Posted this link in a comment down below, but really it deserves a little more pimpage … as this write-up by Change100 provides one of the best factual recounts and opinionated analyses of the whole Tiffany Michelle final table sponsorship saga. She tells a compelling story of girl-power gone awry, and the deeper Tiffany got, the more in over her head her agent may have gotten … all while having to make decisions affected by the emerging corruption of Ultimate Bet and escalating high-pressure tactics from frothing sponsorship-brokering wolves trying to mount her in the midst of her WSOP heater.
Jeffrey Lisandro, one of Tiffany\’s backers, had been hovering around the Amazon Room all day on Day 6. The other, PokerNews owner Tony G., had already left Las Vegas several days prior. The UB scandal was blowing up, and so was Tiffany\’s chip count. Personally, I was concentrated on the task at hand– reporting the tournament– but couldn\’t help but notice all the little side conversations that were taking place in the empty back quadrant of the room, which, until only 48 hours prior, had been a sea of poker tables. PokerNews people and Tiffany\’s agent, Katie Lindsay. PokerNews people and other agents. And Lisandro himself, putting his arm around Lindsay and walking off with her to have a private discussion. The war over Tiffany Michelle was in full swing as she sat 100 yards away, propped up on her knees, playing in the biggest game of her life.
I spent 8 years in the Hollywood machine and dealt with a lot of agents in my time. They are some of the most ruthless, yet sickeningly hardworking people you will ever meet. The client\’s interest is your interest, and it is the only interest. Everyone else can go fuck themselves. Agents can piss people off and get away with it because they hold the keys to the castle by controlling the talent. Talent is the only real currency in Hollywood. Producers, financiers, studio executives, marketing divisions, publicists? Without the talent what do they have?
While I\’m not so sure I agree with pinning so much blame on Katie Lindsay from Suited Connections — full disclosure: she\’s a personal friend of California Jen\’s, and I always saw her as one of the \”nice ones\” — Change has a little more understanding of how a cutthroat television world can work (a world that is new to poker even though we\’ve been on TV for 5+ years) and has me wondering if Tiffany Michelle weren\’t, at least indirectly, an unforeseen casualty of a delayed final table that noticeably upped the television stakes as we got closer and closer to The November Nine.
Oh, one other interesting thing … check out Change\’s post right before this one. You\’ll notice on that picture of Tiffany Michelle, posted before anyone knew of the brewing UB/PokerNews friction … the PokerNews logo is the most prominently displayed, even after she did her deal with Ultimate Bet.
