For anyone who enjoys watching televised live poker, the arrival of PokerGO on the scene this summer has been a godsend. With many events from this summer’s WSOP available to live stream or watch on demand, the service can be a goldmine, not just of entertainment, but of strategy information applicable to almost any MTT scenario. Watching some of the best players in the world in final table situations can be an invaluable form of insight into high-level MTT strategy.
In addition, the commentary of Ali Nejad and Nick Schulman provides a more strategically-oriented insight for the PokerGO viewers, in contrast to the more casual style of Norman Chad, Lon McEachern and Antonio Esfandiari. Watching the streams that are only shown on PokerGO instead of ESPN will provide some incredible strategy insights, courtesy primarily of Schulman’s vast experience, alongside stellar guest commentators such as Doug Polk, Matt Berkey, Jonathan Little and Jeff Gross.
For those of you who might not have been tracking the summer’s poker events since their beginning, here’s a look at some of the most interesting and strategically valuable viewing material available on PokerGO. No spoilers regarding the winners, either!
WSOP Main Event
This one should be fairly obvious. The Main Event is the Super Bowl of Poker (or the Champions League Final if you’re not from North America). PokerGO has footage from all seven days leading up to the final table, featuring a plethora of outstanding players. Watching the footage from the beginning, you get a real sense of how the game evolves as stacks change – you’ll see incredibly deep-stacked play to begin the first few days, leading up to a lot of tricky shorter-stacked spots with ICM considerations as play nears the final table.
With high-level MTT players like Daniel Negreanu and Jason Mercier featured on early days, plus Ben Lamb, Dario Sammartino, Benjamin Pollak, Max Silver and Kenny Hallaert all playing on the live stream in the later stages, you’ll get valuable insights into how to tackle the best-structured live tournament on the planet. Everything you learn from this event can be transferred to other live tournaments, and to the online scene if that’s your discipline of choice.
The $111,111 One Drop High Roller
This massive buyin attracted most of the best players who were in Vegas at the time. With the final table featuring the likes of Doug Polk, Bertrand Grospellier, Dario Sammartino, Martin Jacobson, Rainer Kempe and Andrew Robl, this event was stacked with outstanding players from top to bottom.
With PokerGO covering multiple days of the event, you’ll also get to see some epic confrontations between the likes of Grospellier and Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari and Charlie Carrel as the final table approaches. Studying the dynamics at work as players shift between GTO and exploitative approaches while navigating tricky ICM spots is a valuable source of educational info.
Super High Roller Bowl
This is the big one when it comes to buyins. With 56 players ponying up $300,000 for a seat and a $6million first prize, the SHRB is the pinnacle of the high roller circuit. Almost anyone who’s anyone took their spot in the game, including a multitude of high-stakes cash-game crushers looking to take their deep-stacked skill set into a tournament setting. With several high-net-worth recreational players also involved, and comedian Kevin Hart making a very entertaining appearance on the feature tables, the event provided a goldmine of poker entertainment alongside a wealth of strategic insight.
With one of the biggest money bubbles in poker and a stacked final table, alongside a 7-handed table structure designed to create action and a ‘button ante’ format with a shot clock designed to speed up play, the event was perhaps a vision of poker’s future – the phasing-out of nine-handed play at the high stakes, as well as the introduction of elements aimed at eliminating long periods of motionless, often needless tanking from players, will most likely be fixtures in the game for years to come.
$3k 6-max final table
This event had one of the most stacked final tables of any of the mid-buyin Hold’em events at the WSOP this year. With former Midstakes Living guests Max Silver, Chris Moorman and Michael Gagliano all making the final table, alongside established high-stakes pro Steve Sung, online regular Bernardo Dias and wily recreational player John Gorsuch, the table featured some great action from start to finish.
With both Silver and Moorman having history as cash game grinders – Silver a lot more recently than Moorman – as well as Sung being a cash-game regular, the level of postflop skill on display was high throughout. Gagliano’s and Dias’ status as online tournament grinders brought an interesting contrast, as Gorsuch found himself caught in the middle of one of the toughest tables around.
$10k HORSE final table
It’s not often that a HORSE tournament will be televised – at least not in today’s environment, where Hold’em and PLO are the primary games of choice for most players. But mixed games are the games of the future, and if you’re looking to get ahead of the curve in Stud games or work on your Limit game technique, this is one of the best resources you’ll find.
With mixed-game veterans like ‘Gunslinger’ David Bach at the table, as well as the likes of Daniel Negreanu and Jason Mercier, the table was full of experience. Mercier was looking to follow up on his two-bracelet performance at the 2016 WSOP, while Negreanu was in the middle of taking a solid run at the WSOP Player of the Year title. This is one of the most interesting mixed-game tables you’ll see.
The future on PokerGO
For fans of TV poker, PokerGO is set to provide a lot of entertainment and learning moving forward. With Poker After Dark set to return in a cash-game format very soon, original content featuring some well-known celebrities from outside the poker world, and next year’s world series to look forward to, it would seem that the future of TV poker is looking good.
Whether you watch TV poker for entertainment or not, the level of strategy content and insight from high-level players available is priceless. Players skeptical about having to pay a monthly subscription fee to watch televised poker are ignoring the benefits of using the service as an educational tool. With the obvious exception of a TPE subscription, PokerGO could be some of the best value you’ll find.