The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is an extra-large cooler that’s packed to the brim with ice-cold cans of pure mid-afternoon poker news goodness.
You can always make suggestions for future 3-Bet pieces in the comments section below.
In today’s Daily 3-Bet we’ll take a look at PokerStars changing live satellites, Phil Hellmuth’s WPT results and a new prop-betting poker show on PokerGO.
1) PokerStars’ Satellite Change
Live satellites should be for players who actually want to play live tournaments and not just accrue a king’s ransom in extra packages.
That’s the argument PokerStars is making with a new change to its live tournament qualifiers.
With the new changes, players on PokerStars will only be allowed to win one package and one seat.
The idea is that it will keep predatory end bosses from exploiting weaker fields by winning multiple packages and cashing them in.
It seems like a decent tweak considering recreational players who play live events tend to be heavily incentivized to play more poker but it will certainly hurt the bottom line of any grinders who specifically targeted satellites.
You might remember that Stephen “stevie444” Chidwick was famous for absolutely crushing satellites back in the day. He won a staggering 63 packages to the 2010 Main Event before he was even old enough to play. It appears those days are over.
The change will go live with the qualifiers for the upcoming PokerStars Festival Dublin and will continue using that format from then on.
2) Hellmuth Looks to Break WPT Curse
Phil Hellmuth, winner of 14 WSOP bracelets, has never won a WPT title.
He’ll have a chance to rectify that today as he (along with JC Tran) made the final table of the 2017 Legends of Poker event at the Bike.
How close has he come? Well he’s made four final tables. Here’s where he finished in each one:
- 2010 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars — 6th for $117,000
- 2008 WPT LA Poker Classic — 6th for $229,820
- 2003 WPT World Poker Finals — 3rd Place for $281,000
- 2002 WPT Gold Rush — 4th place for $34,000
The reality is that Hellmuth doesn’t play THAT many tournaments outside of the WSOP but that may be changing as he’s the WPT’s new Raw Deal analyst and he’ll be journeying to numerous WPT events regardless of whether he’s actually playing.
The 2017 Legends final table is completely stacked, btw, with Marvin Rettenmaier and DJ Alexander on deck. You can watch it all play out on PokerGO starting at 4 p.m. today.
Is this the year he finally gets the monkey off his back? Final table chip leader JC Tran doesn’t seem to think so:
Me looking at Phil Helmuth and thinking to myself I’m getting my 3rd WPT title before you are going to get your first. Haha
— JC TRAN💯 (@jctran23) August 31, 2017
photo cred @wpt pic.twitter.com/ahBYMdvgG1
3) PokerGO Releases Trailer for Prop-Betting Show Major Wager
When we were constructing a list of the best poker TV shows we had a thought: Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak’s I Bet You was criminally underrated.
The show was very raw but the concept of poker pros making outlandish prop bets against each other actually works quite well for a show. There was a ton of potential.
Low and behold, PokerGO seems to agree as the streaming giant dropped a trailer for a new show called Major Wager today.
The new show, which hits the Interwebs on Sept. 5, will feature Sam Abernathy, Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Gross, Brian Rast and Antonio Esfandiari (Where’s Phil Laak?) and it will be hosted by Poker Life Podcast hero Joey Ingram.
Check it out:
