Is the World Series of Poker Live Stream too casual

As ESPN has slashed its World Series of Poker coverage to just a few events the only place to see the preliminary events, including Stud Poker, PLO, Split Pot games, and Draw Poker games is by watching the World Series of Poker live feed. Basically a featured commentator, David Tuckman, is joined in the broadcast booth for final tables with a rotating group of poker professionals and personalities, but criticisms have arisen over the conduct and behavior of these guest commentators, with many feeling the play-by-play is too casual.

One recent incident was Mike Matusow using the outlet to blast Brian Hastings play during the $5k Omaha 8 or better tournament. While Hastings is a well-known poker player, and can defend himself, there have been other incidents where the “pros” are very discourteous to unknown players, who they feel are playing poorly.

As Filthy Limper host Johnny Sep stated on his show this week, for many of these players this is their one shot at poker glory, and their friends and family get to listen to a supposed poker pro call them a donkey! And let’s not forget that some of the players mentioned in this article are known degenerates who are constantly in make-up and broke themselves!

The questionable commentary also extends beyond simply berating fellow poker players, as Bryan Micon used the WSOP Live Feed on Thursday night to plug everything from his website, to an “illegal” online poker room, and even worked in a plug for one of his site’s sponsors, an E-Cig company. Then there was Josh Arieh who was allowed to do commentary even though he was backing one of the players at the final table.

Basically this is a side of the poker world the public should never be allowed to see, and any smart poker pro knows that these types of things remain under lock and key when you are promoting the game. Instead the commentary has been rife with “Tapping the Glass”, talk of deals and staking, degenerate gambling stories, players talking up their overall net worth, and the players plugging their own special projects without any prior approval from the WSOP.

Hopefully the WSOP nips this in the bud right now, and calls on players to act decently towards their fellow players (questioning specific plays and not the player’s skills or abilities) and explains to them what is and isn’t allowed when it comes to pimping their own projects.

While there is something to be said for finding the right balance between information and entertainment, recent live streams have been downright appalling, and are simply lending credence to many of the already believed stereotypes about poker and poker players.