900 Posts? Get Real

These milestone posts generally tend to inspire a bit a navel-gazing. That is to say, more navel-gazing than usually occurs -- ’cos the blog is always gonna be a bit that.

You know, those what-the-hell-do-I-think-I’m-up-to here kind of posts. Knowing that number 900 was coming up today, I was thinking a bit along those lines over the weekend when I came across an interesting post by Amy Calistri from yesterday regarding the passing of Bob Stupak.

Not so unusual to encounter an interesting post by Amy -- all of her posts are. After a few years of poker writing, Amy not too long ago took a step back from poker to rejoin the so-called “straight” world. Among her many credits before moving on was having co-authored Mike Matusow’s autobiography, Check-Raising the Devil, published earlier this year (read more). She does still keep her blog, Aimlessly Chasing Amy, though, where she’ll occasionally reflect on poker-related items.

As I say, Amy was noting the death at age 67 of Vegas entrepreneur and poker player Bob Stupak, who succumbed over the weekend after a lengthy struggle with leukemia. His varied life included many notable milestones, the most prominent (literally and figuratively) probably being his having been responsible for the building of the Stratosphere, that unmistakable, 1,149-foot addition to the Vegas skyline.

Stupak’s significance to poker and poker history is considerable, too. He made a half-dozen WSOP final tables over the years in a variety of games, winning a bracelet in 1989 in the $5000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw event. He also made a final table of an early WPT event, and some may remember him from a TV appearance there in 2003 or perhaps a little later on “High Stakes Poker” where he played during the first season.

Additionally, Stupak was part of the story of the early days of creating “poker bots” or computer programs to compete with humans in poker, insofar as he was the human opponent to Mike Caro’s computer in a quarter-million dollar match that was shown on “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” There are many other intriguing tales surrounding Stupak, including those stemming from his political campaigns, failed attempts to become the mayor of Las Vegas and then, more recently, the state’s Lieutenant Governor. But as the many tweets from the poker pros over the last couple of days indicate, he was a fairly central figure in the poker world, thus making it needful to note his passing.

Amy’s post had a couple of purposes (besides sharing some of her photos of Stupak from the 2006 World Poker Open, one of which I have included here). One was to reflect on Stupak a bit, but the other was to reflect on the somewhat surprising lack of coverage his death received in the poker media. There were a couple of articles out there (e.g., Card Player had one). And of course Pokerati was on top of it. But mostly silence elsewhere. Which seemed strange, but, perhaps, understandable.

Amy notes that she realizes that while “the news used to be a public service,” these days “it’s mostly a thinly veiled ratings grab.” True for all news, for sure. Including poker news. “Hey I know times are tough,” she continues. “With poker affiliate and ad money vanishing like [fill in the blank]’s bankroll, the mad traffic grab is on. And I get the fact that an article with Durrr in the headline or a guy whacking off in the Borgata will get more reads than Bob Stupak’s obituary. But c’mon.”

It’s true, of course, that most poker news seems primarily designed at accumulating hits and, most importantly, generating click-throughs on those affiliate links and banners which can potentially generate the hosting sites some revenue. Like the deal of the cards and the order of betting, that’s how the game is played.

Amy’s Check-Raising collaborator, the Poker Shrink, Tim Lavalli, recently noted that he, too, was bowing out of the poker media game, not long ago announcing his “retirement” in a interesting “Exit Interview from the World of Poker.” He also acknowledged how money has become tight in the poker media game, thus making it harder to accommodate what we might call “real” reporting. “With poker magazines down more than 50% in pages printed and online sites getting 90% less poker ad spots,” writes Lavalli, “there simply is no money left to pay for ongoing quality poker journalism.”

Regarding that latter point, I’m one of those strange people who doesn’t instinctively react to the phrase “poker journalism” with a smirk or derisive comment to “get real.” There are others who feel as I do, I know. And there are some among them who are consistently producing quality poker journalism, though much of it seems to happen despite sites’ pressure not to be overtaken in that “mad traffic grab.”

Getting back to the navel-gazing... I don’t know how valuable my occasional reflections here are in the grand scheme of things. But I enjoy using this space to try to add something to the conversation now and then. And while I’ll happily sell you an ad or try to make a little cabbage if I can, that’s never been a primary purpose or something that unduly affects what I write about here.

The Poker Shrink added one last piece of advice to his “exit interview”: “When the time comes, get out before you burn out.” I guess all this reflecting tells me I ain’t quite there yet. Gonna stick with this Hard-Boiled stuff for a while, I think.

Hell, only a hundred more ’til a thousand.

Check-Raising the Devil by Mike Matusow, with Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli

This week Mike Matusow’s autobiography, titled Check-Raising the Devil, finally hits the shelves -- both virtual and actual. If you didn’t know it already, two of our friends, Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli, helped Matusow write the book, which tells the story of his rise and fall. And rise and fall and rise and fall. And rise.

Starts in the early 1990s with Matusow in his early twenties playing video poker and living in a trailer, then eventually moves through his becoming a poker pro and winning three WSOP bracelets and over $7 million in tourney earnings. Along the way, Matusow describes in detail his period of drug use and self-destructive behavior during the early part of this decade, his getting clean and properly diagnosed as suffering from both bipolar disorder and ADHD, his arrest for drug trafficking and six-month jail term, and his triumphant return to poker as well as to a more balanced existence.

I’ve had the chance to read Check-Raising the Devil and can say without hesitation that it is a compelling story, very well presented. It most certainly does not lionize Matusow, and in fact most often brings him down to our level (or below) in its bald confessions of the author’s many limitiations -- some involuntarily imposed on Matusow (e.g., his disorders, other psychological issues), others brought on himself (e.g., the drug use, his ruinous sports betting). Actually, it isn’t always simple to sort through where Matusow’s culpability begins and ends, but on the whole the book doesn’t do too much passing of the buck. This is a man owning up to everything -- the good and the bad.

So Check-Raising is a very interesting character study, and since he’s a character most of us already know at least a little bit about (probably more than a little), the book is all the more intriguing.

The book also provides a nifty overview of the last ten years or so of poker from the point of view of a professional player who was there for just about every major happening -- both live and online. There’s much about the WSOP in there, as well as other major tourneys. There’s some chronicling of the online scene, too, including Matusow’s getting cheated by Russ Hamilton over at UltimateBet. (No punches pulled there.)

All of which is to say, there’s a lot to recommend here for both casual fans and hardcore players. Matusow’s life to this point has been full of extremes, although there’s a lot in his story to which most of us can relate, including the highs and lows caused by poker itself. Even if we haven’t experienced the euphoric triumphs and soul-crushing defeats to the degree Matusow has, we all know what he’s talking about.

I also want particularly to recommend what I perceive to be the contribution of our friends, Amy and Tim. This is an especially well written and well presented book (better than yr average poker text, and I’ve read a bunch), and we’ve got to believe Amy and Tim had a lot to do with that being the case.

When you start a blog, then keep at it for a while, it doesn’t take too long to become aware of this here nifty community of blogs, forums, podcasts, and other interwebby connections via which people with similar interests interact. And while there are tons of poker blogs, forums, podcasts, and now Twitter pages and so forth, the community is nevertheless still relatively small, especially compared to some other ones out there. So if you keep writing -- and, importantly, keep reading -- you are gonna find these folks eventually, I’d think.

It was probably just a few months after I began writing Hard-Boiled Poker that I became aware of Amy Calistri’s blog, Aimlessly Chasing Amy. I’m pretty sure it was via Iggy that I did. There was a good long stretch there during which we all routinely found each other through Iggy’s “uberposts.” Soon after that I was listening to Amy when she co-hosted Keep Flopping Aces with Lou Krieger. She gave that gig up about a year ago, I believe, somewhere around the time she also went back into the “real” world of business and scaled back her work with poker media.

Found Tim Lavalli not too longer after that, if I remember correctly. Probably was those series of investigative articles he wrote with Calistri about the extra two million chips that mysteriously showed up during the latter stages of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, titled “Two Million Questions: Will Poker Answer?” That series began in September 2006 (if yr interested, click here for part one). Somewhere around there I started reading Lavalli’s “Poker Shrink” articles (which he began in 2006) as well as his personal blog.

Ended up meeting Tim last summer near the end of the WSOP. Didn’t get the chance to meet Amy, who after several years in a row at the WSOP didn’t make the 2008 one. Am hopeful to see both this time around to congratulate them on having made it through the several-years-long journey that got them to the book’s publication this week.

I’ll also thank them, because while Matusow’s story is itself somewhat inspiring, as a writer I’m also inspired by seeing Tim and Amy -- two of “us” -- realize this terrific achievement and get themselves “into print.” Am looking forward to seeing others in the blogging community make that move as well one day. And those that do, I assume, probably will have been inspired somewhat by Tim and Amy, too.

(By the way, if you are interested in hearing more about the book and how it was written, tune into to Keep Flopping Aces this Thursday [5/14] where Matusow, Lavalli, and possibly Calistri will be Lou Krieger’s guests.)

Going the Extra Mile

B.J. Nemeth, terrific tournament reporter for PokerNews and other outlets, has weighed in on the idea to postpone the final table of the WSOP Main Event in order to televise it live (or “plausibly live”) at some later date -- discussed a couple of days ago here. (Incidentally, the latest buzz appears to suggest we won’t necessarily see this change happen this summer, but will most certainly see something like it in 2009.)

Head over to Tao of Poker and read Nemeth’s thoughts in the post dated April 8th. There Nemeth provides some good arguments for why he thinks the idea to create a “must see” final table event is a good one for poker. And while I still have reservations -- the main one concerning the notion of waiting three whole months to complete the tournament -- I can appreciate where Nemeth is coming from.

Regardless of the position being argued, I especially like this kind of thoughtful, well-reasoned editorial. I appreciate writers who take the time to present their ideas clearly and thoughtfully, taking into consideration the audience’s needs (for clarity, for sound reasoning, etc.). Nice, also, to see a subject like this addressed with a sense of historical perspective (which Nemeth definitely has).

Fact is, there are a number folks out there -- if you’re willing to seek ’em out -- who are writing about poker who will take the time to think ideas through and communicate them as effectively as they can. Poker ain’t all that different from the rest of the world, in that respect . . . .

Speaking of, was reading this week about the recently-awarded Pulitzer prizes for journalism. Looks like The Washington Post was the big winner this time around, being recognized for their in-depth reports on subjects like the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, the Virginia Tech shootings, the political influence of Dick Cheney, among others. A lot of times the stories that get singled out for praise in this way are investigative pieces that bring together all of the most-valued characteristics of excellent journalism -- characteristics that make them “distinguished” in the judges’ minds.

The criteria for judging are always somewhat subjective, of course, but to my way of thinking, the best journalism usually demonstrates a high degree of intellectual rigor, a faithfulness to “journalistic ethics” or responsible reporting, and evidence of supreme effort. Usually the winners are multi-part articles that (1) required a great deal from the author(s) in terms of investigative work, and (2) were written with an eye toward the “greater good” -- i.e., report on issues or concerns in a way that was both constructive and clearly of benefit to the community of readers.

All of which caused me to reflect a bit on poker journalism. Can we perhaps point to examples of that sort of excellence in our little corner of the news landscape? Thinking back over the last couple of years, three spring to mind:

Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli’s multi-part investigation of the two million extra chips that suddenly materialized near the end of the 2006 WSOP Main Event. The pair produced three exhaustive articles in September 2006, then a follow-up in early 2007 that shared industry reaction:

“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part One”
“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part Two”
“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part Three”
“Two Million Chips: Six Months After”

Haley Hintze’s “Anatomy of a Cybersquatter” series of reports from early 2007 documenting the curious twists and turns in the battle over the “wsop.com” domain. Hintze meticulously presented the story in seven installments:

“Introduction: Binion’s Horseshoe on the Ropes”
“Part 1: Bad Blood Runs Deep”
“Part 2: Cybersquatting 101”
“Part 3: From “World Series of Poker” to “WSOP””
“Part 4: The Lawyers Always Get Theirs”
“Part 5: One for All, and All for One”
“Part 6: Not Quite Coda”

Jennifer Newell’s recent Poker Player Newspaper series on the Absolute Poker scandal. Her articles appeared from November 2007 to January 2008:

“An Absolute Mess, Part 1”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 2”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 3”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 4”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 5”

Of course, Newell’s series brought together and presented a lot of information compiled by those other super sleuths who helped crack the AP scandal in the first place. (And, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, still more folks also reported on that one as well.) By the way, I recently noticed Serge “Adanthar” Ravitch mention on his blog that the 60 Minutes story on Absolute Poker is “probably happening (at least, my segment is definitely getting shot).” Gary Wise mentioned on his podcast last week that he’d been interviewed as well.

Plenty of other recent examples of excellence in poker journalism, too, of course. These were just a few that came to mind. Do go enjoy (and be inspired by) those series if you hadn’t already. And for more thoughtful discussion about poker, do check out Nemeth’s thoughts regarding that plan for a big ol’ ME final table extravaganza, as well.