Poker will also be serious business. It's an industry, but first and foremost, it is a game. Enjoyed recreationally by millions of individuals across the world, and played professionally by a couple of thousand who've elevated the skill aspects of the sport to an artform, it will be significant all of us keep in mind that poker have to be fun.
With that attitude in mind, please enjoy this week's Five Thoughts:
1. Picking On Polk
Doug Polk
Get your Dongers up and your cookie jars out since the enigmatic Doug Polk has started a $100 to $10,000 bankroll challenge survive the Upswing Poker Twitch stream. Polk took it to the WSOP.com Nevada streets this week and kicked all of it off with a frankly hilarious fake work-out YouTube video that's definitely worth watching. Admittedly, The “Polkernews” videos he's recently posted are pretty funny as well.
Despite Polk's connection to the rather acerbic Evil Empire, the videos, and the stream, all visit show he's a very funny and entertaining character in his own right, which begs an issue as to his overall brand building strategy.
Polk kicked off the summer of 2016 seeking to increase both himself and the Upswing Poker brand by putting others down — A COMPLETELY ineffective tactic tossed in his face when no less than one of the most players he labeled a “bad reg” went directly to win World Series of Poker Player of the Year honors (See Jason Mercier).
In response to recent criticism of his constant criticisms, Polk vowed to stay himself.
I'm considering keeping it real, but I MUST think leaning towards the engaging and entertaining side of his personality, as opposed to the insulting an abrasive one, will do more to construct those brands.
2. Fire MartyDerbyshire
Joe McKeehen
The reigning World Champion Joe McKeehen has decided to show his Twitter account right into a campaign to get me fired. The exact same one that has thumbed his nose on the media and poker fans requesting selfies and autographs has the strange concept that I'M somehow bad for the game.
I suppose I'LL respond with some old adage about pots and kettles, or by recounting all of the good I've done for poker in writing concerning the game for the past decade.
I'd rather just let my lengthy track record of labor on this industry speak for itself, and instead, I CAN simply suggest the winner of the 2015 WSOP Main Event take a step back and consider what he's really doing here, and why. If assassinating my character and attempting in vain to derail my career within the name of what is good for poker are really how he desires to spend the previous couple of months of his reign as World Champ, I WILL NOT stop him, but I NEED TO think there are hundreds of items he may well be doing instead that will be tons of better for “our” game.
3. Sportification Hits a Snag
Alex Dreyfus
I'm on record as to how much I enjoyed the worldwide Poker League's first matches within the Cube in Las Vegas this summer. Now I'm starting to worry concerning the league's future.
GPL CEO Alex Dreyfus confirmed this week the plan to host the playoffs in San Diego as a part of TwitchCon, and the finals in London at Wembley Stadium, has been scrapped. Instead, the season will wrap up on the exact same Las Vegas makeshift studio that hosted the summer series.
Dreyfus can spin the move any way he likes, however the evidence is obvious. The GPL has simply didn't gain the type of audience that might justify the massive spend a large splash at TwitchCon and Wembley Stadium would require.
Dreyfus himself went at the record this week stating the league's goal is to endure, and “for that to happen, it is not about spending more, it's about making the proper decisions and growing the league organically up to we can.”
I can consider this idea, but unless they make major changes to the league's entire format, they're in trouble. The GPL must shorten the season to make each match more impactful, exciting and value watching. It must cope with the nice new and innovative poker product it has within the Cube and get rid of the fewer than scintillating online section of the schedule. Plus, whether Dreyfus desires to do it now, or later, the league will ultimately must make a large marketing splash a method or another, because without it, the GPL is in great danger of spending many years mired in mediocrity, and relative obscurity, before it ultimately dissolves.
4. Make Poker Fun Again
Cliff Josephy
They were right down to two tables within the 2016 WSOP Main Event, and on a break once I approached Cliff Josephy with an issue. I remembered watching him enthusiastically sweat 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada on the final table, and wondered which situation was more stressful for the longtime player and backer, standing at the rail watching a horse undergo all of the trials and tribulations on poker's biggest stage, or trying to wade his own way through an analogous minefield himself.
His answer said tons in regards to the man, his attitude towards poker, and why it doesn't matter what happens in November, Josephy is a legend on this game.
“Stressful?” he asked with a grin. “Neither situation is stressful in any respect. Both are fun. That is what that is really about, isn't it? Let's make poker fun again.”
You can root for whoever you favor come November, but backing this concept seems like a no brainer to me. Let's hope all of the November Niners rejoice and luxuriate in the ride. Let's hope all of them follow Josephy's lead and feature some fun. Let's all do our part to make poker fun again, and all of the industry will finally end up winners for it.
5. Going Back To Cali
James B. Butler
The debut of taxed and controlled Online Poker in California should be closer than ever, considering probably the most arguments against it trotted out by the manager Director of the California Coalition Against Gambling Expansion Rev. James B. Butler on CNBC's Power Lunch this week.
Sure, the most recent bill to legalize online poker in California was pulled off the Assembly floor this week, and will not come again on until 2017, but if Butler kicked off his appearance at the show with the usual effort to smear the casino industry with stats about a rise in crime, unemployment, welfare, and bankruptcies related to gambling expansion that the opposition used to fight a losing battle against a boom in brick and mortar casino construction within the 1990s, it really felt like he was grasping at straws.
I don't believe anybody's buying the concept that taxed and controlled online poker goes to start out some roughly crime wave, and Butler's use of aging and inapplicable arguments simply comes off as desperate, suggesting even he knows he's fighting another losing battle, and taxed and controlled online poker is headed to California sooner in place of later.
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