/ Matthew Pitt / 10 March 2011 / Leave a Comment 
A typical meeting at Harrah's
Last year I logged onto my Facebook account to find I had received a message from Barry Carter, who I knew off from reading his blog and his articles in a number of poker magazines I read. In this message he informed me that PokerNews were on the look out for bloggers / writers to cover the European Poker Tour Main Events and would I be interested in throwing my hat into the ring.
Of course the answer was yes and after meeting with Gloria Balding and the team at the World Series of Poker Europe in London I was asked to do a small trial at the then upcoming WPT London Main Event. I must have done OK because I was soon asked to cover EPT Barcelona followed by EPT Prague and in a few days I fly to Salzburg for EPT Snowfest. PokerNews also cover the WSOP in Las Vegas and although no decision has been made to which of the European bloggers will be helping to report on the 58 bracelet events we have all been placed under massive scrutiny and whoever does travel to Sin City will have to follow some ridiculous new rules put in place by the powers that be, namely Harrah's and the suits in charge of the WSOP.
Two new rules have come into force which are almost unbelievable and would not look out of place in some April Fool's spoof press release. The first rule, which apparently is for the "integrity of the tournament and the security of our players and staff" is that no one member of the media will be allowed at any given table for more than five minutes per half hour! Seriously, I kid you not. Do these people not realise that viewers / readers at home want to know how the big names are getting on and do they not realise that most of the time bloggers are scanning tables for potential action and when that big hand does go down they often take more than five minutes. If Phil Ivey is in a massive pot and my five minutes is up when the action is still on the turn do I have to leave and not report on the hand? Quite frankly it's a joke.
The second rule is also just as laughable is the zero tolerance stance the tournament staff are going to take on talking to the players, that is right, members of the media are not allowed to engage in the art of talking to players. As mentioned in the previous paragraph a large percentage of poker bloggers' time is spent looking for interesting hands and sometimes you miss all the details and the players are, generally, helpful in that they will let you know how the hand went down or if there has been anything worth reporting on in terms of funny anecdotes etc. Honestly, what are they going to do if I ask Daniel Negreanu how he won a huge stack of chips? Will the eject me from the tournament area and will they throw out "Kid Poker" from the event he is in?
All of this stems from the recent cheating scandal at the Partouche Poker Tour where Ali Tekintamgac, who actually won WPT Barcelona, was accused of using fake bloggers who would look at his opponents hole cards and then signal to him the strength of their holding. He was also accused of this at EPT Tallin and asked to leave the tournament by the excellent Tournament Director Thomas Kremser. He then had the bare-faced cheek to try his cheating again in a Dutch tournament where he stood out like a sore thumb because his "reporting team" were the only Germans in the room!
So I ask the question why should the people reading the updates and why should the poker media's job become more difficult, and less enjoyable, just because of this tiny group of scumbags? I have worked with hundreds of people in my lifetime and I can hand on heart so none are as honest and discrete as the people I walk the tournament floors with at these events. I am sure they are all the same as me in that I do not even try to look at the holecards of players, even if they seemingly try their best to show you them sometimes! My reaction to seeing some holecards, be it a facial expression or simply moving to another table out of disinterest could completely alter the game so I never look at the cards until they are on show to all. I am even careful not to move, scratch, or even adjust my glasses during a hand so that I cannot, and therefore my fellow members of the poker media cannot, be accused of any wrong doing.
I put it to Harrah's and the WSOP that the problem does not lie with the poker media but the accreditation of the poker media. PokerNews' bloggers, such as Chris Hall, Jen Mason and Dana Immanuel have been travelling the circuit for years and there are others who are always at these events such as the PokerStars team and Benjo from Winamax are Harrah's saying these guys are dishonest because if they are then it is an absolute disgrace. Myself and Lee Davy started doing EPT's at the same time and were both referred by Barry Carter, himself a respected guy in this industry, and both of us have plenty of work published online to help prove our legitimacy. Surely with the financial clout Harrah's have they could employ someone to vet each application from wannabe media people and see if their credentials check out and they are who they say they are.
Harrah's are just looking for a quick fix that is going to cause even more problems than it cures. Rather than just chopping the head of the week why not dig its roots up and have it disappear completely. Sort out the accreditation process properly and the 0.01% of scum who would cheat will not be able to even set foot in the front door of the casino. /rant
These are the views of Matthew Pitt and may not represent the views of thoughts of the people mentioned in the article or Betfair Poker
Last year I logged onto my Facebook account to find I had received a message from Barry Carter, who I knew off from reading his blog and his articles in a number of poker magazines I read. In this message...
If you have logged onto the Betfair Poker client recently you may have noticed a couple of symbols in the top left hand corner. The latest symbol will link you directly to the online roulette tables via Betfair Games....
Poker players are known to go on winning streaks but rarely are they as epic as the heater that Erik Seidel is currently experiencing. He is running so good that it is almost criminal and it has seen him win...
No comments:
Post a Comment