Event #21: $1500 nl shootout

[Dunkman]

This HU match is painful.

[Zinzan]

[ QUOTE ]
This HU match is painful.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm tuning out right now. It's just a complete bore. Nothing to see here. Definitely nothing to learn.

-Z

[Ditch Digger]

Ugh, after I busted Negreanu should've taken this down. I really hated the way Baruch played.

[BJ Nemeth]

DitchDigger -- Congrats on your fifth-place finish. I wish I could have posted bios for all nine players, but I was switched from the Humberto Brenes/John Phan final table to this one at the last minute. Once the action started, I never had a free moment to even think about researching bios. Sorry about that. :-(

- - - - - - - - - - -
In an earlier post, Ryot said, "At least my 9 yr old retarded cousin can work out outs not our beloved PokerNews tho."

Ryot --

It's nice to hear that your 9-year-old cousin is so skilled at counting outs despite a handicap. I could have used him or her today.

You see, I'm the beloved PokerNews reporter who was covering the final table for Event #21 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout). And yes, I listed the ace as an out for Baughman even though it would have given Negreanu a superior hand (a full house vs. a straight).

I made a mistake. Not a typo, but an actual error on my part. The blame lies completely with me.

For what it's worth, I probably have more live final table reporting experience than anyone in the industry -- I have close to 100 final tables under my belt, from preliminary (sub-$10,000) events at Bellagio to the WSOP's Main Event. I've covered the WPT, the WSOP, the WSOP Circuit, NBC's Heads-Up Championship, the US Poker Championship, the PokerDome, and High Stakes Poker. (Alright, I've never covered the EPT, or any European events for that matter -- but I will.)

But this sequestered final table presented some unique challenges that I've never had to face before.

There was no announcer, and the camera angles and resolution made it nearly impossible to see the size of the bets. (Which is why no bet sizes were included in today's coverage.) I had to stand behind several technicians and see what I could of the screens and scratch down notes on a pad of paper. I would then move over to my laptop (seated where I couldn't see the TV screens) and type up what I saw.

But I couldn't post it -- yet.

PokerNews is under the same one-hour delayed restrictions as the webcast, so I was forced to wait one hour before posting everything. So I time-stamped everything in a text file, and cut-and-paste it into PokerNews at the right time an hour later. Of course, an hour later I was still covering the live action, so it was almost like covering two tournaments simultaneously -- what's happening now, and what happened an hour ago. And if I ever confused the two, it would have screwed everything up.

Add to this the fact that I was responsible for organizing the chip counts inside the Bluff Tent and transferring that information to the technicians and announcers. I'm proud of the fact that chip counts were updated very often today.

Tournament reporting is not a back-breaking job like construction, and it doesn't require a higher education like being a doctor or a lawyer. But it is much harder than it looks, and requires a lot of passion and dedication to do the job justice. I hate to break it to your nine-year-old cousin, but he or she will need more than out-counting skills to become a top poker tournament reporter at the World Series. Maybe in a few more years.

I apologize for misrepresenting Baughman's outs on the river in his elimination hand. But if that's the biggest error you can find in a final table where I posted over 120 entries in an event that lasted 214 hands while juggling multiple tasks and reporting on a one-hour delay -- I'll wear it with pride. :-)

[gobbomom]

hey there BJ, thanks for giving us a back-stage view of the situation. You obviously are giving it your best given the circumstances, and deserve lots of congrats for your hard work (to make up for the pay, I'm sure).

[Zinzan]

[ QUOTE ]
Ugh, after I busted Negreanu should've taken this down. I really hated the way Baruch played.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, you really let us down. ;-) A lot of weakness at this table.

Congratulations, though. I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume they were mentally exhausted.

-Z

[aramfingal]

so your posts are delayed an hour, and you're still too busy to find a moment to proof read them?
it sounds as if you are being asked to multi-task too much and you need an assistant. your post didn't need to be told to us, it needed to be told to your boss.
your error in the number of outs on that hand was the kind of mistake cardplayer made frequently last year, and we had lots of fun making fun of them for it. but along with lots of little mistakes like that, came info that was updated about four times more frequently in every event than it has been on pokernews this year.
the circumstances of that final table do not explain why pokernews coverage throughout all the events so far has been dreadfully slow while still being filled with errors. the chips counts have been so bad that it would actually be an improvement if you simply did not have them at all. several times i've seen players who busted hours ago still listed in the chip counts.
i'm not mad at you for getting the number of outs wrong on one hand, but the fact is you are working under a terrbile system, and you need to fight to change that system or find something else to do.

[ImsaKidd]

[ QUOTE ]
Negreanu just busted out 3rd.

[/ QUOTE ]

Grats Admo.

[KSOT]

Can I watch DNs interview anywhere or is it lost with the broadcast?

[BJ Nemeth]

[ QUOTE ]
so your posts are delayed an hour, and you're still too busy to find a moment to proof read them?

...

i'm not mad at you for getting the number of outs wrong on one hand, but the fact is you are working under a terrbile system, and you need to fight to change that system or find something else to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I'm too busy to find a moment. (Couldn't you find a moment to proofread "terrbile"?)

In the hour between typing up a hand and posting it, I'm not sitting around surfing the forums at 2+2 -- that would mean one post per hour. For example, at 6:17 pm, I'm watching the live action and/or typing up what happened at 6:16 pm. I also need to post what happened back at 5:18 pm. I don't have time to proofread what happened at 6:12 pm or 5:53 pm, because I'm still covering the tournament. When there's a big hand that needs a longer write-up, they don't stop the action so I can catch up -- the tournament rolls on without me. When there are two big hands in close succession, I'm often taking notes on the second when I haven't finished the write up on the first.

There are a lot of factors that go into covering a major poker tournament that can't be solved by throwing more bodies (i.e., assistants and interns) at the problem. Like I said before, it's not a difficult job, but it's not nearly as easy as it looks. In yesterday's case, there wasn't space in the control room for another body, which is why I was multitasked into handling the chip counts in the first place.

Until casinos put an electronic system in place for poker tournaments (player ID cards, RFID in the poker chips), tournament reporting will be more art than precise science. (How else do you track chip counts for 100 players who are busting every 3-4 minutes when you don't know 65 of them?) Unfortunately, there's little financial incentive for casinos to implement things like RFID chips and scannable player cards -- it helps the media, not the casinos.

Finally, I'd like to say that I *have* fought to improve live tournament coverage.

The WPT used to have very strict policies where they were indifferent (almost hostile) to the media -- and I lobbied hard (and successfully) to change that.

When Card Player first started live tournament coverage, I was instructed by my employers to *not* do hand-for-hand coverage at final tables. But I fought for that too, going so far as to disobey their instructions and risk my job -- now it's considered standard. At the 2005 WSOP, they wanted to stop hand-for-hand final tables because there was nobody to do it on my days off. Instead of doing what my employer wanted (which would have made my job a *lot* easier), I offered to work every single day (for over 40 days), because I felt the tournaments deserved hand-for-hand coverage.

Personally, I think my most important contribution has been getting the different media organizations to work together and help each other out. When we all work together and share information, it improves everyone's coverage. (I'm not talking about copying here, but cooperation.) That wasn't easy to do, because at the management level, a lot of our companies openly dislike each other.

Another example -- there was an unexpected policy implemented in the final days of the 2005 WSOP Main Event, and it meant nobody in the media would have chip counts for the remaining 60 or so players. When everyone else just bitched and moaned about it, I scrambled for two hours to fix the problem that everyone thought was unfixable.

Until I become rich (difficult to do as a tournament reporter) and own my own poker media outlet, I'm at the mercy of other people. Unfortunately, I don't get to dictate how the software works, or how the websites are laid out, or even what the priorities are. Like employees in any field, I need to work within the system to do the best job that I can.

Please, don't ever question my commitment to poker reporting. I'm not some lackey waiting for a pro to stake me into an event -- tournament poker reporting is my passion, and I take it very seriously.

Yes, everyone had a good time making fun of CP's coverage last year (FYI, I wasn't with CP for the '06 WSOP), and a lot of people are having a good time making fun of PokerNews this year. That's the nature of the business -- if you do a perfect job, nobody will notice. Only the errors stand out. I accept that.

I certainly don't expect anyone to stop pointing out our errors -- they *should* be pointed out. If I hadn't read this thread, that mistake would still be in our coverage.

I only ask one thing -- don't say nasty things about people you don't know who are doing a job that you've never done.

Pointing Out Errors = Good
Calling Reporters "Retarded" or "Stupid" or "Frigtards" = Bad