Huck Seed went off on Pokernews reporter, I defended the reporter, but maybe Huck had a point...

[Dan Druff]

The WSOP $5k Limit event was definitely something I'll never forget, as it had so many notable occurrences for me.

Among them:

- Sitting next to Phil Tom
- Sitting next to Annie Duke
- Briefly being chip leader (or close to it) near the end of Day 1
- Losing 4 straight hands to end up as the bubble boy, with just 19 people left

I talked all about the above on both radio and in various forum posts.

However, the one thing I forgot to mention was the confrontation that Huck Seed had with a Pokernews reporter.

Huck was moved to my table in the middle part of Day 2. He has been dealing with a long cashless streak at the WSOP that dates back to 2010.

Huck was short-stacked and in a bad mood. He had something like 18k, and was angered to look at the Pokernews chip counts and see himself listed with 48k.

"What are they fucking doing at Pokernews here? I've had something like 18k forever, and they still have me listed at 48. And look at this shit (pointing to another player). He has like 100k, and they still show him with 17! I mean, this is totally worthless."

Huck then called over the Pokernews reporter in the area, and accused him of not doing his job. The reporter defended himself that his job is to track player movements between tables, and that he would go get the reporter that's supposed to be covering the chips for this table. Huck didn't believe him, and kept telling him over and over that he sucked at his job.

I felt bad for the guy, and in fact I knew him. He was the younger brother of a former DD/NWP poster. I won't say who the brother is (for privacy reasons), but I like both the Pokernews reporter and his older brother, and felt he was being treated unfairly. I tried to speak up and defend him, but Huck's loud complaints were drowning me out, and most of the table was on Huck's side. I mean, even if this wasn't specifically the kid's job, it was hard to defend the highly inaccurate counts on Pokernews, and that's what people were focusing upon.

I kept making the point that Pokernews is simply understaffing these events, but nobody really listened.

Finally the kid walked away and the conversation died down. 15 minutes later, Huck announced, "Hey look, they have all of our counts corrected now. We complain and of course then they suddenly get it right."

That actually strengthened Huck's point, as the kid who claimed it wasn't his job then actually went and made the counts himself (since nobody else walked over to do it), and seemed to validate Huck's claim that he had been slacking. Yes, I believe the kid was telling the truth and was just covering for whoever was ignoring our table, but obviously this didn't look good.

Anyway, I still walked away feeling that Pokernews just had the situation of a lot of hardworking kids that just couldn't accurately cover chip counts of so many players in so many tournaments.

Now I'm not so sure.

At the $1500 Limit Shootout, there were 50 tables. About 40 tables were in one section, and about 10 tables were in the next section over. It took place in the Brasilia room where there was only one other tournament running, and that was far away from where we were playing.

By an odd coincidence, four people from our NWP-spawned community -- Action, Drexel, reggiman, and myself -- were all in the 10-table section, and all of us made it to heads up. (Action and reggiman won, Drexel and I lost.)

Anyway, Pokernews did not send one reporter into that 10-table section until very late in Day 1 (basically to report who won and lost).

Usually they send reporters to every section at least once, to find the notables at each table. They didn't do that. Anyone who was in that section of 10 tables was simply ignored as if they didn't exist, regardless of their notoriety in poker.

I thought that was a pretty big bedshit on the part of Pokernews -- to pretty much forget that 20% of the tables existed at all -- and can't be simply blamed on understaffing.

I am wondering why Pokernews and the WSOP don't just team up to get some RFID chips and make it really easy to report real-time results on everyone. This would require some start-up cost, but think of how cool it would be for every no-name WSOP player from Nebraska to have his family log onto wsop.com and see that person's name and chip counts.

In any case, the coverage has been pretty bad this year.

[rickastley]

I felt bad for the guy, and in fact I knew him. He was the younger brother of a former DD/NWP poster. I won't say who the brother is (for privacy reasons), but I like both the Pokernews reporter and his older brother, and felt he was being treated unfairly.

just had someone who works for pokernews co-commentating on the omaha hi/lo final table. from what i understand it's the brother of a guy at the ft? gotta be doft looking at 2+2.

edit: defo him as What_is_7x6 was an account on dd.

[BCR]

They are essentially worthless at this point. In the past, it was usually accurate, albeit in a delayed manner. Now chip counts go hours unchanged, and with the emergence of twitter, it's simply worthless to even attempt to keep the chip counts as everyone is following the twitter of anyone they are interested in. They are wrong more than right, and if they want to do anything, they should just focus their limited staff on the top 10 chip leaders and write up little stories about eliminations because they are failing at any comprehensive coverage anyways.

[Dan Druff]

I felt bad for the guy, and in fact I knew him. He was the younger brother of a former DD/NWP poster. I won't say who the brother is (for privacy reasons), but I like both the Pokernews reporter and his older brother, and felt he was being treated unfairly.

just had someone who works for pokernews co-commentating on the omaha hi/lo final table. from what i understand it's the brother of a guy at the ft? gotta be doft looking at 2+2.

edit: defo him as What_is_7x6 was an account on dd.

Okay, good job, you got it.

The reporter was Mickey Doft and his brother is What_is_7x6.

[herbertstemple]

Right and wrong are irrelevant here. Its always a good thing to complain about the media.

[SixToedPete]

I agree, the site has gone downhill.

I tried to navigate it but it's not user friendly. When I did find the section I wanted....the stats were either non existent or ridiculously outdated.

[PLOL]

Why does Huck feel he is entitled to accurate chip counts? He's not paying Pokernews anything. They can do what they want.

[adamantium]

Why does Huck feel he is entitled to accurate chip counts? He's not paying Pokernews anything. They can do what they want.

Really, that was the best you could come up with?

[PLOL]

Why does Huck feel he is entitled to accurate chip counts? He's not paying Pokernews anything. They can do what they want.

Really, that was the best you could come up with?

What part of what I said was invalid? They're an independent company who Huck is not paying any money to. If he doesn't like the information Pokernews is putting out, then he shouldn't visit their website. I don't see why he would throw a tantrum about it.

[adamantium]

Really, that was the best you could come up with?

What part of what I said was invalid? They're an independent company who Huck is not paying any money to. If he doesn't like the information Pokernews is putting out, then he shouldn't visit their website. I don't see why he would throw a tantrum about it.

So when you get called a female poster you shouldnt complain, because you dont have to read this site.

[Dan Druff]

Really, that was the best you could come up with?

What part of what I said was invalid? They're an independent company who Huck is not paying any money to. If he doesn't like the information Pokernews is putting out, then he shouldn't visit their website. I don't see why he would throw a tantrum about it.

Huck was kind of an asshole about it, and he approached the situation wrong (by going after an individual reporter), but the WSOP really should have decent coverage, given the high profile of the tournament.

Pokernews has exclusive rights to cover it, so there should be some sort of minimum standard that is upheld. Perhaps Pokernews can't afford to hire enough people to cover it, in which case there should be some kind of agreement with the WSOP where the WSOP itself pays for some of the costs of hiring more reporters.

Just right now the coverage is so spotty that the chip counts are virtually useless, and really the only useful information gained from the reporting is a few funny anecdotes and who has busted out.

[PLOL]

What part of what I said was invalid? They're an independent company who Huck is not paying any money to. If he doesn't like the information Pokernews is putting out, then he shouldn't visit their website. I don't see why he would throw a tantrum about it.

So when you get called a female poster you shouldnt complain, because you dont have to read this site.

If they said something derogatory about Huck then he would have a right to complain.

[sonatine]

I want to say something and its going to sound really trollish and shitty but I really dont mean it to come out that way, I just have no other way to phrase it:

Its been a long time since this few people really cared about poker.

Sure there is a handful of groupies and some collar popping home game player types and various others sprinkled about, in addition to people who somehow havent gone busto or run out of favors to cash in for loans, as well as diehard profitable players in the mix...

But between online poker vaporizing into a cloud of shit, the job market imploding, the real estate market imploding, so on, so forth, I mean... honestly Im impressed pokernews even showed up. There will always be a world series, there will always be poker played, but the "media" (advertising) ecosystem is literally sucking its own meat off its own bones at this point.

So yeah Im on the side of cutting them some slack; they are doing a shite job but to ask them to do more begs the inevitable deck of the Titanic metaphors...

[bukowski72]

Porkernews couldn't even keep the chip counts right 3 handed at the final table o8 at 3am. I don't think there is too much going on at that time.

[LLL]

I am wondering why Pokernews and the WSOP don't just team up to get some RFID chips and make it really easy to report real-time results on everyone. This would require some start-up cost, but think of how cool it would be for every no-name WSOP player from Nebraska to have his family log onto wsop.com and see that person's name and chip counts.

Because then they wouldn't have an excuse when the amount of chips at a final table is all fucked up.

[bottomset316]

Huck's attitude is one of the big reason why I never watch poker anymore. These fucking guys actually think they are important enough where they can berate people. LOL. It's hard to believe there are people that actually look up to these scum bags.

When I read Druff's post, a vivid memory came back. I was like 14 and we all went out to eat as a family to a high end restuarant fo celebrate my Mom's birthday. The guy that cut our lawn happened to be there, obviously celebrating something. Anyway my Dad went over to shake his hand and he was very gracious, but something seemed off, he was not the jovial guy he usually was cutting the lawn.

Fast forward a week and the guy is cutting our lawn again and my Dad approached him and they talked. Apparently, our neighbor down the street (older guy in his 60s) was also at the restuarant and was also his customer. He was offended to see his landscaper in such a high end place that he frequented, he walked up and said he was fired because he was obviously was paying him too much. Word go around the neighborhood and the old man was basically ostracized until he moved a year later.

[Steve-O]

Couple points on this:

#1 -- Mickey Doft isn't some summer blogger PokerNews hires to cover the WSOP, he is one of their most active contributors and I highly doubt he was only in charge of who was moved where (he does a ton of the live blogging for them, so chip counts are part of his duties).

#2 -- tournament reporting is a thankless job and I'd never do it unless I was getting well compensated (which they don't). You have to balance being right over the table to get the chip counts and action correct without getting in the way, it's nearly impossible to find this balance and keep everyone happy. Then you have to deal with player tilt (see Huck Seed above).

#3 -- PokerNews puts out a call to bloggers and interns to help with the WSOP. There are a few really good tournament reporters at PokerNews, like Doft and Chad Holloway, but for the most part it's people who just want to be at the WSOP and do as little as they possibly can for $9/hour (or whatever they get paid). There is no money in tournament reporting, NONE, ZERO, ZIP, NADA. So there will never be comprehensive coverage. Only diehards care about chip counts and PokerNews and other outlets aren't going to go balls to the wall to make the few thousand people who actually care about live chip-counts happy.

The closest we've seen to this was the EPL, but this was a small field event and we saw how their spending was out of control in every facet.

[Dan Druff]

Couple points on this:

#1 -- Mickey Doft isn't some summer blogger PokerNews hires to cover the WSOP, he is one of their most active contributors and I highly doubt he was only in charge of who was moved where (he does a ton of the live blogging for them, so chip counts are part of his duties).

#2 -- tournament reporting is a thankless job and I'd never do it unless I was getting well compensated (which they don't). You have to balance being right over the table to get the chip counts and action correct without getting in the way, it's nearly impossible to find this balance and keep everyone happy. Then you have to deal with player tilt (see Huck Seed above).

#3 -- PokerNews puts out a call to bloggers and interns to help with the WSOP. There are a few really good tournament reporters at PokerNews, like Doft and Chad Holloway, but for the most part it's people who just want to be at the WSOP and do as little as they possibly can for $9/hour (or whatever they get paid). There is no money in tournament reporting, NONE, ZERO, ZIP, NADA. So there will never be comprehensive coverage. Only diehards care about chip counts and PokerNews and other outlets aren't going to go balls to the wall to make the few thousand people who actually care about live chip-counts happy.

The closest we've seen to this was the EPL, but this was a small field event and we saw how their spending was out of control in every facet.

If this is true, then as BCR said, Pokernews should just accept defeat and stop doing chip counts (or at least not do it for as many players). It's embarrassing when their counts are hours behind.

The thing is, this CAN be done right. I saw it done right in previous years when they were better staffed. It just has degraded to where it's not just useless, but it's providing misleading information.

Again, while Huck didn't approach this right, I can understand his point. Imagine you are struggling with low chips in the later stages of a tournament, and you start getting congratulatory text messages from well-meaning friends and relatives about being one of the chip leaders. It's demoralizing and frustrating, and I can totally understand the point of view of, "Either cover me right or don't cover me at all."

Nobody is expecting perfect or real-time accuracy, but when Pokernews is failing to notice that certain tables even exist, you know there are some problems.

[Steve-O]

The thing is, this CAN be done right. I saw it done right in previous years when they were better staffed. It just has degraded to where it's not just useless, but it's providing misleading information.

Nobody is expecting perfect or real-time accuracy, but when Pokernews is failing to notice that certain tables even exist, you know there are some problems.

It was done right in previous years because the WSOP wasn't selling exclusive rights to the event, media outlets were free to report as they saw fit, and the ones that had been doing it "right" were losing their shirts (during the boom they were spending a ton). Since the WSOP auctions it off, the outlet who wins is already in the red a considerable sum, so the idea that they will invest any more than the bare minumum, especially in the current online poker economy, is simply not gonig to happen.

This is the whole premise behind Jeff Shulman wanting to throw the WSOP bracelet in the trash; he felt the WSOP not allowing competing entities to cver the event was a joke.

[Crowe Diddly]

This is the whole premise behind Jeff Shulman wanting to throw the WSOP bracelet in the trash; he felt the WSOP not allowing competing entities to cover the event was a joke.

Of course, Shulman was fine with it when Bluff was paying to be one of the exclusive media partners, for a few years, I think.