Happy to reload.

I have €5k euro to sell at xe.com mid-rate (£4225 at mo). I live in the wilds of Somerset so probably not too near to many of you but will be at G Luton on Sunday from 5pm until GUKPT Main finishes.

transferred on stars from nhfufish - good luck!

5% please

Great start Chris! Stars is good for me, nhfufish is screenname.

Don't normally see these until they are sold out. Will take 10%.

Well done Dan, nice result

Live streaming vs updates is an interesting one. I think in the long run live streams will get more advanced, soon we will be able to follow the action to any table with camera's and commentators easier and the interactivity teaming them up with facebook & twitter can make them as interactive as a forum update.

The best ones we get to do are for Winamax as they have the budget and creativity to make them really interesting. We do one for a freeroll every year in Paris where there are 2000 players and we can get to every table due to the layout of the place, commentators were skateboarding between the tables at one point. The French lap it up and we had over 30,000 views during the two days.

I still read the blonde ones though and they are among the best out there. Really handy for catching up after the fact as mentioned before.

This is already an interesting thread. Looking forward to reading plenty of updates Dave. Thanks for the mention

If anyone is looking for a dog then there always loads looking for homes at the animal sanctuary my partner works at. Here is Rocko, a lovely little thing who is looking for a home. 

Captain: Jason Mercier

Ivey Pros: Dan Smith

Brits: Jake Cody

WSOP POTY Top 10s 2012-13: Daniel Negraneau

High Stakes: Jason Mercier

Ladies: Vanessa Selbst

Eurozoners: Bertrand Grospellier

WildCard 1: Phil Ivey

Wild Card 2: Phil Hellmuth

5% @1.25

I must say that ever since they were introduced I have felt uncomfortable about cards that can be identified by the individual micro-chips in them far more than the regular decks which are only seen via the under-table cameras and which can be avoided if so desired.

Does anyone else share my concern or am I being paranoid?

The reader that takes the information of the chip on the card will only pick the data up if it is in very close proximity to the cards. If a more powerful reader (i don't know if they exist or not) was used by someone to try and get the info on what cards a player had then it would pick up all the cards on the table and be useless to them. Plus the chip is basically a long barcode and only the computer that is used for the table knows what barcode matches each card.

When we do this the computer that does all the reading of cards and graphic generation is not network connected so it cannot be hacked by anyone.

No, I didn't sign a waiver. Obviously would have shown my cards if I had.

I would probably have grumpily agreed to show my cards if they had added money to the pool.

Interested to know what the viewing figures for these live streams are?

I've very rarely watched one, would only do so if I had a % of someone in a final. And would definitely never watch a stream before the ft. Far too boring.

Prefer written and interactive updates by far.

Well if you didn't sign a waiver there's not much they can do.

Obviously I can't publish viewing figures without consent of clients but the lowest we ever had was 700 uniques for a weekend and the most was 20k in a day. There is usually a lot more viewers watching online than there is at the venue. Due to the niche nature I would expect them all to be valid opportunities for marketing compared to a minutely small % of viewers watching a mainstream TV show. On average a viewer watches around an hour of a full day stream.

Other than professional interest I only watch a stream if a good friend or someone I have a % in is playing. After spending my early poker career as an updater I have seen enough poker hands to last me a lifetime. When I first got into the game I watched all the TV shows with great interest but now it is very rare that I continue watching  stream after I have got all the info I need from it. Sometimes if Jesse, Padraig or Neil are on good form I might stay listening for entertainment.

Interesting debate!

Fair play to you Keith for getting away with not showing your cards, did you actually sign a waiver that said you were required to at the beginning of the tournament?

I have to say that if it was at a tournament that I organised and you signed the waiver you would have been first warned, if you carried on given a penalty and if you persisted after that disqualified. As far I see it is the same as breaking any other tournament rule.

We do get asked occasionally by players who are about to sign these at our events if we will enforce it (we would) and I can only recall one occasion that the player decided not to play rather than sign it.

Personally I think there are better ways to make a live stream more interesting than showing hole cards. However when we live stream an event we do so at the organisers spec and if that includes having hole cards on a delay then that is their choice. The only event that we organise as well as stream that has hole cards is Goliath and I think that is the kind of event it should be reserved for. I also think that events shown live to a massive audience on TV or like the WSOP benefit but I think they should be filmed in a segregated area with no access to the stream or outside world. If you are not segregating then everybody should have access to the stream as it is broadcast. We have displayed a delayed stream in the room before and it went down very well.

At the end of the day the usual rules of supply & demand will come into effect and hole-cards will only be not shown on a regular basis if a) the players stop turning up because of it or b) the organisers decide it is not worth the cost.

In the UK at the moment players have the best choice they have ever had. With the likes of Dtd, Grosvenor, Genting and Pokerstars all either guaranteeing or adding money to events there has never been so much value or choice for the players. This will only stay if the organisers feel that the cost/risks are worth it. Part of the reason they do it is for exposure and live streams are part of exploiting this. Some obviously feel that hole-cards make a big difference, some not. I am sure debates like this will help along the way to how things develop for the future but to say players get nothing in return is not looking at the big picture. There are no games without someone to organise them.

Alex's point is very relevant and I am sure one of the reasons why hole-cards are so popular. A good commentator costs a lot more than having the hole-card technology...

DtD use the same technology as the EPO & ourselves, to not show your cards you just have to make sure they do not go on the RFID reader in front of you.

Meanwhile at the GUKPT 1B only got 92 runners, after 123 on 1a

315 entries including re-entries over the two days

Was 192 entries on Day 1B....

Go Claypole!