Professional Poker League ??

[Willy]

I saw someplace that the PPL original start date of early January has been "pushed back" for some reason. Does anyone know what's going on?

[Kevmath]

Barry Greenstein mentioned on LATB in November that the start of the PPL got pushed to I believe April, mostly because the UIGEA situation took out most of the money that was backing the league.

[NickMPK]

I can't imagine this league actually succeeding. The PPT was much better in concept, and look how that turned out.

[BigBuffet]

[ QUOTE ]
I saw someplace that the PPL original start date of early January has been "pushed back" for some reason. Does anyone know what's going on?

[/ QUOTE ]

Coupling the phrase 'team sport' and poker is an oxymoron.

Poker is a game, not a sport. And it is an individual versus individual game, not a team activity.

Insert picture of Fonzi waterskiing here>>>>

Hopefully, the promoters have come to their senses and killed the idea.

[alphatmw]

umm, this show adapted an individual game to a team activity, whats wrong with that? the concept works.

poker tv jumped the shark a long time ago. this is a step back in the right direction.

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
umm, this show adapted an individual game to a team activity, whats wrong with that? the concept works.

poker tv jumped the shark a long time ago. this is a step back in the right direction.

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you know the concept works? Have you seen it?

The biggest problem is not that they adapted poker into a team sport, but how they selected the teams. Each team is just eight random players, giving no one a reason to root for one team over another. At least when they tried "team tennis" each team was based out of a different city.

[Alan Goehring]

It is fairly common for contracts to contain boilerplate language regarding a "material adverse change", which I suspect would be breached by the UIGA-----i.e. sponsors could simply cancel the contracts. Stay tuned.

The team concept would work a lot better if the teams were based on geography of were pros actually lived and played. For example team New England (foxwoods), Southeast (Tunica), Vegas, So. California, Canada, etc. Games should travel to each location and preferably be open to the the public. The problem is the Venetian only has one casino in the U.S.

[darom03]

Why stop there?

Why not make international teams that compete along the national/regional ones?

I for one would love to see a Scandinavian team, a British team and an Asian team in the build.

[grdred944]

Geographic makeup would be ideal but who would put in the time necessary to travel all over the world to do this? The money just isn't going to be there when you consider how tight the professional circuit schedule already is. If you can play WPT/WSOP events for $1-2M a pop or travel the world and hope to chop what would be (probably) $1M at most, you are going to stay on the circuit.

These made for TV events work best from a production and talent view, when you lock everyone in a casino ballroom for a week and tape six months worth of shows. I can't see them getting around this.

You can still do geographical teams if you want but there won't be home and away matches. This will keep it as dull as most TV poker has become and offer no reason for 'team' loyalty. Just the continued loyalty we have already for individuals.

[BigBuffet]

[ QUOTE ]
Why stop there?

Why not make international teams that compete along the national/regional ones?

I for one would love to see a Scandinavian team, a British team and an Asian team in the build.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wasn't there a TV tournament this year with individual players representing their country? Didn't seem to be a big deal. To me it was like another tv show. I didn't reallly care who won based on what country they were from. I wouldn't be any more enthused about team play, whether it's a country team or an artificial PPT team.

The whole team concept is just an attempt to cash in on another "angle". I don't see any value here.