ESPN Screws Up the WSOP Experience

First of all, here it is Thursday and I have yet seen the final two finish the tournament. I record everything on DVR, but ESPN keep running the same stuff over and over. I guess they think everyone wants to see Phil Ivey get knocked out again.

I know who wins because it happened days ago, so watching it will be anti-climatic. But I still wish ESPN would telecast the final two, at least as much as they re-run everything else. Hopefully, they show it tonight, but who knows.

And the announcers are horrible. I've never seen a set of announcers in any sport who more think that they are the show. The jokes are lame, the enthusiam is stilted, and they give absolutely no insight into what the players are doing. These guys need to watch the WPT to see how to built excitement in a poker tournament.

Then there is the way it is presented. It is filmed, rather than videotaped, which makes it feel like it could have happened years ago, blunting the immediacy of it. The editing is counterproductive to excitement--it's as if they hired a documentary director to film it. It's a sporting telecast, not a historical document.

Poker After Dark is still the worst poker show on TV, unless you want to be put to sleep. Talk about dullsville. This not counting the lame "game show" poker productions that are cropping up, like Face the Ace.

But it's astounding that ESPN (or whoever produces WSOP) can take the most important, exciting tournament in the world and turn it into lefover chop suey like it does. Fire the lot of them.

So........... in short.........

are you saying you're not happy with the ESPN coverage so far ??

Wait,,,,, I thought I did something wrong, I recorded it the other night but after two hours which I had it set for it stopped the recording, they did not play out the final table all at once? I am recording it again with 2 hrs added, but it won't matter will it?

lol. Yes, so far and likely to the bitter end.

Not in my experience. They keep restarting at the final nine. Over and over, like Groundhog Day with poker players.

Maybe tonight, but it remains to be seen.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like ESPN has exclusive TV coverage until 2017.

The final table was broadcast down to the winner on Tuesday night. However, it lasted about two and a half hours, but ESPN showed it in the listings as only being two hours, so DVRs only recorded part of it. If you record a re-airing, make sure you set it to record long.

Yeh im dissapointed on how ESPN showed this WSOP final table. As soon as Ivey busted out it showed the FT to turn out to b a 4bet donkfest lol.

Poker After Dark is amazing IMO. It shows alot of hands (may seem dull to some, but we get a feeling on most hands played and how stacks are going). Unlike ESPN showed Darvin Moon HU with 85million, next hand he has 135million. WTF?!?!

ESPN shud realy sort out sum pay-per-view thing for the final table so ppl can watch it live and enjoy the final table for what it is. Not all this interviewing, host tlkin crap, lets only show the big cards b-in played.

Now common, us poker players spend hours and hours infront of the game, so why not charge us like $20 to watch a 14hour final table? We've got nothing else to do, so let us watch how most of the hands play out and how the contenders build up to b-in busted on the most majour poker tournament in the world.

I heard it was bad from a lot of different people, and I haven;t had time to turn on a television in so long, but from what I am hearing now I don;t think I will even try and watch it lol. It's a shame too because imo those shows brought in a lot of the younger new players in, i know it did for me way back when, and now that it is getting to be a horrible production it's probably bad for the poker community

This is what I did for tonight, I hope it works.

ESPN has the WSOP til 2017. So LOL.

It was broadcast on Tuesday with a half hour added for heads up play, and aired immediately again on ESPN2 at midnight. It's also been uploaded to a bunch of online sites if you missed it.

I also don't get all the hate for PAD. It's nice to have poker on NBC 6 nights a week. My only beef is the number of reruns they air.

The only part I agree with is the broadcast of ESPN's final table came nothing close to the audiocast as far as atmosphere.

I'll have to listen live next year. I've heard so many people on all the poker forums that it was incredible coverage that way. My only beef with ESPN coverage was that it only concentrated on the ME. I like to see a couple other events covered like they did in the past. Like the 50k HORSE for example. And, I agree with some of the others,I love Poker After Dark.

It seems to me that the November 9 could really be made into something that everyone would want to watch live, instead of bad taping by ESPN. The 15 hours live would be a bit tough to do, but maybe they could do 2-3 hours a day live for a week or something.

This was on Tuesday night. I hear form many different pwoplw that they DVR it and the last 20 mintues or so was cutoff because it ran past its scheduled time. Did this happen to anyone here?

Finally got to see the end. Nothing like heads-up for excitement. Even the announcers' annoying schtick was drowned out by it.

But from a strategy standpoint it wasn't very interesting. Darvin going all in with just an OESD with one card to come wasn't very smart, IMHO.

Happy for both players. I hope Darvin builds a nice house for his wife.

It's okay, it's just that the players usually come across as bored and listless. You would think they would have a vested interest in making themselves look halfway interesting. HSP seems to have a better atmosphere which makes it entertaining.

yes, merged your thread. I just watched it all at once on you tube instead... although vid 1/8 started with only 7 left, was that the complete television coverage? edit, nvm. couldn't be, it was hyped as november nine.