Tao of Poker

Not Spaceman

By the way, the reporter is not Spaceman in the now-controversial Card Player video where they bust a Bluff Magazine tournament reporter from copying and pasting content from CP into Bluff. Yes, I repeat, that reporter is not Spaceman.

If you don't know, Spaceman was at home on Tennessee at the time of the incident and actually suspended for two tournaments by his superiors for speaking the truth about Daniel Negreanu. The suits were not happy and exposed their intentions on being a "scenester" fluff publication than a reputable source of poker information and failing to meet the basic tenets of journalistic integrity.

Spaceman is a very good friend of mine and a top notch tournament reporter. He would never shoot an angle like cut & pasting from CP in media row. Perhaps if Spaceman was never reprimanded for speaking the truth, that incident never would have gone down and Bluff would not be getting such bad press.

In the past, friends of mine from other media outlets (CP, Poker Wire, Poker News, PokerStars Blog, Poker Pages, and Bluff) have routinely shared information during a final table. This is a common practice, especially with final table chip counts, where we'd give another reporter permission to share common information.

I must point out that the behavior of the Bluff reporter in the video was minor when compared to the horrible atrocities that Card Player's interns and tournament reporters (whom they hired off of Craig's List) did during the 2006 WSOP. Remember that instance when one CP reporter asked a player who his name was and the player said, "Johnny Chan?"

CP was supposed to be the official media provider at the 2006 WSOP and by now everyone knows how embarrassing their coverage was as they drew ire from professional poker players, became the laughing stock in the media room, and was the daily whipping boy for Wicked Chops Poker.

No one person or organization is 100% perfect in the competitive world of tournament reporting. It's not an easy business. But Card Player should be the last entity to talk shit and gloat about their competitor's coverage after their fiasco at the 2006 WSOP.