's forget about ZAO and just focus on
this controversial ruling that happened, you know, And it's kind
of just it's interesting that that has happened and it's
both involved these two massive WSITY events. I just I
don't know, I just find that kind of like weirdly coincidental,
is all I guess. So other notable finishes from this
event you had ren Linn Speaking of Chinese players, ren
Linn is just always crushing it. Eleventh place for three
hundred and seventy k srel Mitzi's sixtheenth place excuse me
for two hundred ninety five thousand dollars. Chris Claude Nikki
Back in the Mix, twenty sixth for one hundred and
eighty thousand dollars. Aplu Garza Your Guy, Oh Boy, Sweet
Lou thirty six for one hundred and forty one thousand dollars.
Matthew Wantman, he's a regular on the PGT. He got
forty sixth for one hundred and forty thousand dollars. Nick
Patrangel I think finished forty seventh for one hundred and
forty thousand dollars as well. Darren Elias. I was actually
surprised to see Darren Olias there and not in Vegas
for the bed MGM series fifty eighth for one hundred
and ten thousand dollars for him. Stephen Chidwick eighty six
for eighty six thousand dollars. Nick Shulman, who had a
pretty good series ninety second for eighty six thousand dollars.
Alex Foxen cash in one hundred and thirty fifth place,
as did his wife Kristen Fox and she finished in
two hundred and tenth place. And then a couple of
legendary players here, Eric's Sidel one hundred and sixty first,
Daniel legrand New one hundred and seventieth, and John Juwanda
one hundred and seventy first. All right, so specific to
the ws AP, super Duper Main Event is always the
super Duper Main event in my world, Tim, what are
your overall thoughts like about the event, about the near
reaching of the guarantee, just kind of give it to me.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned at the top of the show, a
little bit of skepticism on the numbers. I'm not saying
that they didn't hit it, but you know it's from
the start they weren't very transparent on how many were
on the online flights. And you know, we saw a
tweet that came out about changing the structure and changing
how the event was, the schedule and everything, and.
Speaker 1: Wait, well, quickly, the stuff you saw on social media
that you're referencing about the changing of the structure is
that they extended the late registration period by a level.
I think it was maybe two levels. I can't remember
something with two levels. Seems a little bit questionable to
be able to do that after after the event like started,
after people have traveled they're like all that sort of stuff,
so interesting there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that, you know, I think that puts a
little bit of a distaste in player's mouth because you know,
you're basically trying to not overlay so much, and people
are obviously traveling there thinking, hey, this is going to overlay.
I would I'm going to my EV goes up, I'm
going to partake, and then when you change the structure
of the event, you know, you're basically, you know, eating
up their EV.
Speaker 3: So I didn't really like that.
Speaker 2: The fact that they did get so close, whether thember
is real or not, is great. You know, you say,
nineteen hundred and seventy eight entrance. I would love to
see a unique number.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I did hear from certain players about big name pros
being in for ten twelve bullets, some disgusting album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two hundred and fifty K jeez.
Speaker 3: That's why I'd love to see the unique list.
Speaker 2: And I kind of know exactly what that number is
for some some players. So but outside of that the positives,
I thought the coverage was great. Like you, I watched
nearly every day when I wasn't either playing or doing
something else, and that, you know, kudos out there to
try it and the gig team for that.
Speaker 3: I thought their social was great.
Speaker 2: They were just kind of doing stuff And I know
that sounds really silly, but compared to how they've handled
you know, previous WSP events, they it looks like they
were actively trying to do more and I think.
Speaker 3: That's good for both WSP but also just all the
events that are going around.
Speaker 2: You know, in December, you know, we're going to talk
about WBT, We're going to talk about EBT product. There's
just a lot going on, and WSP were making sure
that they were a talking point. So that, Yeah, that's
kind of what I take out of the main event.
Speaker 1: Do you think they'll run it back in twenty twenty
five with the same fifty million dollars guarantee? Is there
a chance in your mind they go bigger? Will they
pull it back go smaller? What are your thoughts there?
Speaker 2: I really don't know. I could see them changing it.
It annoys me that the first two years of this
series the main events different.
Speaker 1: I mean last year last year was like the WSB
Paradise main event was a ten k buy in.
Speaker 3: This year it's five k bying.
Speaker 1: It's this or yeah, five k buying. This year it's
this super duper main event with the twenty five k
buy and you.
Speaker 2: Know, and like it's next year going to go back
to ten k, and then it's just like the consistency
is not.
Speaker 1: There, go to fifty k for all I know, Like,
I mean, there's no whatsoever.
Speaker 2: If I had to choose, I would just say, hey,
just keep keep it as it is.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Are they going to reduce the main event guarantee? They
probably have a little bit too much prior to do that,
So I guess from a betting man, I'd probably say
it's going to be run back very similar, twenty five
k super main event, fifty million guarantee.
Speaker 1: Did you talk to any players about this event? What
were any thoughts that you heard on it? Did people
think that they found value in playing it? I mean
me from Afar watching the coverage, looking through the updates,
it seemed like it was eighty percent really good players.
I'm like sitting here wondering, like, where the hell is
the value in this thing?
Speaker 2: The value is obviously in the potential overlay, right, and
then you also.
Speaker 1: Have al like you know, you don't, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's always potential. But then there's also the million free
role they had. They also had the whole bitcoin locked
in price thing, so there was some ev in other ways.
And I believe a lot of players were getting free
comped rooms, so.
Speaker 3: There is some EV there.
Speaker 2: The most things I heard from players were negative, but
not negative towards the event. It was more I was
just kind of sick of the mahamas. I was over it,
you know, more of that than than like then the
actual specifics of the event. So it's very like, you know,
individual and personalized. A lot of players traveled back prior
to the million dollar free role, so that's quite surprising
that they, you know, these these players are giving up
that ev. I don't I don't know how many entrants
were could have maxed that and then out, but you
could kind of calculate the ev that they would give
up that to come back here to Vegas to play
the last you know, the last flight of the main
or whatever. Events that were coming back for So that
kind of surprised me. But yeah, I didn't really hear
anything negative about the actual event that we kind of
haven't already discussed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I'm just curious to try and know
if players would opt to go back, like if they
if they went this time, obviously going because oh this
is a twenty five k it's got a fifty million
dollar guarantee, you know, hopefully it'll be pretty good. But
then if you I'm talking about the specific like play
like and if you get into the event, it's not
as valuable as you might have thought. You're planning on
a lot of really tough players. Do you not then,
like overextend yourself to go, you know, spend a week
and a half or however long into Bahamas, you know,
possibly pay for flight and hotel and all that sort
of stuff that comes with not only just going to
like this specific event, but traveling for any event. Like
it's it's a lot on you, right, Like, it's a
lot of travel, it's a lot of extra money that
you have to pay, which is essentially rake on ongoing
to a tournament like this. So you know, did did
they deem that it was worth it, you know, from
a player of perspective or player of value perspective, I'd
be curious to know or if they feel like maybe
like most specifically players within the States are even even
you know, focus that in a little bit more players
out of Vegas, Like, am I just going to stay
there and do the WPT thing next year?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Or am I going to again jump to the Bahamas?
I don't.
Speaker 3: It's going to be on the schedule.
Speaker 2: These guys are always going to choose the best schedule
what they think is best for them. Obviously, Paradise offered
in a lot of people's mind decent value with the
the Super Super Dupid main event and the free roll.
Now if they don't have that next year and and
WPT bring back, say a guarantee, well then hey, maybe
there's more incentive to stay in Vegas. Maybe Paradise doubles
down and does even more, tries to give up more
value for players and in a way take some of
the people that didn't go this year.
Speaker 3: So so he's going to be a schedule thing. You know.
Speaker 2: We'll see what both series announce and then players will
start kind of making their mind up from there.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the schedule other events that took place at
WSP Paradise and the winners of those events. You had
Jeff Hakeim winning the twenty seven hundred and fifty dollars
Mini Main Event for five hundred and seventy five thousand dollars.
This event had two thousand and thirty one entries. A
Lejandro Lecoco won the five hundred and twenty five thousand
dollars Triton Million. This was the event where it's called
the Triton Million because I guess technically it's a million
dollar buying because you had to go in in pairs,
you had to have a VIP that was playing, and
then that VIP invited a pro. There was ninety six
entries in this one and Locco won it all for
just over twelve million dollars. Locco has become an absolute
freaking force on the poker scene in recent years. I
know he was like wild and crazy when he made
that w SP main event run a handful of years ago,
and ever since then, I feel like he's just gotten
better and better and better and continues to dominate and
now has obviously a massive, massive score for just over
twelve million dollars. Lataro Guerra the PLO Crusher won the
one hundred and three thousand dollars PLO Super high Roller
for two million, one hundred and twenty six thousand dollars.
He topped the field of eighty eight entries there. Eric
Wasserson finally got a World Series of Poker Gold race
that he won the twenty six thousand dollars Dealers Choice
Championship for three hundred and fifty three thousand dollars. This
event had forty nine entries. This event, by the way,
had a little controversy itself because wasn't it on the
schedule as like a twenty one game Dealer's Voice, and
then they announced in like Level two that they were
changing into a ten game. So you know, according to
who you talk to, that was always the plan. But personally,
I find it hard that it was always the plan
if it wasn't publicized beforehand, Like, I don't know how
you can claim that it was always the plan yet
it wasn't publicized beforehand, And then you talk to some
other sources and they said that everyone that plays it, no,
it was always going to be a ten game. What
do you mean, like you mean, every everyone that could
have played it. No, you have to like that. You
have to talk to everyone because it's not like one
of those events where like you sign up ahead of
time and it's capped and you know, all like forty
nine players in the field, like you or I could
have showed up yeah and been like, oh, we're playing,
but no one told us like that. Just it seems
like they're backtracking there, which is, you know, just another
kind of like weird, interesting thing to come out of
this series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, WSP are not good at structure sheets, like even
the ones in the Vegas they kind of leave out
important information. So I think whether or not this was
true or not that it was ten game Mix put
it on the structure sheet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was That was just weird.
Speaker 1: Ley You who Zoo claimed is a Chinese super pro.
He won the fifty three hundred dollars Nolan Man hold
Him Deep Stack event for two hundred ninety three thousand dollars.
This event had three hundred and sixty three entries. Alex
Foxen we all know Alex Foxen. He won the one
hundred and six thousand dollars Buying Triton Main Event for
three point eight five million dollars one hundred and eighty
two entries. Here played a six six sick hand against
Jiao Vieira in heads up play where he called with
I believe it was bottom pair with I think it
was eight deuce in his hand. Just a great, great hand,
great performance there from Alex fox When when Foxen is
locked in and he's locked in like ninety eight percent
of the time, I mean, good luck beating that guy seriously.
Steven Chidwick won the fifty two thousand dollars PLO Championship
for one million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars.
He topped a field of one hundred and twenty two entries. Stevie, listen, wrong, wsop,
we drafted did you for the summer WSP. You were
supposed to win one of the big PLO tournaments there
not this not in paradise. This doesn't count for fantasy, Stevie,
Come on, man, do me a solid good lord. Mike
Gardinski got another bracelet ten thousand and four dollars PLO.
He won for three hundred ninety three thousand dollars. This
event had two hundred entries. Johann Straver won the ten
thousand and four dollars Gigi Millions Championship for a whopping
eight hundred and seven thousand dollars five hundred and thirty
two entries there. Thomas Fuchs probably butchered that name won
the fifty two thousand dollars high Roller one point two
nine to two million, one hundred and thirty entries there.
Nick Shulman fifty three hundred dollars closer Turbo Bounty won
it for one hundred and forty five thousand dollars. This
was a crazy final table. It had Sean Deeb, It
had renln with I think Renlin finished in the second place.
It had Negrand new At, It had a Santos servanna At.
It so wild final table. There dred and thirty eight
entries in that one, and then Pablo Silva won the
Summer Saver Internationalist. Was that million dollar free roll at
the end of the series. Four hundred and eighty seven
entries were in it, two hundred K for Silva. Shulman
another bracelet. He was asked afterwards, but I can't remember
if it was Pokernews or poker dot org forgive me,
but somebody asked him about the Hall of Fame. He was.
I would say he changed his tune a little bit
compared to when you talked with him in the summer.
When you talked with them in the summer, he was like,
I'm one of the best in the world. I believe
that I want to be in the Hall of Fame,
like you know, all that sort of stuff. And now
he was kind of like put off and just kind
of said, you know, I don't really care about that
or think about that sort of stuff. You know, So
it could just be Nick like in the moment just
having it.
Speaker 3: I have a take on that.
Speaker 1: What's the take? He likes you and he doesn't like them.
Speaker 2: No, seriously, Well, remember my interview was off to the side.
We sat for ten minutes no camera. This one on camera,
and we know how Nick is, you know, I think
he cares about his image. He's persona and he was
just very selective with his words while there was a
camera present. So I think my interview is what he
really feels. But this was he was just you know,
being the the Nick Schulman that people are kind of
accustomed to singing or speaking to.
Speaker 1: I like Kaki Nick Schulman.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it too.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't like humble Nick Schulman. I like
the cockings. Not not that it was like overly cocky
in a bad way.
Speaker 3: But it was it was confident, right rightually cocky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean he is one of the
best players in the world. I think he certainly deserves
to get into the Hall of Fame. I believe I
saw Daniel Legrand new I think it was it was
either in his log or maybe on Twitter. I can't
remember exactly, but he said, you know, he's probably gonna
get in or something like that. But we talked about
this a couple of times now this year.
Speaker 3: We talked.
Speaker 1: But over the summer. Next year is going to be
interesting because Scott Zever's up right, no one's up like
this is what do you think in those two? I mean,
that's that's very close between those two. Do you have
any other lingering thoughts on WSP Paradise before.
Speaker 3: We move on? Yeah, let's move it to January.
Speaker 1: Well that's I.
Speaker 2: Mean earlier this earlier in November. I don't know, I mean, okay, wait,
wait real quick.
Speaker 1: I don't hate moving it to January. I just I
wonder I wonder now if they've now had two years
of this, I would I would think that they view
it as a success. You know, even though it's going
head to head with the WPT World Championship and also
you know, basically head to head with EPT Prog. I
still think that they view it as a success. So
in their mind, like why move it?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: I mean, how many Americans went to this series is
my first question?
Speaker 1: Because you can move it a few going to be
international and then w Sampionship is always going to be USA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you move it a little closer to Thanksgiving,
even overlapping Thanksgiving, I think that actually will get you
more numbers, more Americans.
Speaker 1: And then then you're going heads up with Seminole. You're going
you're possibly going heads up with.
Speaker 3: It's different, completely different event. I guess Seminal's three three
K main event. Seminal will move.
Speaker 1: This also has some ten k's, five k's and twenty
five k's.
Speaker 2: It has one of those in each. Seminal will move.
I guarantee you Seminal will move their event.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Seminal. First of all, semon will probably already
announced their dates because they usually announced it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're pretty.
Speaker 1: Well in events, not that they announced the full schedules,
but the dates are usually out for the next year.
But Seminal just draws from so many people that are
just in Florida that just literally drive to the casino. Yeah,
all right, WPT World Championship at Win Las Vegas, no guarantee,
No problem, Tim, Because the WPT ten thousand and four
in at All World Championship drew two thousand, three hundred
and ninety two entries. That makes for a twenty three million,
four hundred and forty one thousand dollars prize pool. Remember
the first year they had a fifteen million dollar guarantee,
that was in twenty twenty two, and for twenty twenty
three they upped it to what at the time was
a record for the largest guarantee in live tournament poker,
forty million dollars. They fell about two million dollars short.
This year they ran it back, but no guarantee on
this event, but they still drew well. Listen, I said
coming into it that this would be a test to
the loyalty that the WPT has or claims that it
has with its player base, and I would think that
this is a success in terms of like tapping into
that loyalty because almost twenty four hundred entries came out
for a ten K with no guarantee, which is wild. Now,
it's obviously a big drop off in feel size from
last year, but last year did have a forty million
dollar guarantee. Yes, but twenty four hundred entries. I mean,
that's really, really, really effing good. Let me say that
my concern would be that without a guarantee, you just
continue to see a decline year after year, right, Like
it goes down to twenty four hundred this year, next
year it's two thousand. Year after that it's seventeen hundred,
you know, like that's how it trends over the years.
That would be my concern. That said, the positive side
of this is that I think a lot of people saw, like,
holy crap, they got you know, almost twenty four hundred entries,
more than twenty three million dollars in the prize pool,
Like this is still the event like in December. So
I think there's that side of things. So I have
no idea which way it's gonna go for next year,
but you know, that's kind of my initial opening take there.
Scott Stewart, winner of It All, Your Boy, Stu as
he goes, but I wanted for two million, five hundred
and sixty three thousand dollars. After a deal, he made
a deal three handed. It was Scott Stewart, it was
Rob Sherwood, and it was Edward Pack. The original payouts
were three million, one hundred and thirty eight nine hundred
dollars for first place, which is an absolutely acid nine
first place prize. I'm sorry, why the hell is it
not even? They made every place even and then just
slapped all the extra money on the top spot. Come on,
Matt Savage, come on, this is ridiculous, Like just make
it three point one or three or three point two
or whatever, three point one five?
Speaker 3: Not this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, why does every other spot clean? And this one
is a disaster? Anyway, you guys know that's my gripe.
That's always my gripe with these things.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 1: After the deal, Scott Stewart goes on to win two million,
five hundred and sixty three thousand dollars for him, Rob
Sherwood got two point two million, and the Edward Park
got two million. The original payouts were first place three
point one three eight, second place two million and seventy
five thousand, third place one point five five million, so
really really good scores for all three of these players.
The final table was once again a super fun one.
Last year was a lot of fun. You had a
lot of really cool hands, a lot of really big names,
some really high level poker. This year maybe not the
star power that you got last year, other than Chris
Mormon returning, which we'll hit on in a second. But
in the first like what two or three orbits, there
was I think three eliminations. It was like boom, boom boom,
like here we go. Then there was like an extended
period of time without much happening in terms of eliminations,
but there were still some big pots. Then we get
to heads up play. It looks like Scott Stewart's gonna
close things out really quickly against Sherwood, but Sherwood spikes
an ace with ah Jack against Queen's storms all the
way back. Then it's Stuart that's short and then he
comes all the way back and it's just this whole thing.
The whole time, Stuart's drinking, having an FN blast. He's
got this Bud Wiser hat that just I think said
Bud King of Beers on it that looked nineteen seventy
four and was he wore every single day since then.
Just absolutely dirty as all hell. It was great. He
was chugging beers, he was having fun with his rail.
His rail was out of control, which is great. He's
one of the most fun players to play with. He's
just loves life, loves playing poker like he's entertaining at
the table. He plays super fast, like you know, it's
just great, and I think a lot of that was
on display at this final table. He's also really good
at poker as well, which is, you know, of course,
a great thing. His rail was out of control, rambunctious,
drinking all night, having a blast. They were chanting Stu
sa Usa, but you know they put.
Speaker 3: Stu's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I watched a bit of the final table, had to
cut it off early because it was going way too
damn late, and then watch the watch what I missed
this morning. What are your thoughts on the event, mister Stewart,
I don't know, give me whatever, I mean twenty come on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess. Let's talk about the guarantee. I think
they know kind of what this is going to be.
No guarantee, sure, that's what I'm meant to say, yes,
the lack of guarantee twenty three million in the prize pool.
That seems to be about where this event will be
going forward if everything remains, you know, in a standing.
I don't think they need to put a guarantee next year.
They'll just know that then hey, we're probably going to
get around twenty to twenty five million in the prize
pool pending other things, and I think that's fine. I
don't think anyone. I didn't see too many people griping
about the no guarantee. Obviously, they added the five million
dollar Club Invitational free roll, so that did help soothe
some people's complaints.
Speaker 3: But no, it was a great event.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of Yeah, I watched a lot
of this and I didn't watch that much of the
final table, but it was good to just watch some
quality poker for the last week.
Speaker 1: It's going to be very interesting to see what happens
with this event next year. You know. This year, I
think a couple things were working very much in their
favor that helped push them to a really, really good
number of twenty four hundred entries. One is drawing off
of last year and really the last two years of
this event, where this event has become essentially it can't
miss event. Right. The win is an incredible place to
play poker. They do things great, the property is freaking awesome, right.
It's my favorite place to play. I love it there.
The staff does things right, the fields are generally good,
all that sort of stuff. You combine that with the
World Poker Tour, which is known for like having this
awesome brand, doing things right, really like dressing things up nicely,
all that sort of stuff. Right, So you build up
this event, and even though you missed the guarantee last
year by a couple million, and even though you didn't
have a guarantee this year, I think there was still
that hangover from last year in a good way, right,
So I think people were still very much looking forward
to to this year. Now. Will that hangover carry over
into the next year, That's just my question. I don't know.
I would like to think yes, because, like I said earlier,
I think there was enough loyalty that was shown by
having nearly twenty four hundred entries without a forty million
dollar guarantee or any sort of crazy guarantee on it
that I think there is enough there that it's going
to do all right. The second thing that I think
helped play it in the to their success last year
that I don't know that they're going to have next
year or how they'll have it next year or whatnot,
is they had you referenced it already, the five million
dollar Club WPT gold free role that then awarded one
hundred seats into this event. So you had that which
people now, I know it's only one hundred out of
twenty four hundred, but a lot of people in that
free roles as WPT itself, you know, or Club WPT
I should say, put out there on social media, like
had never played a buy in above five hundred dollars.
So a lot of those people you knew could be
winning into this event had like never played big poker
turn that certainly never entered a ten k before. So
if you're on the outside looking in, you're like, oh,
there's gonna be a decent amount of value there with
those people getting in. You probably also have to consider
that there were some people that won money in that
event that might have then parlayed it into the ten k,
or maybe they parlayed it into playing one of those
eleven hundred dollars satellites that were given out of a
lot of seats, and they want a seat and they
got in that way. So what I'm getting at is,
are they going to do something similar in terms of
the five million dollar guarantee, sorry, the five million dollar
free roll next year that then drives people into this event.
I don't know. That's that's still yet to be seen, so,
you know, but that that did seem like it was
like this initial marketing effort for Club WPT gold. And
because in a year's time, you're not going to need
that initial thing, so do you have that again? And
if you don't have that again, like, does it just
cause numbers to kind of take a little bit of
a dip. Now I'm not saying that this is going
to go from twenty four hundred down to one thousand.
I don't think that that's ever gonna happen. But you know,
like I said, it could go twenty four hundred to
twenty one hundred and then it just goes to eighteen hundred.
Then you know, it just like a small trickle in
the wrong direction, and you just don't want to see
that over time. You want to just see it at
least in the worst thing just kind of plateau. You know,
maybe it goes up a little bit each year, down
a little bit, but it's just generally around this number forever,
like that's ultimately what you want to see. So that's
just kind of like right now where I sit, like
my questions for next year already. I didn't play it.
I sat on the sidelines. You did play it because
one of those one hundred that pulled a seat. There
you go, buddy. I didn't play it because I was
I didn't know if the value would be there.
Speaker 3: I'm not I was in the field. Of course the
value was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're one of twenty four hundred. I mean, listen,
most people I talked to, I felt like their tables
were fairly difficult for the most part. Like, you know,
so I don't know. So I'm not like, I'm not
bummed out at all that I missed it or it
didn't play right. I did play a satellite for it.
I thought that I played the eleven hund dollar satellite
was seventy five seats guaranteed that I think gave away
like one hundred and twenty five or a hundred and
thirty seats guaranteed. That thing was an absolute shit show.
It was just so many people in that tournament. It
was a little wild. So I don't know, I don't
I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe you also
get in now, I guess going the other way to someone,
my concerns that I just laid out would be like,
do you get people that maybe said, mmm, I did
the Bahama thing. I don't know, or maybe Bahamas doesn't
run it back with the value that maybe they had
this year. Maybe they don't do a fifty million dollar guarantee,
maybe they don't pump all these people into it. I
don't know. But then maybe some of those people just say,
you know what, I'm going to stay in Las Vegas,
and that may maybe that makes the numbers uptick, you know.
Speaker 2: So there's just like almost to go the other way
where people that have done win a couple of times
now they're like, you know what, I'm going to go
to Bahamas next yea, So it can go both ways.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're ever going to get those people.
And the reason why I say that is because win
is so much better than the Bahamas.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Yeah, but happen if you have a family,
you want to go to the beach for a couple
of weeks.
Speaker 1: No, the win is always gonna win.
Speaker 3: It should, yes, but we don't have some of these
people think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think the I think like WSP
Paradise is gonna win for the people that want to play,
like fifty k's, one hundred k's, you know, two hundred
and fifty k's like all that sort of crazy high
stuff like the Triton crowd essentially, right, But then I
think for for most other people, like it's just gonna
be the win, and it's always going to be the win,
and it's gonna be this WPT World Championship. So so yeah,
I mean there's just a lot to be I guess
worked out or seen from what happens from this series
going forward. But anyway, Scott Stewart winning it all his
first seven figure score. Back in twenty seventeen, he came
thirteenth in the WSP main event for five hundred and
thirty five thousand dollars. He has six WSP circuit rings,
but this is of course his largest and career defining victory.
Really great for Scott's great guy, you know, he's certainly
one of the good guys in poker. Somebody that that
is definitely like if he's playing on a stream or
if he's playing on a table, like he's gonna he's
gonna make it fun. He's not gonna slow the game
down like he's he's gonna go for it at spots.
He pulled this bluff at this final table. I don't
know if you saw it, when the board had a
full house on it and Sherwood I think led the
river and Scott raised all in with I think seven
high like it was. It was jack nine nine to
nine jack and Sherwood had king high and Scott just
went for it with a bluff on the river and
moved all in and got it done, which is, you know,
takes a lot to go for it in that moment.
Of course, of course, Scott had some big hands as well.
He had aces a couple of times at the final table.
He had aces against Christian Roberts's Ace Queen to take
him out in sixth place. He had aces against Edward
Park in a crazy hand where you know, Park maybe
shouldn't have been in their pre flop, but he was. Nonetheless,
and uh, Scott Scott Stewart won a big pot there,
so great performance by Scott Stewart, great winner for him,
two point five million dollars. Robert Sher again second place,
two point two million. Edward Park third place, two million dollars.
Chris Mormon said we were going to hit on him,
so let's hit on him. Last year Chris Mormon fourth
place for what was it? Last year? It was like
two million and something thousand and two eight thousand, something
like that. This year fourth place again Chris Mormon one
point one five million dollars. This year for Mormon, Ryan
you got fifth for eight hundred and seventy five K.
I mentioned Christian Roberts being taken out by Stewart. He
bounced in sixth place for six hundred and sixty five
thousand dollars. Some other notable finishes. You had Brian Yun
finishing in eleventh place for two hundred and fifty five K.
You had aj Kelsall had no idea he knew how
to play. No liamit hold him, but here he is
aj Kelsall of course out of mixed game fame. Two
hundred and fifteen thousand dollars for him. Mikita bad Ziyakowski
nineteenth for one hundred and seventy six K. He was
in the Bahamas and then he came here to Vega.
Playing this event. Took nineteenth for one hundred and seventy
six Thousan Paul Volpi twenty eighth for one hundred and
twenty one thousand, Michael Rosito thirty ninth for one hundred
and one thousand, Isaac Baron fiftieth and Neil Farrell fifty fifth.
Both of them took home seventy one K. Naddia Magnus
sixty third for fifty nine thousand dollars. Eric Nobody loves
it more Baldwin seventy first for fifty K, Ryan Tassik
seventy fifth for fifty K. Martin Jacobson, former WSP Made
Event champion, He got eighty fifth for forty two K.
Joey Ingram did not know he played the two card variant,
but here he is ninety first place for forty two K.
David ODB Baker one hundred and fourth for thirty five thousand,
five hundred dollars. You put it on the rundown. I
was just gonna ask where did you finish, sir? You
played in this.
Speaker 3: Event three hundred and ninetieth place.
Speaker 1: You're the only person in the universe who looks at
the place they busted out.
Speaker 2: And I got to put it in my app. You
don't have a tracking app. You you have to have
the app way you busted. So I looked at the clock.
Speaker 1: I don't have a tracking up. I used a Google sheet.
Speaker 2: It was the clock said three ninety two, and then
I walked away, and then I said three eighty eight.
Speaker 3: So I just middled it three nine. Ye done, got it.
Probably it's probably even better than it's probably really like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean good, good run by you. It
was fun either your best shot.
Speaker 3: Hey, look, I had someone.
Speaker 1: Since went two thousand and seven. When the last time
you played a ten?
Speaker 3: Yeah, two thousand and seven. I did.
Speaker 2: Someone did message me and say that said that I
think it's not up for debate but anymore. But I
am the best no limit holding player on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean, says the guy who was texting me hand
questions the entire fucking tournament that he was playing.
Speaker 3: Hey, results speak, That's what I'm going to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well cash there in the main, I was an
absolute idiot.
Speaker 3: Look, we took a risk we took, had to bust
the guy in the work.
Speaker 1: I got it all right, Well, what are your overall
thoughts on this event, if you have any more of them?
Speaker 3: I think I played sensational.
Speaker 2: It was unfortunate enough to cash in all seriousness at
the main event. I would say a lot of people
wouldn't have expected them to get the twenty four hundred
players they got the two three nine two.
Speaker 1: I did not. I am pleasantly surprised. I talked to
some people at the WPT. I think they're all very,
very very happy with the number, as they should be
and win two.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, they made some incredible They made a
very underrated decision that maybe not a lot of people
know about. That they kind of forced all those the
big satellite winners. Was the seventy five C guarantee you
had to play one A. So that's always going to
help with the final number. One A is always the smallest,
but you know, you get the satellite players in there,
maybe they have to re enter. You get some of
the pros playing that day to try and take advantage
of the satellite players. So I think that was a
great decision by the win.
Speaker 1: Well, let me say that because of that you had
you had one A had seven hundred and fifty one
entries and one B at six eighty one, which you
like never see a divis though you always see it
go up by the days. But that could also be
the fact that they started it on a Saturday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this football Sunday Sunday, and.
Speaker 1: That My biggest gripe from this series is they need
to start the two marquee events on better days Prime
and this.
Speaker 2: I agree with them, but I mean, they still got
great numbers for both, but yeah, it could they could
do what maybe they do five percent better, but five
percent in both events is huge.
Speaker 1: So my my biggest gripe with this series as a whole.
But it also I think it happened maybe in this
WT World Championship, I can't remember. It definitely happened in
Prime for sure, is that the win now uses pokes.
Poker Atlas should have a better way for them to
do alternates. Like when you go to a restaurant and
you put your name on the wait list and they
say can we have your phone number and then they
text you when your table is ready. That should be
how this works. They text you when your alternate number
is ready, or they text you and they say we're
now accepting alternates four fifty through five to fifty. So
if you know that your ticket falls within that window,
you go like none of this, like standing outside in
the hallway with lines and whatever. And this is the
same thing that I said about the NAPT Las Vegas event.
These places now need to start putting tournament clocks and
information screens in the hallways because they have them all
throughout the tournament rooms. Yes, and that's great, but when
you have so many people and such long alternates and
breaks and multiple events and all this sort of stuff,
just put them in the hallways. People can see them
and look at them and say, oh, okay, my tournament's
on bre for another three minutes, you know, all that
sort of stuff. So I think that that's like something
that I want to see mostly across the board and poker.
But it did come come up at the WPT World Championship.
Speaker 2: I would probably say that this is probably the biggest
event poker out list is done regarding alternates. Probably pretty
confident to say that. So it's probably something they haven't
thought of, and it's a good point. You should probably
bring it up with poker out lists. Like I've brought
up some things before, if everyone's going to start adopting
poker out lest as they preferred, you know, tournament management system, Yeah,
there's definitely some tweaks that can be made to kind
of better the whole product.
Speaker 1: And then I think I know your answer to this question,
but would you deem this event a success despite the
fact that they didn't have the big guarantee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: With the pending question, as you know, was it a
success only because of the free roll? I'm not sure
if that is. You know, obviously the free roll put
in one hundred players. Maybe when it's all said and done,
two hundred players played due to the free roll in
some in some way. But it does show that, like
we keep touching on WPT brand, it's strong, win Poker
brand is strong, Vegas is strong, and if you don't
have the free roll on XCA, I would still probably
bet that, Hey, we're probably gonna get close to twenty two,
twenty three, twenty four hundred players again, so yeah, definitely
definitely success even without the guarantee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with you. I will say that, Listen,
I played a lot during the series. I was there
at the win probably every other day, you know, if
not more than that. I'm happy that eventually the buzz
turned to the WPT World Championship, because I felt early on,
for like the first week, week and a half or
so of this series, that the buzz was only about
the free roll yeah, because there was no buzz about
the World Tchampionship, whereas last year and the year before,
I felt the buzz was about the World Championship and
like really only the World Championship the first year, of course,
because it was this fifteen million dollar guarantee, like, oh
my god, this is going to be massive, blah blah
blah whatever. Next year it's like, holy shit, forty million
dollar guarantee, Like this is insane whatever like that, that
was all the buzz this year. Like the only thing
I think that mattered was people were like, how do
I get a free roll ticket? How do I get
a golden passport? Like how do I get that? Up
until like that eleven hundred dollars seventy five set guarantee
satellite that I played in, which was like a day
or two before the start of the ten K, Like
it was all about the free roll that's at like
that's all that it was about. And I was in
my head, I'm like that kind of seems like it's
taking away what the point of this is, Like it's
the point of it is the World Championship, like in
my in my opinion right like and not that the
there's not obviously a lot of importance to the free
roll because that is a marketing for Club VPT Gold. Yes,
but like I felt like there was no real talk
about like the ten k itself, whereas in years past
it was like how do I get into the ten k?
How do I get into the ten k? How like
how do I get in there? Like what do I
gotta do? I gotta sell action, maybe I hit a score,
maybe I play one of these satellites, all that sort
of stuff, whereas this year was only about the free
roll really, like that's all people. People wanted a free
roll ticket so so so bad, you know, So I
just thought that that was interesting. So then I guess again,
like kind of you know, to what we've been talking about,
how does that buzz look next year if they don't
have the free roll, I would say that the buzz
is probably going to be about prime I heard that
there's a chance they take the prime guarantee up to
ten million, which is interesting. I personally think they should
have taken it up to ten million this year or
the year before, but hey, whatever, that would be wild.
But then if that does happen, and if you don't
have a guarantee on the main event, are you just
kind of putting all the shine on the Prime? Which
is fine? I mean, this Prime is a freaking incredible term.
I mean, it's just it's one of the best tournaments
of the year, like by far, top top two or three.
Speaker 2: We always talk about it. You just need to get
people in the building. When you get them here for Prime,
you get them here for the free roll, you know
there's a chance they'll play the main event. So I
understand they were hyping more the free roll first than
the Prime and going from there. I don't even think
that's the biggest question for next year. What's the biggest
question for next year? Will the WBT World Championship even
be at the win? What number three year contract?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think it's already locked in.
Speaker 3: Okay, why didn't they announce it?
Speaker 1: I mean, I honestly I thought the same thing. But
for the people that I talked to, it's fine.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that's the first that's the big question,
you know, like will it be at the win? Will
it go up to a different time, like it could
be at the win in the summer.
Speaker 1: There's probably twelve people in the world that know that
they announced a three year partnership. You and I are
two twelve, Okay, like no one pays attention to Actually, yeah,
so it's whatever.
Speaker 2: But I and the thousands of listeners we have come.
Speaker 1: On doing the rundown for this podcast. I did think
about that. Yeah, I was like, did they announce it
for next year? But you know, I mean, but this
has been so like it's been so good, good between
these two.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, right we talk about we talk
about paradise stepping on you know, wt's toes like taking
that time slot. Now, if I'm assuming the three year
contract was for like an event held in December at
the Win, let's say they redo it. Let's say they
resigned the contract, they extend it. Maybe they think, hey,
why don't we move our event. Gg's doing what they
want to do. Maybe we want to take January.
Speaker 3: You not, I'll play.
Speaker 1: The problem with that. The problem with that is the
WPT has now shifted their seasons to yearly season. That's
the problem here. WSP Paradise, WSP in general doesn't have seasons. Yeah,
it doesn't matter. They can have their event in January, February, March, April,
like it does. December does doesn't matter. It does not
matter for the DOUVASP. For WPT, it matters a bit
more because they've now shifted to.
Speaker 3: Uh having this.
Speaker 2: So I'm just saying, like, you know, if it's a
new contract, or you know the contract is getting amended,
you could see date changes.
Speaker 1: No, I think they're going to stick to the same days.
Speaker 3: I would guess that. I would bet that too.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying now, it's like, until we hear confirmation
of what's happening for next season, you got to consider
all the options. Could be at the win different time,
could be at a different location, you know, we never know.
I'm not sure where that location BA.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying different locations.
Speaker 2: Stop Texas Champions Club, It's not happening.
Speaker 1: Other event winners from the WPT World Championship, you had
Sergio Barrios winning the eight hundred dollars one million dollar guaranteed.
I guess opening event for three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.
This event had a one million dollar guarantee. It came
in at over two million dollars in the prize pool
three thousand and six entries. Zachary Van Curen won the
WPT Prime Championship nine thousand, six hundred and seventy entries,
down a little bit from last year when they had
over ten thousand. Van Kurin won one point one six
two million dollars. I believe he's known as Lucid poker
on social media. He's absolutely jacked him. I mean, if
you you're trying to I mean yeah, if you're trying
to be like Zach, I mean you got a long
way to go, man. This guy would squash you your
head like a peanut. Bradley Miller wins the three thousand
dollars PLO four one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, one
hundred and seventy five inches there. Joe McKeon, we all
know that name. Three thousand dollars. Nolan hold him sixx
two hundred and eleven entries he wanted for one hundred
and twenty one one thousand dollars. All right, now the
free roll. Chase Bricker won it all the Club WPT
goal five million dollar Invitational free roll for one million dollars.
Great name, by the way, Bricker, it's a great name.
Now this is the interesting part, and we're gonna let's
spend a little time on this event. So on four
hundred and seventy five entries, why is that interesting? Because
there was give or take two thousand golden passports, So
more than five hundred people didn't show up. Very interesting. Now,
you and I have done giveaways before. It's sometimes hard,
probably to the surprise of many people out there, to
give stuff away. People turn it down, they don't respond,
they don't check emails like whatever it may be. It's
often difficult. So more than five hundred people, by my math,
did not show well to play what the heck man?
Speaker 2: Well, some of them were in paradise. That that hurts.
Speaker 1: Wait were they really? Were they really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Because they awarded a bunch of passports in Seminal
and a lot of the majority of the Seminal players
were also using Seminal as a pre spot for the Bahamas.
So David Coleman was one of them. Obviously wasn't in
town for the free roll eventually came back, so they
probably last, Yeah, because they were giving them to like
people that like the top three in certain events.
Speaker 1: At sem he won a free roll seat and was
stayed in the Bahamas instead.
Speaker 3: Now he went from Seminel to Bahamas.
Speaker 1: They ended up what I'm saying, did he do that
having a seat into the free roll? Yeah, I mean, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: We look.
Speaker 2: The thing about free rolls is that you can say
the seat's worth twenty five hundred dollars, but it's not.
It's not realized equity, just perceived equity. So twenty five
hundred dollars that David, when he has the same kind
of potential more equity in the Bahamas with the what
was going to be but maybe a big overlay in
the twenty five k, that's.
Speaker 3: How he goes think. I'm just saying, I think like
that's how they think. Yeah, And then.
Speaker 2: Obviously you lost a lot of seats just people were,
you know, ineligible to play. So the fact that they
didn't feel the missing seats on the day by just
giving him to anyone was kind of a shame. I
feel like they should have tried to get two thousand
players in there. I know that's obviously reducing my ev
a little bit because I was in, but I think
that would have been the best thing to at least
attempt to do, is trying to get that to two
thousand players.
Speaker 3: No, you don't like that.
Speaker 1: So you and I talked about earlier how we thought
it was kind of silly that, you know, the dovasit
extended registration, they changed the dealer's choice thing. What I
thought was silly as it relates to the club WPT
Gold free role was putting people like Tony Donsk, Vince
Van Patten, phil Ivy into this free role. I mean,
that's not if it was. My new working take is
that the free roll should have been open to anyone
who has never cashed in a WPT event ever, and
that can include WPT Prime Alpha eight. Whatever the heck
you want to do now you can't. I was originally
gonna say, like, you have never played, but I doubt
you have all those records on file. You can definitely
look up cashed for sure. That's what I would have
done now that I think about it, But hindsight is
twenty twenty, so It's obviously very easy for me to
say that being results oriented, and those people, the people
like you know, Nick Palmer that were out there like
complaining on social media like this is what we pay
Rake for, Like no, stupid, this is the most ridiculous
thing I've ever heard from anyone.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: I mean we a lot of these influences that were playing.
We understood why they were in because you know, they
were going to give away five ten seats as a
trade off, they get one.
Speaker 3: I'm fine with that.
Speaker 2: I'm honestly fine with Ivy Tiny all the WPT talent.
Speaker 3: I don't have a problem with that. I'm the opposite
to you. I do like your idea of I do
like your idea that of the cash.
Speaker 1: Now, this hasn't come to play phil Ivey. You know
what they you know, you know when you come to
play phil Ivey. When when December seventeenth they had the
meetup game in the Win Poker room, that's come to
play with phil Ivey. This has not come to play with.
This has come to play the biggest poker free role
ever and try and win a million dollars. That's what
this is.
Speaker 2: I would have I have more, I have less gripes
about the players, more graps about the prize pool.
Speaker 1: Listen, you you cashed in the event, sir, so let
let us know what are your gripes, mister Allan Casseler,
what are your gripes?
Speaker 2: I I mean, there was so much money in the bounties,
and I feel like they could have been better utilized
in the in the payouts for those spots from you know,
five hundred to to the final ten. Now, I am
not opposed to what they did. I completely understand everything
they did for this free roll, the whole mister bounties,
the million dollar fust the one hundred extra seats.
Speaker 3: I loved it all.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, if I was to have a gripe,
it would be about removing some of those big bounties
and making it more of a normal payout system where
there's more money getting one from the players of cash.
Speaker 3: That's all. But like, I get what they're.
Speaker 2: Doing, and I you know, I'm not going to go
on Twitter and voice my concerns about missing missing levels
and stuff, because I had a ball as fun as
soon as hell.
Speaker 1: Speaking of those bounties, I guess we should hear on
the fact that they pulled the biggest troll job I
have ever seen him. So when so they had I
believe they had a bunch of bounties reserved for the
final table.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, there was a final table. Now.
Speaker 1: And when you knock someone out, they come up there
with a case, the gold case. They open it up.
You take the envelop about you. You draw, right, Jason Christopher,
who I believe ended up finishing run up, He finished
run out for two and fifty K. But anyway he
knocks someone out, he gets a bounty pull. Now, if
anyone's seen these mystery Bonnie envelopes, you know these days
in poker, they're in an envelope and they tend to
like you pull them out where you start seeing zeros
on the back half. So like if you get like
three zeros in a comma, you're like, okay, I'm guaranteed
a thousand or more dollars or whatever, and I have
a chance to oftentimes what is like, you know, twenty
five to fifty one hundred thousand dollars, Like I have
a chance at that. The WPT did zero zero zero
comma zero zero. Like, so now Christopher's thinking he won
what was the biggest bounty one hundred thousand, right, Yeah,
he's thinking he won the biggest one. Nope, the last
number was a zero. I mean that is whoever thought
of that as an ef ingenius? Okay, I mean, like,
this is the ultimate troll job.
Speaker 2: I've already stolen the idea for something else. It might
not get put into play, but I loved it. I
absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I I think a lot out of
their social.
Speaker 3: Only because it's a free roll.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean only because it's a free roll, that's all.
If it was a real buying tournament, I'm against it.
But because it's a free roll, I.
Speaker 1: Mean it was more for it. It was pretty wild.
But anyway, Yeah, Chase Bricker wins this this free role.
How did you think the like, how did you think
the play was?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How was it for you?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Are there a lot of people in your like your
starting table or at your tables in general who like,
going back to what the WPT said, where they were like,
you know, the majority of people have never played a
tournament five or buying or higher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the very first hand the button anied because he
had never played live. He picked up his cars to
look at so it's a bit. There was a lot
of those. But then I also had fucking Dan Jungleman
Case on my table playing a flute.
Speaker 3: And when you looked at.
Speaker 2: The tables, like I walked around a little bit, there
was probably one or two competent or people that I
recognize on every table.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the play was kind of all over the place.
It was limping.
Speaker 2: There was some craziness, kind of what you would expect
with this thing. You know, you would get some good players,
get a lot of people that were fresh and new.
But everyone seemed to be having fun and enjoying themselves.
And you know, got to listen to flute music all day.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 1: That would drag me absolutely nuts.
Speaker 2: I had my music so loud every Okay, so for
those that don't know, I had Dan Kate's sitting at
my table, and he had a not a flute, I
guess it was a recorder, right, a recorder, and every
time he would raise a three bit or win a hand,
he would start playing what he thought was a song.
Speaker 3: Now he just learned how to play. That day, he
was not very.
Speaker 2: Good, and people were getting You could tell people were
getting mad, like we're getting really pissed off at him,
but at the end, like me personally, I thought it
was funny and it was also.
Speaker 3: A free rose.
Speaker 2: I was like, whatever, it's he's having a bit of fun,
people trying to enjoy themselves. But yeah, that was how
my starting table was.
Speaker 1: So, fourteen hundred and fifty seven entries, what place did
you come in?
Speaker 3: Ninety fifth? I think for like four k?
Speaker 1: Damn, Yeah that's pretty good. You owe me money?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did it, Yeah, exactly, it's on my list.
I'm my dad. Shit, right, here's what's I just.
Speaker 1: Needed to say that that I had a piece of it,
which is good.
Speaker 3: I played.
Speaker 2: I got very lucky twice, once before the money, once
in the money, and then my bus at hand, I
had top two pair and got and got unlucky.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what are you gonna do? Exactly? Chase Bricker
won it million dollars. We mentioned that Jason Christopher second
two urnd fifty K, Daniel Geba third, one hundred and
twenty five K, Victor avalone seventy five K for fourth place,
Patrick Askindar fifth place fifty K, Tyler Hancock sixth place
for forty K. Josh Gwindon, sorry if I put you
to your last name. Josh seventh place for thirty K,
Eric Zang eighth place for twenty five k, and Jacob
Stufflebean that a great name at this final table ninth
place for twenty thousand dollars. Again, that was the Club
WPT Gold five million dollars Invitational freeroll TIERSA Sanders winning
the eleven hundred dollars Ladies Championship for ninety thousand dollars,
topping a fuel of four hundred and eighty five entries.
Matthew Savia won the three K nolanman HoldEm PKO for
ninety two thousand dollars in prize money plus sixty nine thousand,
five hundred dollars in bounties. This had two hundred and
ninety six entries. Adam Hendricks three thousand dollars three million
dollar guaranteed event. He won it for six hundred and
twenty nine thousand dollars after a deal. Fifteen hundred and
seventy entries in this one. This hand or sorry, this
event had a bit of a downtick in numbers. I
think it was over two thousand last year with a
million to first, but anyway, still a really good turnout there.
They obviously beat the guarantee. You so whatever. Mark Ebert
twenty five thousand dollars Alpha eight he won it for
six hundred and eighty four thousand dollars after a deal.
One hundred eleven entries in this one. Ren Lynn, fresh
off the plane from the Bahamas, wins the three K
Dolman hold them six max for one hundred and eighty k.
This guy's just on absolute fire this year. And then
Jim Callapy I just saw before we press the record
button that he won the ten K PLO for two
hundred and ten thousand dollars. All right, here's the big question.
Who won December? Was it WSP or was it WPT
WPT Really?
Speaker 2: Yeah, why, I feel if you take a whole look
at both events, I think there was a bit more
negativity coming out of WSP. I just think the success
of the WPT event minus the guarantee, you know, plus
they did this new five million dollar free row. I
think they won. I think they won last December two,
so I think they'll win.
Speaker 1: I definitely think they won last December.
Speaker 2: And you can tell the way you can tell they
won with they winning is WSP are copying them, right,
WPT do the biggest, They do the twenty five, then
they do the forty. They build it as the biggest
main event. What does WSP come and do they decide, Okay,
we're going to do the biggest main event and they
do a fifty million, but it's a twenty five k
by So what's going to happen next? We're going to
see a WSP free roll in the summer for six
million dollars. I hope so, because it seems like the
only whack and win money is in free roles. But
so I would say, yeah, I think WPT one, Yeah,
how about you?
Speaker 1: So I have I have two answers to this question.
One is a cop out. The cop out is that
poker won and poker continues to win because I think
that I think that both events had their own share
of success and ultimately didn't cannibalize each other to the
point that the plain community suffered. Which now, I there's
no doubt in my mind that they cannibalize each other
to some extent, but I don't think they did it
to a big detriment that you know, it's like this
event really hurt that event, and it really hurt the
players and all this sort of stuff. Right, Like, I
think ultimately both were successful, which means it's good for poker.
It's good to have options, competition is good, all that
sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: My second answer is WPT one. I mean, I just
and what I what I mean by that is I
just I feel like the sentiment leaving WPT is just
a more positive one versus the sentiment of what I see,
you know, hearing from people in the Bahamas, where people
are like, it's time to get out of the Bahamas,
Like it's like, you know, that sort of thing, whereas
like WPT, it's almost like people are bummed that it's
done in a way, Whereas and this could just be
a factor of the fact that it's the location, Like
it's hard to travel to a place and be away
from home and all that sort of stuff. And and
even if you are traveling to win Las Vegas, like
you might, you're likely from the US and you're still
within your country versus like you're going to the Bahamas,
which is an island. You got to deal with the
Bohemian culture, which is, you know, they can serve your
food really slow, and stuff is really expensive and all
all that sort of stuff. You're you know, you're really
cramped in a hotel room, whereas if you're in the States,
you're a little bit more comfortable to like venture out
and all this sort of stuff. It could just be
like a factor of that. But that's kind of why
I say, you know, WPT one and this is it's
probably just a factor of how the WPT has always
positioned its brand, how it's approached players. It's always really
tried to be player first and loyalty and respect and
you know, hey, this is what we're going to do
for you. We are always going to be player, player,
player and do the best that we can and we
appreciate you guys. Blah blah blah. You know, and I'm
just not sure you get that same stuff out of
the World Series of Poker. You know. That said, the
World Series of Poker is probably always going to be
where the value is money wise on a bigger picture scale,
just because that's the biggest brand. That's what everyone knows.
Everyone's going to come out like in the summer and
just play all the events because it's just money, money, money, money, money, right.
But in December, I think WPT is winning right now.
You know, I would probably have said that it was
WCP if the numbers were quite a bit lower for
the WPT World Championship, But they drew almost twenty four hundred,
no guarantee. It's kind of like, Wow, we did it. Now,
I might totally change my tune next year because, like
I said, it could decline, Like you could still get
the bump from last year that carries over to this year.
You have that five million dollar free roll playing into everything.
You know, if you don't have that carryover, if you
don't have that free roll buzz like all that sort
of stuff, do you dip a bit further down. I
don't know, right So that's just kind of left to
be seen. But I think I would agree with you
that I think the WBT is is winning this quote
unquote wars that's happening beween these two big brands. But
at the end of the day, like I said, I
think it's generally a really good time to be a
poker player. Like you have options, There are a lot
of options. I think the w s AP stuff that
happens in Paradise is that's the option for the higher
buying player, like the Triton guys, the super high Rollers,
all that sort of stuff. That's where they go. They
do their thing down there for the more recreational amateur
shot taker pros that aren't of the super elite level,
like you have the WPT stuff at the win right.
So and it's also like, now you know there's more
stuff happening in Vegas around the WPT. I think you're
seeing I think you're seeing that much sooner than you
saw in the summer. Like for in the summer, for
so long it was like we don't want to step
on the w SIPs toes, we can't compete with them whatever,
and then finally all these other venues realize like no,
we can do our own thing. Now during the summer,
you have all these venues in Vegas doing their own series, right,
And I think that because you saw that it really
wasn't a bad thing and you could have stuff going
up against the World Series of Poker in the summer.
People in December have been ready to go, like you
saw like this Aria Poker Open with the bed MGM
Poker Championship, like they had a big series, and I
think that's going to continue, and you have stuff going
on at the Orleans and you have stuff at Venetian,
Like you just have stuff going on around town, and
no one's really scared just because the WBT World Championship
is the biggest game in town during this month, Like,
no one's scared about that. So I just think that
it's all pretty interesting and uh good overall, like really
good overall for poker. So do you think either of
these series will make big changes for next year? I
know you mentioned January, but like, is that gonna actually happen?
You actually think that would happen.
Speaker 2: I guess it's it's all gonna happen in a past, right.
I'm assuming WPT will to announce their dates and then
WSP are going to announce their dates, and they're going
to basically play this kind of cat and mouse game
to see what happens. You know, I don't know if
there'll be much difference. I don't think WPT needs to move.
I don't think they need to do a guarantee on
their main event either, So I think the most changes
may happen from a WSP perspective. And you know, are
they going to keep a twenty five k main event?
Are they going to keep the fifty million guarantee. You know,
are they going to make it more affordable, because if
we like, as we've kind of touched on, the series
is very expensive. You know, while the Win series targets
a very different playerpool, you know, the you and me
player pool. Is WSP going to make any changes to
try and a track some of those players, you know,
bring some of the buyings down, make it more more reachable,
more attainable for like the midstate guys. I guess that's
I get the thing that I would be looking out
for the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that all that all makes sense. I
have no idea if there's going to be any big changes,
I would guess no. I mean the only big change
that I think, and this is like a change in
the positive direction, was I heard that they might they're
likely going to go to ten million dollars for prime
for the guarantee, which would be wild. And if they
do that, I would guess they get I don't know
twelve thousand players in the field who the hell knows,
but that that tournament in and of itself is worth
coming to Vegas for the win. Yeah, at that tournament
is so good, so so so good, Like I would
I would highly encourage anyone to play that tournament over
trying to play the ten K and then you know,
obviously you can win into the ten care or whatever,
but like plan four or five six bullets for this Prime,
because it's just so crazy bulls. I mean, it's it's
it's worth it, man, It's absolutely worth it's I would
say all of my table were like playingetself.
Speaker 3: That really yeah, I mean it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was crazy, man, it was absolutely crazy. And I
heard a lot of the same from from a lot
of different people that it was just really really really
really really high value, you know, And I think obviously
the entries I would be curious to see, I know
you talked about it with the WSP super Duper main Event,
you know, wanting to see the uniques. I would be
curious to see the number of unique players that played
both Prime and the ten KWPT World Championship, Like, what's
what's that carry over there? You know, how big is
that number? Because I think that that's that's interesting.
Speaker 3: And then sixty of the main event.
Speaker 1: And then also like I would again, I would like
to see you know, better starting days for the Prime,
specifically that the ten K is like, you might not
need the best starting days just because it's a ten
K and you know, just people just do whatever for
that event. Anyway, now it really does all depend on
this Amazon conference that happens every single year, Yeah, which
I think is on the books for December one through
fifth next year. So knowing that, it would then be
hard to cram in Prime and the World Championship with
starting days that are like, you know, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
et cetera, just because obviously the need run into Christmas.
So it's just tricky. But I would say the event
that is the most important to get the starting days
right is the Prime. That's what That's what I'm getting
at here. Okay, but anyway, that'll wrap up our conversation
there on DISIP Paradise and the WPT World Championship Before
we get out of here, do you want to hit
on EPT Prague. I know it feels like kind of
an afterthought, but you know, EPT Prague is a very
storied series. It is incredibly big, as evidenced by the
fact that they had a record setting main event again
and they I mean they crushed their number. Yeah, So
the EPT PROG main event is a I think it's
fifty three hundred euro buy in. They had fourteen hundred
and fifty eight entries, the record. That's a record center.
The previous record was last year when they had twelve
eighty five, so almost two hundred entries more. With everything
that's going on in poker, with half the people going
to you know, WSP Paradise the other half going to
the WPT World Championship, they still crushed their previous record.
This EPT Progue event is just it's it's incredible to me.
Portugal's Pedro Marquez won it all. Took home nine hundred
and sixty three thousand euros, which is just over a
million dollars. He did make a deal heads up with
Paul Runkin out of Romania. They both took home nine
hundred thousand euros and then they played for the extra
sixty three thousand, four hundred and fifty euros. Marquez became
Portugal's third EPT championship, the first the first EPT champion
from Portugal in fifteen years, which is wild. He's thirty
one years old. He is second on Portugal's all time
money this who's number one?
Speaker 3: Hey, that's right.
Speaker 1: Tim is like scratching his head, squinting, crunching his scrunching
his face. He has no idea.
Speaker 3: Look at this.
Speaker 1: This guy's supposed to be the statman over here.
Speaker 3: Give me a hint, Give me a hint. Ummm, because
it's not it's wow.
Speaker 1: M I can't even give you hints. I don't even
know how to give you a hints. He's a I'll
say he's. I don't know if he currently is, but
he was definitely once was a winimax pro.
Speaker 3: Oh Yavia correct, Who's Who's.
Speaker 1: Way up on top with like twelve million? And then
Marquez has like five point seven million. Marquez told Joe
Stapleton in his post win interview, he said, this is
huge for me. I've been playing poker for ten years
and it's an amazing feeling. I hope one day everybody
in this room can have this feeling because it's great.
How would probably think it was great too? Winning just
over a million dollars Surprisingly not Marquez's biggest score ever,
which is you know, wild to think, but he did
finish fifth in the twenty twenty three PSPC the Poker
Stars PSPC that twenty five k by an event he
got fifth there for one point two five million dollars.
He also took fourth place in EPT Barcelona in twenty
eighteen for eight hundred and thirteen thousand dollars. He's got
a win in a ten thousand dollars high roller event
at EPT Barcelona in twenty nineteen for three hundred and
sixty six k He's got, you know, a bunch of
big scores? Does Pedro Marquez so an absolute crusher in
the ten years that he's been playing poker. He entered
heads up play against Runkin with a five to one
chip deficit, but he was able to storm back. As
I mentioned, they ended up chopping it evenly nine hundred
thousand euros each, and then they played for that extra
sixty three thousand, four and fifty euros, which Marquez. You had,
Jay June Park out of South Korea taking third place
for five hundred and twelve thousand euros. Barack Oz fourth
place for three hundred and ninety three thousand euros, Anton Bergstrom,
a former EPT winner out of Sweden, three hundred and
three thousand euros. Sir hi Alansau, I probably completely butchered
that name worse than I've ever butchered a name, and
I'm probably gonna butcher all three of these next names horribly,
so I apologize. But sixth place for him two hundred
thirty three thousand euros Jeno Esquez out of the Netherlands
one hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars. Tim like nods
his head like if he's like, no, sound pretty good.
And then Siegfried Capela out of Austria for one hundred
and thirty eight thousand euros. So that is the record
setting EPT problem. It seems like every single year this
event just sets records and it kind of goes under
the radar with the fact that you have like all
eyes on the WPT, all eyes on the WSOP, but
EPT progue is still over there doing its thing, absolutely
cooking with what it's doing there.
Speaker 2: I know it's not possible, but it would be awesome
to have the last two years data on the main
events from EPT Prague, WSP Paradise, WPT main event and
we could track like the patent of players, because I
would bet a lot of EPT Progue people go Prague
and then WSP. I'm not a lot, but I'm saying
like I would like to see kind of what the
overlap is for all three of these, and how the
patent of travel.
Speaker 3: Is for like these players. Yeah, I mean we never
get that data.
Speaker 1: Well, just just looking at the numbers, you know, seeing
EPT Prague getting fourteen fifty eight in this main event.
You know, I'm going to hit on who won the
Eureka main event, which is an eleven hundred euro of
buying as part of the series, that had four thy
seven and thirty two entries there. You know, those those
types of players I think are just not traveling or
they're tveling very short distances within Europe to play like
those two events, and that's why those two draw where
I think Prague might have got hurt the most is
in the high roller area. Yeah, you see like this
twenty five thousand euro super high roll or that got
thirty five entries. You see this fifty thousand euro super
high roll or that got twenty five entries. You know,
maybe those are like fifty or sixty if you aren't
bouncing to go to WSP Paradise, right, or maybe they
come over for WPT at World Championship at the win.
But that said, I think for the players that played
those there's probably a decent amount of value. I would think,
you know, like a lot of the big crushers are
all just going to the Bahamas or they possibly go
into Las Vegas, so maybe they perceive some extra value there. Yes,
it's smaller feel, but maybe they're easier to win. I
don't know. So in this Eureka main event again eleven
hundred euro buying four thousand, seven hundred and thirty two entries.
Good Lord Martin Sveetanov won it for five hundred and
seventeen thousand euros, which is five hundred and forty four
thousand dollars. Espen George Dad former w SOP main event winner,
won the twenty five thousand euro super high Roller warm
up for two hundred and seventy seven k or two
hundred ninety three thousand dollars. Patrick Jarles won the ten
thousand euro high Roller, topped the field of two hundred
and eighty nine entries five hundred and seventy three thousand
euros there six hundred and two k in dollars, and
then Thomas Santurne won the fifty thousand euro super high
Roller for three hundred and eighty five thousand euros or
four hundred, seven thousand dollars twenty five entries there. So
again that's kind of where I think they might have
lost you know, I don't know, let's say a dozen
to two dozand entries in those high roller events. But
you know, when you're pumping out over fourteen hundred and
the main event and crushing your record from the year before,
when you're pumping out, you know, almost five thousand entries
in this eleven hundred euro event, Like, I mean, you're
you're you're doing good things. I one of the things
I draw kind of from this whole, from all three
of these events, there's not really a direct comparison in paradise.
I guess you could look at this mini main event,
the two seven hundred and fifty dollars buy in that
had two thousand and thirty one entries, But like the
eleven hundred dollars, price plainting in poker is the sweet
spot of poker right now. Like, I just think that
that's the best price point possible. Like it's just everyone
that does in that ballpark, you know, it does extremely well.
I think you see it probably the most from WPT
Prime what they do in all of their events, all
around the world, of course, highlighted the most by the
WPT Prime Championship that gets almost ten thousand runners this
month out in December. But you also have this Eureka
Main event has four seven hundred and thirty two entries
over in Prague. All the Eureka main events seem to
just blow doors. You have the one in Barcelona that
was great, all that sort of stuff. Every time there's like,
you know, an eleven hundred dollars or whatever event at
a WSB circuit stop or at an MSPT or at
the Venetian or whatever it may be, it just they
always seem to crush like this is the price point
that is just like it's it's big enough that you know,
it allows like bigger players to step down in stakes
and want to go after it. But it's also you know,
not too far out of reach for like everyone to
take a shot. I mean, I know, a thousand dollars
is a lot of like actual dollars, I get it,
But like in poker sense, it's not that bad. Like
you can spring a thousand bucks, you know, you can.
You can sell a little bit of action and maybe
you're only spending five six hundred of your own money
or whatever it may be. So I think that that's
like just the best price point in poker. If I
was starting in a poker series tomorrow, I would target
this price point, or I would target the five thousand
dollars price point, you know, if I wanted to go
a little bit bigger and tap into that I've talked
about before. But this one just just always seems like
it does so so so well. You know, once you
start getting to like five hundred or six hundred dollars,
you know, it's it's not terribly different than an eleven
hundred dollars, but it's just it's almost like too small,
Like you just don't people don't step down, like we'll
step dound to play a one K because it's just fine.
And I think, like, you know, you see the what
are they call it in the summer now, the million
dollar bounty? What the heck is that tournament called these?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that one's just a insane like but
it's like it's just this is the price point that
just does so well, and you see it across all tours,
you really do, so so yeah, I know I know
what the WPT this December, they had all these like
eleven hundred dollars turbo events happening, and they were just
like you know, everyone was like fifty k, sixty k
for first place, just like so great. So yeah, this
is a price point that is just really the the
sweet spot for all of poker. And you thought from
you on Prague, have you ever been, No, never been
on your bucket list? It's worth it.
Speaker 3: I guess the biggest question is are you're going to
break another record next to you?
Speaker 1: Yes, they break records every freaking year in this stupid tournament.
I mean it's not stupid. I'm just using that for effective,
but it's like every year they crush every single year.
Our good friend Yan Correz puts he's the media coordinator
for Poker Stars and the EPT, so he has the
EPT prog main event history fourteen fifty eight this year.
Last year was twelve eighty five, The year before that
was twelve sixty seven, The year before that was eleven ninety,
then eleven fifty four, then eleven seventy four. You know,
I mean, yeah, it's just basically up every single year.
The only like real outlier is going back to twenty
thirteen is twenty seventeen, they had eight hundred and fifty
five entries. I have no idea what happened that year,
but that was the one that dipped. Every other one
is above one thousand since two and thirteen, you know,
and it's all just it's just crushing every single year.
So yeah, wild, absolutely wild. I mean Prague is Progue
is worth it. I mean, obviously they're backed by stars,
so they can you know, qualify a lot of people online.
But it's also like just become one of those stops
that you really, you know, I can't miss, don't want
to miss. If you're in that region, you know, in
Europe and you want to travel for that sort of thing,
you don't want to take a little bit of a
longer flight down to the Bahamas or or whatnot. Maybe
it's uh, maybe it's more affordable to travel to Prague too.
I'm guessing it's not as expensive as going to the Bahamas,
probably not as expensive as coming.
Speaker 3: To the sea, staying at the Wyn, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So really really really good series there from Prague, always
good stuff coming out of them. And when you when
you couple it with the the holiday time in Prague,
the Christmas markets it's it is awesome. I've been there
several times. It really is unbeatable. So if that's your
sort of thing, I would highly encourage you to attend. So,
as I said at the top of the show, Tim
and I will be back soon to be heavy as
it relates to the Poker Go Tour, because we are
going into our big finale to the series. We have
the PGT Last Chance Series, and then that's going to
go right into the PGT Championship, the PGT Million Dollar Championship,
which is going to be a lot of fun. That's
all going on in January. It starts January second. There's
going to be a lot of live streaming for us
in January. We have the PGT Last Chance, we have
the PGT Championship, and then right after that we have
the PGT Kickoff to start the new season.
Speaker 3: So a lot of.
Speaker 1: PGTPGTPGT coming your way in January. Until then, please enjoy
your holidays, enjoy Christmas, all of that good stuff. Hopefully
you guys, Hopefully you just open your presence and it's
just a boatload of money so.
Speaker 3: You can be good.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all I care about. Everyone's like, what
do you want. I'm like, I just want money because
I want to then go play poker, like that's all
I care about. I don't care, you know, maybe you
buying me a sweater or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I've already opened my presents.
Speaker 1: Wow, look at you.
Speaker 2: I did Black Friday shopping. I wanted like gym stuff,
and I wanted the stuff in the gym so I
could use it. So the wife basically wrapped the empty boxes.
So I'm still gonna open the present, but I'm already
using it, all right, cool, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's gonna do it for us. My name
is Donny Peters. His name is Tim Duckworth, and we
will talk to you guys next time.
Speaker 2: So you are