Pay Per Tom CPC Underway
The “Poker Meltdown” at Turning Stone is underway, and our boy Tom Schneider is doing the live broadcast now. Couldn’t tell you anything about the competitors, but that somehow is the point.
Not to criticize, but I couldn’t bring myself to even think about paying for it when the site wanted me to sign up and officially register before even telling me how much I’d be paying and what I’d be paying for. And, of course, any website that hasn’t figured that out probably also hasn’t figured out what got under ESPN’s live-broadcast skin starting back in 2006 …
Yep, there is indeed a link out there showing this live broadcast for free. And though I usually like to put the readers first when it comes to linking, I’m not going to share it with you — sorry, dick move, I know … but that would be kinda like showing someone a back door to a club where your friend’s band is playing, thereby dodging the cover. But I will give you a glimpse below of what you’re missing:
DanM says:
January 19th, 2009 at 11:55am
To be fair, the commentary IS very good — better than most of what’s out there — but the technical production on this, the CPC’s first PPV run, has plenty of room for improvement.
Kevin Mathers says:
January 19th, 2009 at 11:58am
An example (from PokerPages.com’s updates):
Too quick for even the hole cams, but Dean Hamrick is gone.
The (Sean) Wallace opening raise looked harmless enough, then Hamrick came over the top with the rest of his stack. The hole cam or main cam never caught Hamrick’s hand. It caught (Michael) Wang’s. He called the all in, chasing Wallace and his A10 out of the way. Wang showed KK. He put the hand out of reach after flopping a full house.
DanM says:
January 19th, 2009 at 12:05pm
Kevin, are you writing Tom’s script?!?
Kevin Mathers says:
January 19th, 2009 at 12:08pm
A comment from Eric Ulis back in December on 2+2:
“Along with the WSOP® and WPT®, the CPCâ„¢ will become the third major broadcast poker tournament series.”
I’m assuming Eric meant the US, if so, the Heartland Poker Tour gets weekly coverage on a national scale already. The commentators aren’t the greatest, and neither are the players mostly, but it still draws an audience and lots of people to play their events.
And here’s some chip counts:
Michael Wang 314,500
Matthew Forrest 219,000
Sean Wallace 144,500
Debra Dunsmoor 57,000
Dan, I can’t write that well to script someone’s commentary.
I certainly wouldn’t have scripted the “wired pair of 3’s” comment.
Kevin Mathers says:
January 19th, 2009 at 12:18pm
Also a tip for the production staff:
It’d be nice to see all the two players’ cards when they’re all-in, not 2 3/4 of them.
Kevin Mathers says:
January 19th, 2009 at 1:23pm
Tom and Eric were praising the final 3 players for their play, saying that there would need to be a cold deck for someone to get eliminated.
Very next hand: All in preflop, Sean Wallace eliminated with Q9 v AK of Matthew Forrest.