Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
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First Broadcast of WPT on GSN |
 The first episode of the new season of World Poker Tour debuted this week on GSN. It was quite an interesting table, including Phil Ivey, Darryl ‘Gigabet’ Dicken, Amnon Felipe, and three others. By and large, WPT has upped their new season with a bit more flashy intro, slightly revamped displays, and the same power poker you’ve gotten used to tuning in to. It’s a good sign for a nice new season for the enterprise. Here are my thoughts during the initial broadcast.
The intro is a little over the top, really, with some flashy graphics, but I guess in the realm of poker style, you could do worse.
The new hostess, Kimberly Lansing, is a little strange looking for my tastes. She’s not bad, for sure, but pales in comparison to her predecessors if you ask me.
Though I swear she was much more orange on TV.
Several players continue to reraise bets with KQ, which I’ve always seen as a hand that loses more than it wins, but if you can make your opponent fold to a preflop raise, it’s nice to pick up some blinds. Definitely a be-careful hand post-flop though, if you’re seeing too much action.
Phil Ivey is getting tonked around like a no name, which is nice to see, as on previous episodes it drove me nuts when people would make huge folds just because a ‘name’ player was representing a hand.
Darryl ‘Gigabet’ Dicken looks like a heroin addict. Dude, eat something! Gt out from in front of the computer for a couple hours a day. There is such a thing as sun.
Dicken, though, is quite a player in that he shows the premiere ability of being able to win pots with pure aggression. Betting into Ivey with just gut-shots and overcards. Quite a testament to the ‘aggressor go the spoils’ mantra.
He also seems to slow down when he makes a big hand, though: checking the turn when he flopped the straight cost him a lot of money. Seems like a lot of these pros get timid when they have a hand and aggressive when they don’t. The opposite kind of read that you get from amateurs, but it’s the pros that mix it up better that separate them from the online pros like Dicken.
I think Ivey goes from 1st to worse pretty quickly because he is just playing way too many hands. He’s been in every hand I’ve seen in the past few minutes. IE: Going out with a Q2 (sure, he had the best hand went he went in, but he just got his head into too many situations).
It’s not surprising really that he’s busted out of 7 WPT final tables, as he’s just gotten a bit too stealy and loose at the table. He’s settled too much into the ‘best poker player alive’ titled. He’s a great player, but I think he might be now one of the more overrated in the game.
Cory Carroll is essentially glorified donk. Playing J4 suited for a raise, calling bets when he flops second pair with it, and ending up making a hand that loses him even more money. Pretty gross.
Previews for the ’21’ movie make it pretty hard to tell if it is going to suck or not. Kevin Spacey? Don’t care for that choice. But I’ll probably go see it anyway.
My god, Dicken looks even worse up close.
I really like Jonathan Little rerasing Carroll when with the J8 suited after getting reraised. I guess it’s clear even to the guys at the table that Carroll is a little bit of a donkey. Crazy that the guy called with A5 offsuit: hard to tell if it was actually a great read or another donkey move.
They praised it as the ‘call of the night’ but personally I think calling off with A5 offsuit for all your chips. Even if the guy does have two middle cards, you’re not much of a favorite with that hand, and you could be crushed. That he flops the A5 boat helps him to look like less of a donk.
Overall, a good start back into the WPT. Hopefully we’ll only get better from here.
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