Oh yeah, the good old times… you mean like when the people most profiting from the game of poker were actually the ones playing it? Becoming a losing poker celebrity in this day and age is still more lucrative than being a winning anonymous pro was or ever will be.

Why is that? Because ESPN figured out how to make poker exciting to the masses.

You yourself have greatly benefitted from this growth, not only in the form of your $2 million victory in the made for TV Tournament of Champions Event but in the passive benefits of this new poker friendly environment.

And for you, an extremely visible ambassador for the poker industry to take the time out of your schedule to write something in a time full of bans in Kentucky, cheats in UB (the very site you endorse,) impending UIGEA implementation and even Eastgates WSOP victory on feigned excitement and the moral ramifications of attention craving is petty to say the least.

You’ve fought hard to be a leader of this industry, of the people involved in this industry. Now you are going to remain silent on the major issues of our time in favor of redeeming Matusow and Hellmuth and slighting Brenes? Come on Annie

Poker is not the only victim – from pop and movie stars to sportsmen and heiresses the emphasis is on men and women behaving at their basest and bragging about it.

Especially when the cameras they profess to hate so much are around.

Over-celebration (or as we saw with Nguyen recently, losing badly) has become the norm, creating a need to be even more abrasive in order to be noticed.

Maybe this is a good thing, because the elegant winner who courteously shakes his opponent’s hand and thanks him or her for the game will soon be so rare as to in itself become newsworthy!

Thanks for the essay – a very interesting topic. The Brenes example is indeed a classic case of what should have been a positive for the game (cameras, TV exposure) turning into a disturbing travesty.

You don’t cover an important aspect of this debate though – the encouragement of this type of disgraceful antics by both ESPN and the online poker sites. ESPN devotes a lot of their coverage to this type of behaviour (with some admonishment in the commentary admittedly), presumably because they believe it will lead to higher ratings. Poor behaviour therefore leads to more precious “tv time”. Online sites then provide sponsorships to those players who get “tv time”. Havad Khan in 2007 acts abusrdly, gets huge coverage & lands the big deal. Would he have gotten the same deal had he acted normally? The way he acted in 2008? Will Darus Suharto or Ylon Schwartz get anything like the same deal? Despite the same result as Hevad? It seems unlikely.

Lastly, the first two paragraphs of your essay (unintentionally i believe) comes across as very condescending.

Cheers, Andy