Original Content

There was a small flare-up over the weekend involving a gambling news website called iGaming Post being accused of various ethical transgressions regarding their peculiar manner of reporting news.

Some had noticed previously how the site -- which bills itself as “The Internet Newspaper for the Gambling Industry” and appears under the International Gaming Awards aegis -- often lifts articles verbatim from other news sites, republishing them without attribution and sometimes even with different by-lines. In other words, the recent brouhaha isn’t really a new thing, although the latest round of accusations appear to have finally gotten the attention of a number of poker media types.

For details, see John Mehaffey’s article from yesterday chronicling several examples of iGaming Post’s thievery. Mehaffey describes what the site has done as “plagiarism.” Others are using terms like “content theft” or “copyright infringement,” but it all amounts to the same offense. Stealing! With both hands!

There are quite a few of these “portal”-type sites publishing pieces about poker and/or gambling that operate in a similar fashion. Some follow iGaming Post’s brazen cut-and-paste method. Others use “scraper” programs to lift material off sites and republish it on their own. And some involve a person performing a few minor edits such as changing a word or two here and there or reordering paragraphs in order to fool the Google gods into thinking the post is something new.

As someone who has published lots of “original content” on the web, including here on my personal blog and on a number of other sites (most of which have been poker-related), stories such as this one obviously grab my attention. Having a background that has included teaching thousands of college students how to write essays further positions me to want to say something here as well.

Do I have anything original to say? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But I feel reasonably comfortable claiming all of these words and ideas about the matter as having emanated from my own jingle-brain.

In my composition classes I always considered learning how to incorporate other sources into one’s own writing as what distinguished “college writing” from whatever students might have studied before. Getting students to understand when to quote (or paraphrase or summarize), how to quote (and cite), and also how to sort out their own thoughts and words from others’ were always, to me, primary goals in such classes, lessons that had to be learned before writers could figure out how to communicate meaningfully with an audience.

And, of course, understanding what plagiarism was and avoiding it at all costs was part of the instruction, too. No compromises, there. (And no points if you plagiarized.)

The internet isn’t a college classroom, though. Notions of “originality” or “authorship” get complicated on the web. The stark distinctions a teacher might make on a college writing assignment about quoting and citing and penalties for failing to document properly are essentially out of place here.

In fact, a lot of what passes for “original content” say, on a poker news site, tends to stretch the definition of “original,” with the great majority of articles and even features mostly consisting of material that has been rewritten in some fashion or another.

Yesterday Barry Carter wrote another interesting post talking about the practice of “newsjacking” in poker media wherein someone might produce genuinely “original content” by writing a piece that responds to a current item of interest. An example he gave was writing a post last week sharing his initial thoughts about the new WSOP schedule, something I, too, did here at Hard-Boiled Poker.

Despite the confrontational sound of the term (and hard-to-ignore connotations of theft it suggests), “newsjacking” is in fact a lot like writing a college essay in which one has been asked to use sources and respond with one’s own argument regarding an issue. The idea is to inject your own interpretation or analysis, referring to what others have said (and citing appropriately) while positioning your own self within a kind “conversation” about your chosen topic.

But again, on the web, ideas of authorship and even the relationship between the self and others often get fuzzy. Thus does “newsjacking” often become more like carjacking with a writer aggressively taking someone else’s words and ideas and going for a joyride, heedless of the ethical responsibilities of “owning one’s writing.”

I have to admit that after dwelling for so many years within the internet’s echo chamber, I find it difficult to get too animated when hearing about another lame site like iGaming Post distinguishing itself by its lack of originality. That said, I’m glad they’ve been called out, and hope perhaps it does a little to discourage others from being too easily tempted by the treacherous two-step of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

The ISPT, a Poker Cipher

I just did a search of the blog to see if I had ever written a single word here about that long planned for International Stadiums Poker Tour event. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of it, although if you have it hasn’t been here on this blog as I couldn’t turn up a single reference.

As a result, I can’t really say when exactly I first heard anything about the ISPT and its idea to stage some sort of massive poker tournament at Wembley Stadium in June 2013. Searching around I’m seeing others starting to refer to the Tapie group -- i.e., the same ones behind that failed bid to purchase the zombiefied Full Tilt Poker -- back in late 2011, so it had to have been around that time I began hearing about it, too.

Those references describe a $30 million guaranteed poker tournament slated to happen in the fall of last year at the huge London stadium over the course of several days. Would start with players, perhaps 30,000 of them (?), sitting in the stands playing shootouts on laptops, apparently, reducing the field down to what would eventually be a final table right there on the pitch.

There were lots of reasons why I paid little heed to the ISPT. Seemed super weird and foolhardy in those months following Black Friday for anyone to be cheerleading for some sort of ultra-mega-bigger-than-anyone-has-ever-witnessed type poker event. Whatever it was, it was not happening in my country, which probably further diminished my interest. And it seemed at first like a total fiction, a bit like some of the fanciful scenarios occasionally portrayed in advertisements by PokerStars and others showing poker being played in a stadium à la the Super Bowl or something.

Over the next year-and-a-half, we’d continue to hear things about the ISPT and the big tournament, including announcements about the guarantee going down (to zero, now), the event being rescheduled to 2013, and occasional bursts here and there regarding the sponsorship of players. Pro-ISPT tweets would occasionally appear coming from this or that pro player, indicating he or she had been signed on to help promote the event.

But again, no one really cared. The sponsorship thing in particular seemed mostly ornamental, with the transparently faux commitment of the tagged players helping further this sense that what we were really dealing with here was some sort of elaborate, expensive, interactive performance art piece involving the poker community.

To draw a comparison, some have adopted a kind of mild cynicism regarding Ivey Poker’s frequent indications of “more to come” as well as its having brought something like 50 players into its fold by now (with the recent acquisition of Leggo Poker).

That said, when Greg Merson won the WSOP Main Event last fall as one of the first to sign with Ivey Poker, people gave some attention to the patch he wore, much as they did when Dan Shak final tabled both the Aussie Millions Main Event and the $100 Grand Challenge last month and when Matt Giannetti won the WPT Lucky Hearts Open in Florida yesterday -- two more Ivey Poker pros registering some big scores. No one knows yet what being an Ivey Poker pro really signifies, but it still carries some sort of significance as observers remain interested in seeing what comes of the website.

Meanwhile, when Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi won that WSOP Circuit-affiliated event down in South Africa last week, absolutely no one said “Hey, that’s really good for the ISPT.” Sure, he’s one of the pros who’s apparently been given a few bucks to allow the site to use his likeness and to sport a patch. But since practically no one understands or cares about what the ISPT is, it’s not coming up in the conversation at all.

I did overhear some players at the EPT Deauville Main Event jokingly refer to the ISPT, kind of characterizing the whole thing as a big ruse to be avoided at all costs. It sounds like some sort of online qualifying has actually begun for the event, but almost no one is participating. Barry Carter yesterday posted an interesting update of the ISPT in the form of advice to other, would-be tourney promoters in an article for Poker Media Pro titled “Poker Marketing Lessons from the International Stadiums Poker Tour” -- worth a read, if you’re at all curious about where this sucker stands at present.

The article helps confirm what I think most of us have been suspecting pretty much from the first time we heard of the International Stadiums Poker Tour. That is, that “ISPT” continues to seem more a cipher than an actual signifier of anything in particular. In other words, it probably represents nothing at all, sort of like someone shoving all in when the five community cards already form an unbeatable Broadway straight. Feels like its chances of success are about the same as someone failing to make the call there, too.

See Carter’s article for more. He helps us perhaps consider drawing some sort of larger symbolism from whatever ISPT is doing, something indicative of the poker world as a whole and the seemingly constant presence of such “weird lines” in the way people try to find different, unusual ways to battle for what is really mostly a small pot.

A cipher can signify nothing, an absence. Or it could unlock a secret message. Perhaps ultimately the ISPT will come to mean something about the poker world, although my guess is the meaning will either provide a momentary distraction or be ignored altogether.

Recommended Reading for Poker Writers

Over the last couple of weeks, Barry Carter has offered a number of posts on his blog regarding the current state of poker media, including a series of a half-dozen posts presented under the heading of “Advice to New Poker Writers.” The posts contain numerous good tips to those hoping to break into the relatively small world of poker writing.

As I imagine there are a decent number who come around here to read my posts who are writers themselves -- including some with ideas about perhaps getting involved in poker writing, too -- I thought it worthwhile to point you to his posts.

Drawing on his six years of experience with poker writing -- including co-authoring The Mental Game of Poker (2011) with Jared Tendler -- Carter discusses various topics in the series, including “the state of the industry” (not a lot of work, but tons to write about), taking the initiative, finding topics, ideas about where to place one’s writing, and networking. Good advice throughout, and in fact, a lot of it should be of value not just to would-be poker writers but to anyone looking to be a freelancer, regardless of one’s subject area of preference and/or expertise.

The one entry in the series that resonated the most with me was the one in which Carter recommends to those wanting to get into poker writing that they start their own personal blogs.

Carter explains how it is possible to “create an impressive portfolio of work and learn a great deal at the same time” by keeping a blog -- both great points, in my opinion. (Indeed, he’s kind of describing how I got into poker writing via Hard-Boiled Poker.)

Numerous other benefits of keeping a personal blog are mentioned, and I concur with all of the points Carter makes. I’m not going to summarize them, though -- if you’re curious, go read for yourself.

Keeping this blog has proven especially rewarding for me in a number of ways. In truth, when I started writing Hard-Boiled Poker I had no thoughts of using the blog to help me find other work writing about poker, although it ended up playing a role in doing just that. Rather, I primarily began HBP for two reasons: (1) to see if writing about poker might help me become a better player, and (2) to give myself a creative outlet.

While I do believe the first purpose was achieved to some extent given how writing about the game forced me to try to think more clearly about decisions I made when I played, the second purpose also helped me improve -- as a writer. Ask anyone who has regularly kept a blog for more than a few months and most will likely tell you that they’ve learned something -- perhaps quite a lot -- about how to become better at communicating their ideas.

So I keep at it. And like Carter I’d encourage anyone else with ideas of becoming a full-time writer (about poker or anything else) to do the same. That is, keep a personal blog or at least follow some routine which encourages to write, maybe even every day. A journal or diary is fine, although by publishing to a blog you remain mindful of writing for an audience, which helps you continue to try to communicate clearly and effectively.

And keep reading, too. Because reading how others deliver their ideas can help you figure out how to deliver yours, too. Not to mention give you ideas of things to write about... sort of like Carter’s posts gave me the idea for something to write about today.