Exposure

Last week I had a little “exposure” -- I suppose you might call it -- when I appeared on “Keep Flopping Aces” (the 4/28/11 episode).

From what I learned that night, it was their last live show, as the Rounder’s Radio site on which KFA appears has decided to continue its shows though offer them only as podcasts. If you’re curious to hear it, the episode on which I appeared is now available for streaming or download here.

Near the end of the show we discussed the upcoming WSOP, speculating as well as we could about what effect “Black Friday” might have on this year’s Series. I noted that while I thought it possible that numbers would be down, especially for the Main Event, I believed the WSOP has a “momentum of its own” and thus would probably be okay, relatively speaking.

Of course, as Tony G has been talking about this week on the Hardcore Poker Show, QuadJacks, and elsewhere, if Full Tilt Poker manages to delay cashouts to American players much longer, that may well have some significant effect on how things go at the WSOP.

You might recall how in those first few days after Black Friday when announcements were being made about various cancellations -- including the Onyx Cup, “The Big Game” and “Million Dollar Challenge” on Fox, and ESPN’s coverage of the NAPT -- a rumor was briefly floated that ESPN might discontinue its WSOP broadcasts, although I don’t think many seriously believed that would happen.

In any event, Andrew Feldman rapidly squashed that rumor over on Twitter. And this week we learned that not only will ESPN continue to cover the WSOP, but the network will be expanding its coverage significantly to include a great deal of live and/or “(semi)-live” coverage not just of the Main Event, but also the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship (Event No. 2), the $50,000 Players Championship (Event No. 55), and those WSOP ME rematches, too.

In other words, regardless of how many players the WSOP manages to attract this summer, there will be a lot more exposure as far as coverage is concerned.

Besides the 32 hours’ worth of regular, edited coverage of the ME that will appear on ESPN from July 26th through November 8th (leading up to the November Nine), there will be a total of 126 more hours of poker from this summer’s WSOP shown on both ESPN2 and the internet-only ESPN3. (I still can’t view the latter, dingdangit, thanks to that absurd arrangement ESPN has with ISPs regarding access.)

There will be live streaming (without hole cards) from the aforementioned preliminary events as well as the Main Event, plus that “(semi)-live” coverage of two feature tables from the Main Event starting on Day 3 and continuing every day until they reach the final nine (July 14-19). The “(semi)-live” coverage will involve showing action from those two tables on a 30-minute delay, with hole cards shown after the flop for players still involved in the hand. (Click here for a FAQ regarding all facets of ESPN’s planned coverage.)

A bit of brouhaha this week regarding that planned “(semi)-live” coverage, with a few players complaining that playing at a feature table during the tournament and having one’s hole cards shown -- even for just a few hands -- could create a competitive disadvantage for the player whose hands were shown.

In other words, not everyone is excited about getting such extra exposure.