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http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2011/08/julian-thew-back-from-vegas-thoughts-on-the-epic-league-7045.htm

The epic poker league could well be the best thing to happen to poker, please stop the hating.

Elaborate?

I agree on the short memory/naivety of some of the poker community, having her call the start of the WSOP.

As everyone clapped, i was just thinking GTFO, attention whore.

The idea of a Poker Champion's League thing is a good idea - TV poker needs something like this.

It's just a shame that it's headed up by someone from poker's equivalent of the Manson family.

"Boring my tits off"

IS THIS THE REAL JULIAN THEW?

Does anyone actually watch TV poker any more?

Must mean Flushy has a couple years exemption and there is money added. Having elitist and selective poker tournaments and putting added money into them is surely just retarded and a great way to kill a market- need to be pumping money into the bottom not the top

And no. Never watch tv poker

Having tournaments that reward PAST success is obviously plain silly and highlighted by the fact that a decent % of the people invited and that have x years exemption, have busted themselves chasing their 2nd lottery win- but they then get rewarded for this?????

The whole appeal of poker is the Cinderella aspect and the fact anyone can Jamie Gold a tournament, I see no benefit of this league, particularly now that they cannot currently get an online poker room to sponsor it (and why would an online poker room want to, if they can offer satellites to it?) and they struggled to get a TV channel to show it (and I believe they ended up paying themselves). The fact it is headed by a massive UB ambassador and the first champion is the biggest grimmer in Vegas playing for about 10% of himself, speaks volumes of what a joke event it is.

^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As I've said elsewhere I like the idea- it's good from a spectator point of view because it combines the best features of a TV cash game- interesting tables, and a televised tournament- a big winner with a shiny trophy. It therefore has the potential to be the best TV poker of all time. I think good TV poker is a) interesting to watch and b) good for the game.

Secondly everyone always moans about the WSOP and Harrahs over-juicing the tournaments and using the players images and how they just take out of poker but don't give back. Well, here is a tournament series giving back. I think 4 lots of $400,000 added money is good for the players.

Nobody is advocating scrapping open tournaments.

They've made some mistakes though:

* It's the nut low time for starting any kind of poker venture in the US.
* Hiring Annie Duke is a mistake as she is a divisive figure. Everyone seems to focus on her and not anything else about the tournaments.

I think Thew's point that she was involved with UltimateBet is getting a bit old now. The whole UltimateBet thing doesn't look so bad in retrospect when you consider what FullTilt have done, and no one is saying that their pros shouldn't be seen in public.

* It's got a silly name
* I'd just be honest and try and invite interesting players, rather than pretending that you are trying to get the "best" 200 players in the world.

I don't think much of the "oh, it totally ignores online poker" line either. Firstly it's a live tournament series, so it should be based on live results. And secondly, there aren't many online pros who have no live results to show.

this comment pretty much renders your whole post useless

+1

If you are playing, yes. I'm mean, even Alex won a £1k once. As a spectator, I was more interested when Phil Ivey was in the November 9 than I was last year, and I am more interested last year than I am this year.


These are reasons that it will probably not be successful. I agree, it will probably not be successful, but I think it would good for poker if it was, and as such I'm being enthusiastic.


Is the same person who works for PokerNews that until relatively recently advocated playing on Ultimate Bet or are you someone else?

*EDIT- I mean PokerNews ran promotions for Ultimate Bet, not you personally*

e.g.
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2010/06/ultimate-bet-and-pokernews-announce-9-000-in-exclusive-freer-8414.htm

I agree Annie Duke is a mistake, because it has become the Annie Duke Poker League.

I'm not sure what you can do about bad people winning poker tournaments.

In the end for me you have to say that you think this is a good venture and ignore the bad points, not sit and wait for something to come along that is 100% perfect.

People need to wake up.

Ultimate Bet have taken your money by being badly disorganised and letting some of their employees rig the software. Now they aren't paying anyone back.

Full Tilt have taken your money by being badly disorganised by letting some of their employees take money out of your account and spending it.

The net result is the same. Your money has been stolen by a cheating poker site.

Fair enough, Full Tilt could turn around tomorrow and make it right. Ultimate Bet have pretty much said "we don't care, ha ha, you've been had". Full Tilt aren't saying anything.

I don't want to start a big row or take it off topic, but there is a Full Tilt Pro on this thread who a) advocated continuing playing after Black Friday, and that everything was fine at Full Tilt , which I listened to, and b) advocated continuing playing after Ivey sued and it was clear American players weren't getting paid back in a hurry, which I was fortunate enough to ignore, hence I've got my money. There are people on this board who aren't so fortunate.

If you endorse something, and it turns out to be bad, you don't just get to shrug your shoulders and say "sorry mate, I just work here". Full Tilt Pros should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Is Helmuth and Duke's actions really much worse than a Full Tilt Pros? Really?

I think the first part of your post is fair comment in that Flushy did suggest to peeople that everything was okay but the second part is a bit out of order.  There is a massive difference between people like Helmuth and Duke who were the faces of the brand and somebody like Flushy or James Akenhead who were just another sponsored pro.  As much as I don't think Flushy should have made any comments on FTP and their safety without knowing the full facts he can't really be held to account over the action of Bitar, Lederer etc.  If he had been a FT shareholder like the members of Team Full Tilt then possibly he would have a case to answer but I would imagine in this case his only crime os to be a little bit too enthusiatically loyal.

My issue with the EPL is it's trying to turn poker into something it's not. Trying to artificially manufacture the sort of look and feel of a golf tournament when the 'sport' itself doesn't work that way.

IMO if people stopped trying to turn poker into a sport and focused on what is interesting about it - the drama, action and interest of the game itself rather than the 'personalities' - then we might get some TV shows worth watching.

It never sat well with me that the company I worked for promoted UB as recently as last year, but it doesn't make my point any less valid. I didn't realise I had to carry out a quality audit on every single thing I have a link to before I commented on something.

I'm not waiting for a 100% perfect event to come around, I actually think there are loads of great things out there right now that do exactly what Epic is setting out to do (High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, The Poker Premier League - invite only events for TV poker fans).

I actually cant make my mind up which site is worse, I edge towards UB being worse though, but they are both bad.

When you say FT pros should be ashamed of themselves, do you mean all of them, or just the ones with controlling interest? Because you are dead wrong, or dead right, depending on which you mean. Flushy shouldnt be ashamed of himself, Lederer should.

As i understand it no poker room was allowed to sponsor it? The idea was to attract mainstream sponsors to do this they had to distance it from offshore gaming companies.

It's Annie Duke's idea/hard work so not sure what you can really do about that right now.

Those saying putting money in at the top is a bad idea surely can't be serious. It's the same in every other walk of life.