Poker's enfant terrible joins the Annie Duke Fan Club.

[tikay]

WARNING - may contain spam. Only a bit.

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

[Royal Flush]

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

[redarmi]

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

Elaborate?

[Spraggs]

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.

[AndrewT]

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.

[cambridgealex]

"Boring my tits off"

IS THIS THE REAL JULIAN THEW?

[Bongo]

Does anyone actually watch TV poker any more?

[Dubai]

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

[Dubai]

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??

[DaveShoelace]

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.

[dik9]

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

[Skippy]

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.

[outragous76]

The whole UltimateBet thing doesn't look so bad in retrospect when you consider what FullTilt have done,

this comment pretty much renders your whole post useless

[AndrewT]

The whole UltimateBet thing doesn't look so bad in retrospect when you consider what FullTilt have done,

this comment pretty much renders your whole post useless

+1

[Skippy]

The whole appeal of poker is the Cinderella aspect and the fact anyone can Jamie Gold a tournament.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.