Either people are reading what we write here on the iSeriesLIVE Blog or lots of us are thinking alike this morning. Most of the lines for today’s iSeriesLIVE €10,000 Kick-Off Event – scheduled for 6pm Dublin time and to be streamed live on this website – remain unchanged. That makes a fair bit of sense to us. With the Kick-Off Event being the first time that in-game betting has come to poker, there’s a knowledge gap among punters as to how this should work. Many are likely waiting for the proceedings to begin before tossing down any bets.

However.

I noticed this morning that the line for First Elimination, Daniel Negreanu, which opened at 10/1, has moved all the way to 8/1. This was my #1 value play two days ago and it looks like many of you agreed with my reasoning. I also noticed that Phil Hellmuth is rocking some facial hair. Could it be the Evil Phil Hellmuth is finally making his triumphant return to poker? If so I suddenly like him a lot more at 13/2 to win the whole thing.

In an interview yesterday that you can watch on this blog, Hellmuth described the structure for this tournament as “great”. With blinds doubling roughly every two hours, it’s certainly better than the average nightly at your home casino. But it’s not quite as good as the standard WPT or EPT or WSOP event, where the blinds double every three hours or so. I believe the iSeriesLIVE structure is a great compromise between giving players room to play (as Hellmuth points out, there could be no elimination in the first two hours of play tonight) and giving the fans something that will generate enough action to keep their interest piqued and their money at the ready, waiting to sniff out a great value as the action unfolds.

Tonight’s Kick-Off Event could be history in the making. Or, like so many poker ventures in the past 9 years, it could quickly fizzle out. But if it’s the former rather than the latter, wouldn’t you want to be a part of it? Don’t you want to be able to say that you threw a tenner down on James Dempsey after he was crippled to three big blinds and his odds to win became astronomical, only to see him roar back and take the whole thing down, earning you a huge return?

This is what will make iSeriesLIVE great. The players are in on the action. The fans are in on the action. Everyone’s got a piece, a stake, a sweat, an investment in the proceedings. Hellmuth described it as the evolution and revolution of poker. For once in his life he might just be right.

See you tonight at 6pm Dublin time for the iSeriesLIVE Kick-Off Event!