Is Twitch The Next Fertile Ground For Poker?

I’ll be honest with you. Prior to the inaugural American Poker Awards earlier this year, I had vaguely heard of the online channel Twitch. I knew that the site was making inroads in broadcasting online video game competitions – and making quite a stir in driving competitive video gaming into respectability – but, other than that, I hadn’t partaken of any of their offerings. Then came the 2015 American Poker Awards and my opinion – and, it seems, many others’ – changed towards the site.

Against such venerable poker institutions as the World Series of Poker (its “Monster Stack” event), the World Poker Tour (its innovations in partnering with mainstream companies) and even “Poker Night in America” that featured some of the biggest names in the game, it was Twitch that came out as the winner of the award for “Poker Innovation or Initiative of the Year.” This seems to have started a stream (no pun intended) of popular professionals and other industry insiders heading to Twitch for direct contact with their fans and the general poker community. It leaves one wondering if Twitch is the next fertile ground for growth in the world of Poker.

Twitch has been receiving several bumps from the poker community as it continues to become extremely successful. Prior to winning the AMA in February, the Global Poker Index and its leader, Alexandre Dreyfus, announced that they had tapped Twitch to broadcast their inaugural Global Poker Masters event (which was held in Malta in late March) over the streaming platform. The resulting two day broadcast was widely acclaimed by the poker world as it not only brought the Global Poker Masters to poker fans but, through Twitch’s promotion, to online users in general.

Several top poker pros had found Twitch before this, however. 2012 WSOP Championship Event winner Greg Merson and popular professional player Jason Somerville already had channels established on the site and Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier joined prior to the Global Poker Masters. There has also been other poker content that appears on Twitch from the general poker community that has come to light.

Since the AMA, it seems that the amount of poker content on Twitch has exploded. PokerStars has established a channel on Twitch and players have decided to join in on the revolution also. Recently Daniel Negreanu joined the fun and games (and added to its legend by not even pausing during a Twitch broadcast, taking his computer along with him on a trip to the facilities) and has drawn a good deal of attention (2476 followers). Liv Boeree has earned 3111 followers on her site, although it only came to light a few days ago. One of the more active Twitch users – at least at this time – is three-time WSOP bracelet winner Dutch Boyd.

Boyd, who can count 4336 followers according to his Twitch count and nearly 78,000 views of his Twitch page, has been active almost every evening over the live streaming site. During his broadcasts over at least the past month, Boyd has entertained his audience with stories of life on the tournament circuit and answered questions posed by viewers. He’s varied his broadcasts from doing commentary as to his play during tournaments on WSOP.com (there is a three-minute delay to allow for this), in which he is as critical of himself as he is his competition, discussions with other professional players and running commentary of televised broadcasts of poker tournaments, most notably the Heartland Poker Tour events.

The reasons that many in the poker world are flooding the Twitch channels could be numerous. Anyone – from the biggest professional in the game to the $.01/$.02 grinder looking for critiques – can start a Twitch stream (at this time) and broadcast their particular content. If promoted well, it can be a fun and potentially profitable outlet for those who provide the channel. It is also immediate; Twitch is live and, as such, there isn’t a delay of months or even days in what fans are viewing. This is critical, especially if the information or activity contained in the Twitch broadcast in time-sensitive. If someone like Negreanu (known for his video blogs) wants to let off with a rant, he can step straight to Twitch and let it fly (after appropriate promotion, of course!). Finally, there is a fun element to the ongoings as you never know what exactly will happen during the broadcasts.

The interesting thing to consider is just how far poker will take Twitch (or vice versa). As noted above, PokerStars is in on the Twitch Revolution and many of poker’s notables have also stepped up. Will Twitch become something along the lines of Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets that professional poker players will need to maintain their status in the poker world? And will other poker organizations also take advantage of this new outlet (imagine what the Poker Players Alliance could do with a channel)?

There could also be some downsides to the burgeoning partnership between Twitch and poker. Just how far do you let a live broadcast go? In this day and age of compact laptops, tablets and cellphones, would the WPT or the WSOP allow for live streaming from the floor of their tournaments (I remember almost a decade ago when “live updates” over the internet by a multitude of poker news sites was a hotly contested issue)? If online poker sites like PokerStars only put out repeat broadcasts of their big tournaments instead of using the outlet for live content, isn’t that a waste of the tremendous advantages of Twitch (for the record, it doesn’t look like PokerStars is doing that; they are offering some live poker classes)? And just how much interest is there from fans to sit and watch someone else – no matter how good or successful they are – play poker instead of doing it themselves?

The partnership of poker and Twitch promises to be interesting as it continues to grow. Perhaps poker has found a new outlet beyond television (although a new 24/7 outlet called “Poker Central” is supposed to open shop by the end of 2015) to demonstrate its skill. It also could become quite crowded quickly as everyone looks to jump on the Twitch bandwagon.