EPT. The website is pretty well done and slick looking, and now they are attracting big name pros, even the filipinos, which funny as it seems, are the koreans of the pool world. the top players are pinoy, and they come to american tournerments and take all their top prize monies
i think the # of times an american has won the US open is like ... 3 since they started having international (filipino) players play in our stateside tourneys. While gambling is pretty ingrained into pool culture, and not so much ESPORTS, i have heard of several pros (incontrol, idra, etc) who have played sc2 for money, and there is a lot of crossover in sc2 and poker.
I personally think that there is a great potential for this type of thing in sc2. Idra for example, would be a perfect person for this, as his skill level is definatly not indictive of tournerment winnings. Also, since most tournerments are won by the top tier pros, these 'action matches' would give the lesser known pros a chance in the spotlight, as im sure casters would love to get in on this, especially if the players are putting up their own money.
As an aside, i know from playing pool for money that as long as the game can be consitered a game of skill and not luck, it is NOT illegal to play it for money. They tried to shut down the Dallas Open back in 1989 and the players took it to court and won.
There is no way in hell an impartial jury/judge would declare starcraft2 to be anything but a game of skill, so there is an actual legal precident for this.
Think of all the grandmaster players who routinely beat the pros on ladder, but don't have any time or desire to be a pro player, but still thinks that they can hang with the pros.
And i know just about every single GM player who isnt a pro knows that they can beat pro players on any given day.. so lets give them a stage to prove it.
I'm sure there would be some players willing to put up to 100 or 200 dollars of their own money, and whoever runs it adds maybe a hundred, winner gets all and they split the stream revenue, its a workable business model. I know for a fact that there is bad blood for example between minigun and idra. I know both of them think that they are the superior player. Now we can give them a venue where they can 'put up or shut up' as they say. I think this would be a great impetus for unknown players to burst out onto the scene.
And just like how TAR (www.theactionreport.com) is pulling in top tier pros now, when they first started they were streaming local talent, such as the best player from one state playing the best player from another state for a few thousand, and now it has snowballed into the latest TAR stream having two players who can definatly be consitered to be part of the 10 best players in the world list (the equiv of flash vs life in a BO15 for $50.000)
and you can start to see the hype potential.
Imagine, RooTLeyia (my fav toss) vs Suppy for $500.
Idra vs well anyone would draw a crazy amount of viewers.
players that have 'fallen off' in terms of recent results but are still good as hell,
im sure they would love to try to win some money off a game that that they've played
and practiced so much.
I can tell you right now that the professional pool career isn't supplimented by tournerment winnings. There aren't any 'teams' like in starcraft, and only the top maybe 10% of the players have any type of sponsorship, so if it wasn't for stuff like TAR and their own road trips and gambling shortsops and players that are good enough to go pro but dont(there are a lot, pool doesn't pay well as a professonal sport) playing for money can be the only way they can suplliment their income.
I guess the reason i'm posting this here, is that TEAMLIQUID is one of the few entities that can actually make this happen.
It wouldn't take much, as there are plenty of people that would be more than happy to create the posters, and this site already is a portal for everything starcraft, so it just seems so blindly obvious that it should already exist.
PLEASE PLEASE TEAMLIQUID TAKE THIS IDEA SERIOUSLY! IT SINGLE HANDEDLY REVITALIZED POOL IN THE PAST FEW YEARS!
EDIT!! <------- VERY IMPORTANT IF THIS TOPIC IS OF INTEREST TO YOU
instead of individually replying to 4~5 different posts, i just want to add that there is a handicapping system in place for pool that can easily be switched over to sc2. For example, a few months ago a local player named Dennis Hatch played a pinoy pro Alex Pagulyan, which could be the equiv to say HuK playing Flash. Dennis got the 7ball, and had to go to 19, while Alex had to goto 25. The game spots are obvious, but for those that don't play pool 'getting the 7ball' means that when playing a game of 9ball, instead of winning by potting the 9ball, Dennis could also win by potting the 7ball or the 9ball, thus giving him an equal footing vs a player that he would normally win against.
Now this could easily be applied to starcraft2. Now lets take that match up, flash vs huk. Normally, 100/100 TL'ers would pick flash to win over huk in a bo13 for $1500. Now how about if huk got to choose every map, regardless of who won. Also, HuK has a 30 second head start. Flash has to keep his hands off his keyboard for the first 30 seconds of each game. Or flash has to offrace.
Also, while Flash has to win 7 to win the bo13, HuK only has to win 5. So basically they are starting the set out with a 2-0 lead on HuK. Now given those 'handicaps', how many of those same 100 TL'ers would still pick Flash to win?
I'm sure there would still be a majority of players who would say flash would win, but i'd wager at least 25~30% would say that HuK has a fighting chance given those handicaps. Now i'm not that creative of a person, TL has some of the smartest ppl of any sc or esport 'community' could come up with a handicap that would be fair to the person getting it.
I'm sure there are plenty of ways to handicap, maybe make them not use certain spells n abilities, (u could check hotkeys before hand to make sure they r unbound to ensure honesty) ... just saying, there's nothing saying these players have to play even,. eeven a 2 game diff would make players scared of playing certain players think that they will have a chance. You have to realize every pro, or even anyone who is good at this game is super confident in their abilities, and they all have huge egos. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing what they are doing. So even if they acknowledge that a player is better than them, in their minds, they always think if i could just have a tiny edge, i can beat him.
Even the Thorzain vs Creator game that went 3-2, im sure if they were doing the TAR format, Creator would've given Thorzain 1 game going bo5 to entice someone who creator knows he can win with the handicap given, and Thorzain thinks he can definatly win with a one game advantage, see.... it creates action! Its a great idea!!
