I don’t think I would ever root or openly campaign for a player using my personal Twitter/Facebook account…though I should probably search my feeds for “Mercier, Isabelle” to see how big a hypocrite I am. And no member of the media should ever be demonstrative on the floor or on the rail during play, something that certainly wasn’t always the case during the WSOP.

My psychology training was two-fold. First learning to be an all-around, professional gambler, trained by the very best in Texas.
Second, was to gain my Ph.D. and be trained by Professors.
The first group knew more about folks. Professional gamblers a.k.a. gamblers had a code for emotion, attitude, and math. Conceal emotion. Reveal attitude. Never take the worst of it. No dice. No slots. You cannot afford enemies. You have no heroes. It is close to Zen detachment. Who cares which of them won? I’m for the guy who made the best play on fourth street..the best of it, always the best of it. I switch channels when the money goes in. Who cares about outcomes on a single hand or tourney? If you learn to conceal emotion, you do not have emotion, especially about what card comes. I feel very little on a bad beat, if anything. I do feel bad if I make a bad play, but no one else can impact me. If you show weakness, weakness grows. Whine where we will know you are a sucker to come after. Whine for us, it is music to our ears.

That’s just not realistic. SHOULD we judge you for your words written off the clock? Now that’s debatable, but make no mistake, people ARE judging you on every word you put out, like it or not. While you have every right to say as you feel, you should be aware that the great unwashed masses never take off their judgment hats.

http://pokershrink.blogspot.com/2009/10/tweets-twitter-and-two-faced-twaddle.html

ok, hold on, I’m thinkin’ … clock please …

If I was in London working the event or live blogging for a media outlet, you can bet your butt I would’ve refrained from any such support for Negreanu. But as a spectator, using accounts that are not associated with any media outlet, I was excited about the tournament and its potential outcome.

When I previously worked “on the clock” for various outlets, I was professional and kept my opinions to myself (unless asked to do otherwise in an opinion piece). But there is a reason that I’ve been a freelance writer for several years now; companies pay for my words, not my time, meaning that my time is MINE. No one can judge me for what I do on my time. If you want my mouth shut and feelings turned off, pay for it.

For those like Shrink who think that anything I write on any public forum should be used to judge what kind of worker I am and what kind of work I’m able to produce, then I don’t want to work for you. If Twitter and Facebook are used to judge me, then you might as well come into my home and take a look at what’s on my DVR, what’s in my journal, and what I say in text messages to friends. It’s true that those aren’t public forums, but those are just as relevant as something I tweet from my own home during my leisure time.

Opinions will vary on this, as shown by this thread of comments. But I refuse to accept that a little rah-rah for a poker player from people not on the clock is what’s wrong with poker media. I won’t get into that here, but suffice it to say that people have the right to use their personal blogs and social media accounts as they wish. For those who wish to keep every bit of personal information off the internet, go for it. Use Twitter or Facebook for whatever purpose(s) you choose, but don’t fault me for my choices.

If you don’t want to name names in public, both you and the Poker Shrink know how to contact me privately. I just want to see some evidence before I allow either of you to condemn poker writers as a group.

“Even if it had 0 to do with BS, it still was some pretty head-shake-worthy pro-negreanu fandom.”

If this is your argument, then we agree on the facts — there was a lot of open support for Daniel Negreanu. But if this is the basis for your argument, then you’re not upset about the anti-Barry Shulman sentiments, you’re upset by the pro-Daniel Negreanu sentiments. Those are two *very* different things.

Personally, and I’ve thought long and hard about this during my 5+ years as a poker reporter, I have absolutely no problem with reporters rooting for players, as long as it stays out of their work and isn’t on display at the tournament itself. (Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs don’t count.)

last time I saw something so gag-worthy to my Journo-snob sensibilities was when the media applauded for the PPA at a press conference.

Anonymous has the best perspective here, I’d say. And c’mon, BJ, don’t ask us to call out our friends and colleagues in a way that has us attaching all sorts of other “issues” to what may or may not have been an off-night. Leave the flame-wars to the forums.

IMHO, whether you’re in politics, sports, poker, or movies … fanboy-dom is as mortal a sin as insta-hate … and yet it’s a Catch-22, because people get into such professions because they are fans and/or feel passionately about them.

All I know is it was an awesome final table, I enjoyed following it thoroughly … the coverage was good — DJinn and The Tower get game balls … and I couldn’t believe my own two fingers when I was typing “Bar-ry! Bar-ry! Bar-ry!” But boy, it sure was fun. I actually blew off work to follow … and in doing so got a nice reminder of what’s important to the people we serve.

I’d just like to see the negative comments from the poker media. I’ll admit that they don’t need to use the word “Shulman” to be anti-Shulman, but I had to search for something, as I didn’t have enough years available to sift through every Twitter post from the last 30 hours.

For those who claim the media was publicly showing an anti-Shulman bias last night (as opposed to a pro-Negreanu bias), please provide links or other examples. I’ve actively searched, and haven’t found anything.

I know another tournament reporter who some might say is better than @BJNemeth, and tho not on duty, her descriptions of events were different than what I was seeing = bias by one or both of us #wsop

RT @Pokerati I once called @GaryWise a douchebag to his face without him realizing it, LOL #truestory

C’mon BJ, you know how to read between the lines.

Can’t believe the media is bickering amongst themselves here, when the greatest final table of the year — with all sorts of implications for November and beyond — just went down. But no hate … many times in my career I have missed the truly best stories when they were right under my nose.

I just sorted through the past 2 days of a Twitter search for “Shulman,” and I only found two negative comments about Barry, both from people I have never heard of before. (Not industry insiders.)

The unwritten (but occasionally vocalized) rule for fans at final tables is that you can root as hard as you’d like for your player, but you can’t root *against* anyone. As long as you’re cheering for your guy in a positive way, that’s not only fine, it’s encouraged.

Yes, the poker media should show more restraint, and the examples given above (by Anonymous) are clearly over the line. But on a personal blog or Twitter feed, there is absolutely nothing wrong with rooting for Daniel Negreanu. And I didn’t find any evidence of anyone in the poker media who was openly rooting against Barry Shulman.

If Daniel Negreanu were playing heads-up against an unknown, you still would have seen an outpouring of support for him, and some of that would have come from the poker media. There’s nothing wrong with that. If Barry Shulman had been playing heads-up against an unknown, it would have been a very different situation. (As I pointed out on Twitter last night, I’d probably root for Shulman against most players — but not Negreanu.)

So the question to Poker Shrink is this — Which Twitter comments caused you to become (more) disillusioned with the poker media?

I liked the Twitter feed on the wsope.betfair.com site. It was a bit experimental and I imagine a lot of people didn’t realise their Tweeets were being aggregated in that way. It was abused by some people with spam but that will always happen.

It complemented the pokernews tweets as they only have selected people and you have to be sign up to use the shoutbox on pokernews.

I used a number of sources for information throughout the night.

People managed to keep up with events the way they wanted to and I think it was good for poker..I still wish there had been a live feed:(

I agree that it’s inevitable for the poker media to root a little bit for their favorite players, but what was going on last night got a little ridiculous.

You know me and I usually root for whoever has the biggest stack, just so the damn thing ends early, but I have been guilty of an inappropriate fist pump or two when I see a less than likeable guy go down.

That being said, nothing disgusts me more than seeing a member of the media not only cross the line, but dance on the other side of it. PokerNews even commented on it early on, pointing out a credentialed French reporter who loudly cheered on Antoine Saout at the final table, despite very obviously reporting at the time in the media area.

It’s become a real problem in Europe, where these very small-time bloggers show up to just follow a select group of three or four fellow countrymen. They inappropriately root on their tracked players, ignore the rest and immediately leave following their elimination.

Last year’s PCA was a perfect example, when Alexandre Gomes sucked out on Adam Geyer and then went into a tirade, rubbing it in his face. That’s fine, since he’s entitled to look stupid as a player, but when four of his Brazilian bloggers jumped over the ropes to high five him at the table and taunt Geyer, that to me was just wrong.

Notes:
JPS = Jaded Poker Scribes for you acronym-challenged readers.

Sorry for publishing the vids, but hey … you know, readers … hope you guys see that it’s probably pretty good promotion for you, but I can see how much more than what is posted here could really cut in on your paid-for turf.