WSOP Coverage Lacking

November 30, 2008

Poker players were at a loss of words when it came to the coverage of the final event in this year’s World Series of Poker. The final event of the poker tournament was pushed back so that they could both build up anticipation for the event and so that they could get ample coverage of the event for everyone to see.

However, when it came down to the actual poker event, many were left wanting more. The same complaint seemed to emanate from everyone and that was that they didn’t show enough of the poker hands. They only showed a small fraction of the hands that were played, leaving people wondering what had happened in the interim.

The poker game ran 17 hours, but according to ESPN it was only a short two hours. They cut back on the amount of stuff that went on, but much of that is the actual hands which poker players really turn in to see how they are paid. Each of the players at the poker game had something nice to say about what they saw, but they also had the same criticism which was about the showing of the hands.

The poker event brought in 46% more viewers as they thought that they were seeing a live event, however, this was not really the case. According to many of the players they said that all they showed was the bust-out hand, not the regular hands of the show. There were 274 hands played over the course of the poker game, but only 23 were aired.

Finally, the final showdown between winner Peter Eastgate and runner up Ivan Demidov ran 105 hands over four hours. ESPN showed two hands over the course of a full five minutes. Poker players were angry because they wanted to see the battle between these two players, and were denied the opportunity to do so.