Greenstein, Johnson Today Inducted into Poker Hall of Fame

Today, just a little bit before the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event final table gets back underway, they’ll have an induction ceremony to honor Barry Greenstein and Linda Johnson as this year’s newest members of the Poker Hall of Fame. (Pics below are from the live stream of the ceremony.)

I’m coming back here tonight to do some more “almost live” blogging once play resumes, but I thought I’d post a short observation about the Poker Hall of Fame here first.

I mentioned here a few weeks back how I’d been given the privilege once more to participate in the voting process for the Poker Hall of Fame.

After an online poll (plus some post-vote vetting by the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council), a list of ten finalists was sent to a group comprised of the living Poker Hall of Famers and poker media. We then voted by allocating as many as 10 points to those we thought worthy of inclusion, with three being the maximum number of nominees for whom we could vote. The top two points-getters then got the nod. (I believe there’s a further provision that they both needed to get a minimum number of points to be inducted, although to be honest I’m not 100% clear on that.)

In any case, Greenstein and Johnson came out on top and will thus join the 40 other members of the Poker Hall of Fame, first established in 1979. While I’m not sharing specifics about how I voted, I will say I agree that both are worthy of being so honored. (I wrote a bit more about both Greenstein and Johnson in a Betfair poker post a couple of weeks ago.)

I was listening to the latest Wicked Chops podcast yesterday in which two other voters -- Steve “Chops” Preiss and Dave “F-Train” Behr -- talked a bit about the vote and how the credentials of the two inductees compared to those of the other nominees (among other items).

Chops says he’s writing a column about the topic for that new “Wicked Chops Poker Insider” site that one must pay for to read. As he made clear repeatedly during the podcast (much as he did last year on Wicked Chops and in BLUFF) he believes Scotty Nguyen deserves the nod. And as far as this year is concerned -- as I assume he’ll be arguing in that article -- Chops thinks Nguyen was a better candidate than either Greenstein or Johnson.

Clearly Johnson is one whose accomplishments as a player are quite modest, comparatively speaking, and thus it is safe to say that her candidacy was largely considered according to the lone criterion for non-players, namely, how well they “contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.”

On the podcast, both Chops and F-Train agreed that Johnson did not get voted in for a playing career which includes one WSOP bracelet (the $1,500 razz event in 1997), about $320,000 in lifetime tourney winnings, and not much evidence of having “played for high stakes” (among the criteria for players).

Regarding those credentials, F-Train noted that “if she were a man, she wouldn’t even be considered.” True, although really even as a woman her achievements aren’t all that eye-popping, even if winning that razz bracelet puts her into a relatively select group of women who have won bracelets in non-ladies events at the WSOP.

The pair then discussed Johnson’s “non-player” résumé, with both concluding that while it is impressive, it isn’t enough for them to want to promote her to Hall of Fame status. F-Train wrapped up his judgment by again noting how Johnson being a woman might have helped her cause among the voters. “My thought about it was that ‘if this person were a man, would they get in the Hall of Fame?’ And I thought the answer was ‘no’.”

An interesting discussion. But it got me thinking about whether or not it is really right (or possible) to try to judge candidates without taking into consideration their sex, most particularly when it comes to the “non-player” criterion of helping grow the game.

I can see how when it comes to accomplishments at the tables, we shouldn’t get too carried away with a candidate being a man or a woman. Even if it is notable or relatively unique for a woman to win significantly, that shouldn’t unduly sway us into promoting her to membership into the Poker Hall of Fame over men with similar or better careers.

But one of Johnson’s primary “non-player” achievements was being a pioneer of sorts who helped bring more women into the game by providing an example to follow. In other words, the fact of her being a woman seems to matter here in a way that cannot be set aside. Can it?

Just a thought inspired by Chops and F-Train’s interesting discussion. They also talk Groupe Bernard Tapie-FTP stuff, the Party-bwin-MGM-Boyd agreement, the November Nine, and more items of interest, so check it out.

Meanwhile, I’ll come back later once the show begins on ESPN (at 9:00 ET, 6:00 Vegas time).

On Spines, or the Lack Thereof

Earlier this week the latest issue of Card Player magazine appeared in the mailbox, the one with Gus Hansen on the cover (Vol. 24, No. 9). I had already skimmed through it and had left it on the counter where Vera Valmore spotted it one evening. Then she did something I couldn’t remember ever seeing her do before -- she picked up the issue and leafed through it.

Vera isn’t a poker player herself, and so generally isn’t too interested in what the poker magazines and books I have laying around have to say. I have shared an article or two from Card Player with her before, but I had no recollection of her picking it up without my having recommended something. I watched as she quickly flipped to the article on page 8, a one-pager in the “Inside Straight” section that briefly summarized the events of “Black Friday” and the immediate aftermath.

While the issue is dated May 24, 2011, it’s clear the article was probably written about a month before, as it only speaks of the indictment, relates a few of the initial responses (from PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, the PPA, and Rep. Barney Frank), and tells of the deals struck between the DOJ and Stars/Tilt to regain their domains.

“Is that all?” said Vera, flipping through the rest of the magazine.

I laughed and shook my head, saying that yeah, that was it. I added that it was a little funny to think that this was the third issue of Card Player I’d received since “Black Friday” and this was the first mention of it.

I pointed out one other interesting detail of this issue, the conspicuous lack of advertising for Stars, FTP, Absolute Poker, and UB throughout. I noted how it was 16 pages shorter than the previous issue, pointing to the staples on the side to show that the magazine had even been bound differently.

“There isn’t a... uh, it doesn’t even have a...”

“Spine,” said Vera, finding the word for me. Then she added, “It’s spineless.”

I chuckled at the word, remembering some of the criticisms that have been directed of late toward various publications and sites that report on poker. Some have felt certain outlets -- just about all of which have long depended on online poker sites for advertising dollars and in other ways -- weren’t going after the story of “Black Friday” with the sort of vigor it deserved, muting their coverage perhaps because of their relationships with the targeted sites.

I realize Card Player’s publication schedule likely prevented it from reporting on the matter sooner, though it was interesting to see the story finally appearing in the very same issue in which the ads for Stars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and UB no longer appeared.

I pointed out to Vera how Card Player has always, even from its early days, been more focused on supporting its advertisers, which early on were mostly casinos and more recently the online sites. When explaining this, I was remembering having heard Linda Johnson -- publisher and owner of Card Player from 1993-2000 -- interviewed by Gary Wise way back in early 2008.

In that interview, Johnson explained to Wise how the magazine was never intended to be “journalistic,” but rather “was to support the poker industry,” one consequence of which being the avoidance of reporting on stories or events that reflected badly on the industry as a whole and/or their advertisers in particular. (Incidentally, I’m a big Linda Johnson fan, one of those who believes “The First Lady of Poker” deserves serious consideration for the Poker Hall of Fame.)

I wrote here a bit about that interview in a post titled “On Poker Mags,” discussing it in the context of considering Card Player’s tentative coverage of the insider cheating scandal at Absolute Poker during those early months of 2008. My conclusion there was to say that even though the magazine touts itself on its cover (still) as “the poker authority,” one obviously would want to look elsewhere for genuinely revealing news and/or unblinkered opinion about the industry.

All of which is to say I hadn’t necessarily been anticipating reading much of anything in Card Player about “Black Friday.” Indeed, that one-page summary of information we’ve all known about for more than a month now pretty much fit my expectations for what I’d find there on the matter. And I should add there are a number of interesting pieces in the issue -- as is often the case -- including the usual strategy talk, the columns and interviews, and that feature on Gus, too.

Understanding the magazine’s purpose, then, I suppose I’d refrain from using the word “spineless” to refer to it other than literally to describe its changed physical appearance. It is interesting to consider, however, how “Black Friday” has inspired renewed attention on the relationships between media outlets that report on poker and their advertisers -- relationships that in just about every single case have at least some significance when it comes to editorial content produced.

Indeed -- not to single out any one site or publication in particular -- when it comes to accommodatin’ those advertisers, some’ll bend over backwards.

Hooray for Boeree; Remembering Richmond

You’ve no doubt heard by now that Liv Boeree took down that European Poker Tour San Remo event yesterday, coming out on top of a huge field of 1,240 players to claim the €1,250,000 first prize. Lot of folks excited about it. Boeree becomes the third woman to win an EPT Main Event, following Vicky Coren (EPT London 2006) and Sandra Naujoks (EPT Dortmund 2009).

Boeree’s win also comes on the heels of Vanessa Selbst’s NAPT Mohegan Sun victory less than two weeks ago. And a month before that, Annie Duke took down the NBC National Heads Up Poker Championship -- not an “open” event, but still one in which men had only prevailed in the past.

Some object to assigning too much importance to women winning events such as these, arguing that doing so reinforces the significance of a player’s sex and thus suggests another kind of inequality in the way one views women players as opposed to men.

There’s something to that argument, I suppose. But still, it is hard not to recognize the uniqueness of women succeeding in these big buy-in, “big bet” tourneys, especially given the small number of women entering them as compared to men.

By the way, even before Selbst’s win at the NAPT Mohegan Sun, Jen Newell and I chose the topic of women & no-limit hold’em tourneys for our April “He Said/She Said” columns over at Woman Poker Player. There we were separately responding to a chapter in James McManus’s Cowboys Full in which he offers a few thoughts about why men seem “biologically inclined to sign up for” NLHE tourneys.

As we were working on our articles, Selbst won her NAPT title, and so we both ended up making reference to her win. You can see what else we said about McManus’s ideers here: He Said / She Said.

Last week I also wrote a post here called “Women and the WSOP.” There I mentioned how even though 12 different women had won open WSOP events, none had done so in a NLHE event (aside from Annette Obrestad’s 2007 WSOPE Main Event title). In that post I included a list of women who had won WSOP bracelets in open events, with Vera Richmond being the first to do so back in 1982 in the $1,000 buy-in Ace-to-Five Draw event.

Curiously, when people discuss this topic many tend to overlook Richmond’s victory and cite Barbara Enright’s 1996 bracelet in the $2,500 pot-limit hold’em event as the first by a woman in an open-field WSOP tourney. In fact, when it comes to poker history, Richmond is probably better known not for her WSOP bracelet but for her involvement in that story in which Amarillo Slim Preston allegedly said he’d cut his own throat if a woman ever won the WSOP Main Event -- another story the accuracy of which sometimes gets skewed.

According to the story, at the 1973 WSOP Main Event, Richmond -- who according to this had to have been the first woman ever to play in the Main Event -- enjoyed the chip lead for a time, and during a break took the opportunity to tell Preston she intended to win the sucker. Preston (the reigning champ) responded by telling Richmond that if she were to win the tourney, she could cut his throat with a “dull knife.”

The exchange later got retold in such a way as to suggest Preston had threatened to cut his own throat, and that his threat referred to any woman winning the event (not just Richmond). Preston himself later would exploit the apocryphal version of the story, such as in 2000 when both Annie Duke and Kathy Liebert made deep runs in the Main Event, as recounted by McManus in Positively Fifth Street.

(EDIT [added 1:00 p.m.]: Actually there are other problems with this story, including the fact that Richmond didn't play in the 1973 event at all. Hat tip to Kevmath here, who points us to an article by Susie Isaacs that suggests Barbara Freer was the first woman to play in the WSOP ME in 1978.)

That was about all I recalled about Vera Richmond, too, other than the fact that she always gets described as a “brusque cosmetics heiress” in histories and on the web. There was, however, a reference to Richmond not too long ago on the Gamblers Book Shop podcast (episode 63, 3/19/2010).

There guest Linda Johnson -- the third woman to win a WSOP in an open event (1997, $1,500 Razz) -- noted how Richmond “never got credit for her win,” referring to what I mentioned earlier about how Enright tends to be more readily cited as the first woman to win an open WSOP event.

Host Howard Schwartz asked Johnson why that was the case. “Well, she wasn’t very popular,” answered Johnson. “She was kind of mean and nasty... spoke like a truck driver, and nobody liked her. And so when she won her event, she never got credit for it, which isn’t right because plenty of asshole men have won and they are in the record books.”

Kind of interesting -- and not that surprising -- how the story of the first woman to win a WSOP open event appears to involve ideas of traditional “gender roles” as well as (in the Amarillo Slim story) men showing some resistance to the idea of women playing and succeeding.

Times have changed, certainly. The general enthusiasm about Boeree’s win yesterday -- from both men and women -- is evidence of that.

On Poker Mags

I like Gary Wise’s podcast, Wise Hand Poker. Took me awhile to decide, but I realize I’ve come to look forward to listening to the shows whenever they turn up in the feed.

(Of course, Rounder’s Radio could upload them suckers more regularly. And more quickly. As I have mentioned before, I don’t generally sit around the computer waiting to hear live shows, so if it ain’t available as a download, I probably will miss it.)

Wise writes for Bluff Magazine, ESPN, and some other outlets, and so has a lot of connections in the poker biz. His two-hour shows generally consist of a couple of lengthy interviews with fairly well-known guests. The long format suits Wise -- he does like to talk . . . a lot. But he gives his interviewees a lot of room, too, to respond to his usually thoughtful questions. And ultimately I almost always feel like I get something out of the interviews.

On the February 6th episode of Wise Hand Poker, Wise had recent Women’s Poker Hall of Fame inductee Linda Johnson on as a guest. Johnson is another highly likable and thoughtful person (I recommend the interview, which takes up the second half of the episode). She is sometimes called the “First Lady of Poker” thanks to her important contributions to the industry, as well as her accomplishments as a player. Besides helping establish the Tournament Directors Association and being the publisher and owner of CardPlayer from 1993-2000, Johnson also has over a quarter million in tourney winnings to her credit, including a WSOP bracelet in the 1997 $1,500 Razz event.

About a half-hour into the conversation, Wise asked Johnson some questions about her prior experience overseeing CardPlayer. I was particularly interested in his question “Was CardPlayer intended to be a journalistic magazine, or was it intended to be . . . more entertaining?”

Without hesitating, Johnson answered that the magazine was not intended to be “journalistic.” “At least when I ran it,” explains Johnson, “we never made the pretense that were [producing journalism].” Rather, the primary purpose of the magazine “was to support the poker industry.”

Johnson then immediately brought up how this orientation affected the way CardPlayer would address, say, a scandalous story that might reflect poorly on the industry. (Her example was of a tourney director who was stealing from the rebuy pool in his tourneys.) Johnson explained how CardPlayer wouldn’t necessarily publicize such stories, “because I felt like we were sort of a ‘good will’ part of the industry.” Besides, if they did report such stories, “the advertisers would not support us, and unfortunately you have to have advertisers’ support to make it go.”

Makes sense, frankly. And such is most certainly still the case today, with advertisers having an even greater influence (I’d argue) over the editorial content of industry mags like CardPlayer, Bluff, All-In, and the like.

I mention all of this because I noticed the latest issue of CardPlayer (Vol. 21, No. 3) does, in fact, include an article on the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s January report of the Gaming Associates’ audit of Absolute Poker. And yes, the article comes just ten pages after a two-page spread featuring Serinda Swan (in a Wicked Chops-esque get-up) encouraging us all to sign up over at Absolute (when we’re done lookin’).

The article (by Bob Pajich) is a straightforward summary of the report of the audit, with no editorial reflections on what the report says (or -- more importantly -- fails to say). Nor is there any attempt to address the relationship between the KGC and AP, or how that relationship perhaps makes that paltry $500,000 fine even less meaningful that it would be otherwise.

I suppose I appreciate CardPlayer’s having at least acknowledged the story. Still, rhetorically-speaking, a simple report might be read as implicitly arguing that all is A-OK at AP and we needn’t worry ever again about entrusting our moneys over there.

Which is fine, if we all understand how the relationship between CardPlayer and its advertisers means it cannot be a reliable source for unfettered, “journalistic” treatments of the poker industry. There’s great stuff in there -- the strategy columns, book reviews, and many of the other features all make it a worthwhile magazine, as far as I’m concerned. But for actual news about the industry, we still need to look somewhere other than in CardPlayer -- even if it does refer to itself as “The Poker Authority.”