I can love the WPT again

If you follow such things, you've known for a long time that there have been loud and frequent complaints among both players and serious viewers that World Poker Tour final tables have been all-in luck-fests. The blind structure was such that usually half of the last six players came in very short-stacked and had to make shove-and-pray decisions. It was not the greatest display of poker skill.

Last night was the conclusion of the two-part Bellagio Cup III broadcast--a four-hour final table, the first using the WPT's new tournament structure, which made for much deeper stacks, and therefore much better poker.

It was like watching a whole new show. I cannot praise the change sufficiently. Even after two players were eliminated, even 2 1/2 hours into the 4-hour combined show, all four remaining players had more than 60 big blinds each! Deep-stack poker is a whole different animal than what we've become used to in these programs, and it was sweet.

I also noticed that Mike Sexton and Vince van Patten were going deeper in their analysis than they used to. They take a lot of grief for saying the same things over and over again, but frankly, these guys taught me the game. The first time it came on, I had no idea how to play, but I learned through watching. They understand that their audience has grown more sophisticated in its knowledge of the game, so their commentary is now stepping up a notch to accommodate that.

For example, at one point Danny Wong (who I thought was the most impressive talent at the table, with fewer missteps than anybody else, and astonishing feel for when to press and when to back off) flopped two pair and led out betting, rather than slow-playing it. He got no customers. In past episodes, I don't think that would have received any significant analysis. But this time they showed unimportant footage of him stacking up his chips (with four hours, they have the time luxury to do this sort of thing), while Vince came to his defense and explained why this non-obvious move was actually smart. (At the risk of breaking my arm while patting myself on the back, I appreciated this commentary because I was thinking that I would have played it the same way, and for precisely the reason that Vince noted.) Wong probably anticipated that his ultra-aggressive opponent, Kevin Saul, would view the bet as a steal attempt and raise with position. Wong would therefore win more chips than if he check-raised or just called, both of which would set off alarm bells in Saul and cause him to shut down. It's the reverse-reverse thing: betting out is the first-level obvious thing to do when you flop big, so the common ploy is to reverse that and check instead, which makes betting out look like you have a small piece of the flop, rather than a monster. I agree completely with the play and the analysis, and it just happened that Saul, this one time, didn't play as per his usual style. Anyway, I appreciated the time the show took to explain why the unconventional move may have been smarter than it looked at first glance.

I also appreciated what seemed to be the commentator's newfound willingness to be openly critical of bad plays. In the past, about the most scathing critique you'd hear from the ever-positive Mike Sexton would be something like, "Well, in my opinion, that was a questionable move there." But in last night's show, Mike Matusow, way behind in third place and getting pummelled by both remaining opponents, said that if he didn't win this event he was going to go kill himself. (To which Vince rather nastily remarked, "Promises, promises, Mike!") Mike Sexton said something like, "He's going to have to start playing better if he hopes to beat these two guys." Dead on accurate. I like the pull-no-punches approach, when it's justified.

I have to admit that I was disappointed not to see Matusow break down and cry like a baby when he got knocked out, the way he did in his only other WPT appearance back in season one. They showed a clip of that again last night, and again I laughed out loud at him. No wonder he and Phil Hellmuth are such good friends--they can cry on each others' shoulders. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's who they are....

I was surprised to notice that a guy I used to play with all the time at the Hilton is a Bellagio dealer and had a lot of time in the box on this episode. I didn't even know he was a poker dealer. There's probably not a chance in the world that he reads this blog, but just in case: Hi, Sal!

Now if they could just find a hostess that I like as much as Shana Hiatt, they'd have me completely hooked again.