2026 World Series of Poker - Part 2 of 2
The player perspective.
Editor’s note:
In part 1 of this essay I omitted a grievance I have (had) with the coverage of the WSOP 2026. When the series was being streamed exclusively on PokerGo, stack sizes for ALL players were prominent at the top of the screen so viewers had a very clear view of the preflop decision facing each player at the table. As a simple example, what may be a nice 3 bet bluff situation may turn into a call or fold if there are players behind with a big stack that could erase some of the fold equity of the potential 3 bettor. Stack sizes always matter and for that information to be taken away is a big error on the part of the stream production. That said, the Main Event stream (more on that in a moment) has fixed this problem and we are now seeing the stack sizes of all players at the table. I’m not sure if they realized the significance of the omission or they are putting more effort in because it is the Main. We may have to wait until next year (or perhaps the Bahamas) to find out for sure.
Speaking of the Main Event, I opined in part 1 that it was a slam dunk win to bring the coverage to ESPN. It appears I was hoodwinked. Let me be clear on this. For my part as a viewer, I was perfectly fine with the coverage on PokerGo as I have a subscription to said service. However, I was excited because the idea that the Main Event was going to be on the ESPN channels had me imagining potential new players tuning in and watching the dream that we all witnessed in 2003.
Poker is like every other ecosystem in that it needs new recruits to flourish and I was happy to give up the friendly confines of PokerGo in order to accomplish that. However….. it appears that the coverage on ESPN+ - very recently renamed to ESPN Select - requires a subscription anyway. This really lets the air out of the balloon for me. Not because I need to pay $12 a month to watch it but rather that someone that is perhaps curious about poker isn’t going to.
That said, the Main Event Final Table will be cast on ESPN or ESPN2. I hope that the lead up to these final days is ample and brings in as many viewers as is hoped and all my Allen Kessler-esque groaning is for nothing. As an aside, If you have a VPN and you were to set yourself up in - say - London, you wouldn’t have any trouble viewing the entire stream on YouTube. Not sure how many poker players have a VPN on their laptop though. ;)
Part 2 of 2: The Player Perspective
The App
Poker players like to gripe. I am not immune to this affliction but I feel like I also give credit where it is due more than the average player. This is our 5th consecutive trip to the WSOP and 6th overall. This was the most organized I have ever seen the event and it is largely due to the WSOP Live (formerly WSOP+) App. I have touched on why the app is so great for the viewer but its even more of a game changer for the player.
Every player at your table is easily identified. Further, you can customize players with color code and comments. These codes and comments carry over to tournaments you may play years later at another WSOP or WSOP Circuit event. If you got check raised with a bluff in a big spot you can note in on the player’s profile and if you are ever seated with her again, you will know a little of what happened.
There are also zero lines to wait in when registering for a tournament. You can hit a couple buttons to register and your table and seat number magically appear in the app. When your table is being broken, you don’t have to worry about getting a plastic seat card, its just shows up in your app. I could go on and on but for brevity - it’s the nuts.
Check in and deposits
Poker twitter was abuzz a few weeks ago when a player claimed that the WSOP wouldn’t deposit his cash into his tournament account and was asking questions like “Where did you get this money?” It seems bizarre that a casino asks such questions when a few years ago, while waiting in a 2 hour Main Event registration line, virtually every single person had $10k in their hand or in a sandwich bag waiting to fork over the green. I would assume the kerfuffle has to do with money laundering laws of one form or another but it would be nice if the series would just come out and tell us the straight dope. Keeping your customers wondering if you need to have bank receipts or a backup plan is not a good system for running the series.
As an anecdote, I went down to the cage the night we got to Paris as I was going to play the late night satellite. I get to the door and a person stops me and asks what I am doing and I tell him that I am going to deposit some money into my tournament account. (This gate keeping of the deposit and payout room - which are now one and the same - has never been a part of the process before and was kind of strange and a bit intrusive. I imagine there must be a reason but a less confrontational way of directing customers should be sought) He tells me to come right in and which line to enter. When I get to the teller, I present my ID, Caesar’s Rewards Card, and $5000 cash. They deposit it without a question and I go about my way.
My wife and I go the next day to deposit cash into her account. She is going to deposit $2500 as a lot of her play will be at other poker rooms around town and she doesn’t require as much into this account. After dealing with the same amount of gatekeeping, she gets to the cage and presents the same identifying materials and the cash. However, in her case, she gets asked what she does for a living. When she tells the clerk that she is retired, she gets a quizzical look and is told that she is only the clerk’s age implying that retirement would be suspect. So my wife tells her that she married a “sugar daddy” - a white lie but not a small one - laughter ensues and she is good to go. Wow is the term that comes to mind after this interaction. So many unanswered questions presented themselves in a matter of seconds yet it felt as if one started asking, the potential power struggle could leave the customer the one that is sorry that she opened the interrogation.
We later found out that $2500 is the minimum first deposit. Perhaps anyone that is opening the account for the minimum gets flagged for questions. Maybe someone was supposed to ask me more questions but was just tired as it was late in the evening. I would like to think that gender and age did not have a part in this inequitable experience.
I would really like to think that.
Rate the Dealer
This is a new addition that has been met with a lot of understandable concern from the public at large. Upon the feature’s debut, many kind hearted people were concerned that bad beats and rulings would sink an otherwise good dealer. While it is akin to factual that dealers have been rated bad by the cards that were dealt, I like to think of things from a statistics angle. If we allow the extreme outliers to fall by the wayside, we should get some good data in the middle.
I chose to only rate the 4 star and 5 star dealers that I shared a table with. I’m sure others rated every dealer or no dealers at all. It would be nice to have some guidelines on how to use the rating system so players will have a little more of a baseline.
I also wish there were a comment section. Some dealers maybe only have one significant error. If that player and management got feedback on that aspect of their job, perhaps he could work on that one thing. Sometimes the low hanging fruit just needs to be identified.
Dealers qualifications and experience can be guessed by the color of their lanyards. I hope to get into this in a future essay where we will discuss the process with a veteran WSOP dealer. For now, lets just say green means good.
One last comment on the ratings system that I noticed is that the players in the Daily Deepstack tournaments don’t get to rate their dealers. There are probably a couple of very good reasons for this. This is where dealers start their careers. I have been in the box a bit and I will tell you that the last thing a beginner dealer needs is a blow to whatever confidence they can currently muster. On top of that, while I only played one of these events and - for the most part - interacted with decent folks, it is well know that the daily deepstack streets are those that have a higher percentage of ignorant jerks. I choose “ignorant jerks” because it is the kindest way that I can classify this player type while still getting the image across.
Mothership
Norman Chad named the old Amazon Room at the RIO the “Mothership” and it stuck. So until someone comes up with something better, that’s how I will refer to it. You have, no doubt, seen the images of the Solana main stage. It is as cool and shiny in person as it is on the stream. Overall, I think it’s an upgrade from what they had going at the Horseshoe but with a few caveats.
It is VERY spacious. I assume the distance between the 3 feature tables is for cameras and equipment to roll between the three tables. In addition, there are some “sub” feature tables that will not be live stream tables but perhaps final tables of smaller or mixed game bracelet events.
While you are allowed to walk around the entire Mothership, it isn’t obvious that that is the case. This creates an audience that is subdued in size. In order to walk around the stage, you essentially have to skirt an area of tables that are partitioned off. If the series wants more of an audience, they need signage that designates a walkway to the area from both sides. In addition to this, there should be walkways between / above the feature tables themselves. They have enough room to have some really great rail participation. It just needs to be more inviting.
We were watching the final table of the Ladies bracelet event on one of the “sub” feature tables and some staff started roping off a section seemingly arbitrarily that happened to contained us and we were asked to walk around to the other side. They were trying to section off the tournament area behind us but I think they just ran out of stanchion material so just cut off a big part of spectator arena that wasn’t necessary. Overall it’s just not that welcoming to live viewers.
Speaking of viewers, I would like to make a suggestion for the Daily countdown show. I understand the WSOP wants to have the sponsored stages and lights in the prominent background. However, if you put the stage on a massive turntable, you could do some segments of the show with the large Paris room in the background. This would encourage cheering people with signs and costumes a la College Gameday. I really think it would give viewers at home a pep up at what they are watching and give players who are off that morning something fun and free to go do to be part of the experience.
Playing Experience
I had a great playing experience at this years WSOP. It could be that I anticipated the inexperience of the dealers or that I have been programmed to settle but I thought the dealers that I encountered were of a better quality than those of my WSOP past. In the 2 bracelet events I played, I spent the entire day in the same seat so I didn’t have to move or experience the “fun” of enjoying 2 big blinds in a row or have to do the walk from one venue to the other for a seat change. Perhaps I was lucky.
Sadly, not lucky enough to give a report on the payout process.
If you enjoyed this essay, please consider liking it by clicking the heart icon below. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below or send me an email at mikieculpepper@gmail.com. As always, thank you for reading and Happy Independence Day!