[jsmith5]

BJ is the best in the biz. Without him, this marriage would be doomed to fail.

I haven't chimed in on any of the posts yet simply because the deal is done and it's not going to change. Period. This was a great move by CardPlayer and the WPT needs the money (they're on GSN...think about it).

It sucks that PokerWire is busto since we put together an incredible team that never quite made it onto the circuit (when I came on board there were 2 employees, just before this announcement we were up to 9 including the radio show).

I know all of the people on the floor for the combined team and I think it's only a matter of time before things get better. As long as none of the CP brass pisses off BJ too much, he'll make this as good as it can be.

That being said, there are two primary factors that make this whole deal suck:

1. Lack of complete coverage. I'm sorry but nobody can tell me that having one team of reporters on the floor for one website is better than having 5-10 teams, at least on the first three days. There's simply too much going on to get everything you need to know from six people.

2. The lack of "competition" will reduce the quality of overal coverage. While there has never been a sense of one-upmanship between all of us on the ground level (we left that to the execs at CP and Bluff), there was always a need to give it your best effort with all of the other sites trying to cover the same event.