Eric Morris Blog

Since the end of the 09 WSOP, I have read several articles regarding Bluff owning the digital media rights that are 100% incorrect. The only thing factual is that we do own the rights.

Quotes from the likes of Jeff Shulman stating that we outbid Card Player for these rights and they were not interested in acquiring them is 100% inaccurate. Seems this quote was picked up by other poker magazines and media outlets and has been embraced as verbatim without checking on the facts.

The facts are that Card Player did own the rights in 06 and upon completion of their contract Harrah’s/WSOP approached Bluff inquiring if we would be interested in the digital media rights. For reasons I will not go into Card Player was not offered or even given the opportunity to bid on the rights. As I stated, Harrah’s came to us based on our radio broadcast of the 06 WSOP final tables and felt we could produce a better all around product. If you look back at the WSOP site in 06, I am sure most would agree that this was the case. I am not saying we didn’t have our own challenges, but there is no question that people visiting the WSOP site as of 07 saw a vast improvement.

Additionally, as most know Bluff produced the the live web stream of WSOP final tables over the previous 3 years. This deal was with ESPN and not Harrah’s. This was not a licensing deal and no money was exchanged for these rights. We absorbed all the costs to produce the event and provided ESPN360 with content for their site.

I know some of you reading this blog are probably thinking, “who cares,” and to an extent I agree. However, when incorrect information is being passed along that has to do with our company, I believe the people who “do care” have the right to know the facts.

To somewhat change the subject, I have received many emails and personally asked how I feel about one company owning the rights to something that should be open to all media outlets. I can tell you that when Card Player owned these rights I was absolutely against it. If you remember in 06 no other poker media company was able to put up chip counts or do any real updates from the floor. In fact, if anyone media outlet crossed the ropes they were made to back to the viewing area. To me this was totally unacceptable, but we had no other choice then to abide by their rules.

When Bluff took over the rights we did have to pay a rather large license fee. This is a fact. Because we paid for these rights, we had no other choice but to protect our investment. However, we did allow other media outlets to make 1 hourly report and show chip counts of the top 10 players per event. Photographing was also allowed to a certain extent. In 06 this was not the case. If we were not charged for the rights by Harrah’s, we would have had no problem with other media outlets putting up as much website content as they wanted. So, I do understand and recognize other poker media’s complaints. One thing I do not understand is how someone who once owned both the WSOP and WPT rights can complain about this and then threaten to throw the most coveted trophy in poker into the garbage as a means of protest? This seems awfully hypocritical as I am truly at a loss for words regarding the comment.

Have a good Weekend all!

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Want to get famous for your online poker playing skill? BluffMagazine.com and Carbon Poker are proud to announce the launch of Team Bluff at Carbon Poker. Team members get tons of great benefits, in addition to receiving the best Carbon Poker deposit bonus out there.

Becoming a member of Team Bluff is easy. Simply sign up for Carbon Poker through our exclusive links on Bluffmagazine.com. Team Bluff members are exclusively eligible for weekly and monthly prizes. In addition, the player who wins the overall Team Bluff leaderboard will be featured in Bluff Magazine.

The top five players on the Team Bluff leaderboard each week will team up to root a player on in the Big Sunday Carbon tournament. The player who wins the weekly leaderboard gets freerolled into the big Sunday tournament. The players who finish #2 through #5 on the leaderboard will all get a piece of the winner in the tournament. You might find yourself cheering on the guy that put a bad beat on you the day before. In addition to the weekly prizes, the monthly leaderboard winner will get to play a Team Bluff Pro heads up for $500 cash. Team Bluff members are also eligible for prizes like free subscriptions to Bluff Magazine, as well as Bluff gear.

Maybe the most fun part of being a member of Team Bluff is the exclusive right to play in Team Bluff “Kamikaze” freeroll Sit n’ Goes. A Kamikaze freeroll could happen at any time. If you’re a member of Team Bluff, you’ll get exclusive notice about a Kamimaze freeroll happening on Carbon Poker – right then! These freerolls are exclusive to Team Bluff members, and may happen at any moment. Why wait for your weekly freeroll, only to spend 6 hours playing it? With Team Bluff’s exclusive Kamikaze freeroll SNGs, you may be busto one moment, and robusto an hour later!

The Carbon Poker software has really cool features, like the ability to rabbit hunt cards, run it twice and show one or both of your hole cards after you pull off that monster bluff. Check out Carbon Poker, and become a member of Team Bluff today.

Check out Carbon Poker, and sign up for Team Bluff using this exclusive link below.

Please note that in order to be eligible for this promotion you have to click on the Carbon link from the Bluff site.

If any player already has a Carbon account, please email me at eric@bluffmedia.com

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As many of you know I was contacted early June by Patty Senter asking if we could help her terminally ill husband with a dying wish……To Play in the WSOP. Hopefully most of you saw the footage of Kent Senter on ESPN WSOP broadcast last night. I can personally tell you that Patty and Kent are 2 of the kindest people I have had the pleasure of meeting and genuinely appreciative of everything Bluff and Poker Stars has done for them. I couldn’t be more proud to be part of such a great team of people, which leads me to the reason for this blog.

This Saturday Poker Stars and Bluff will be holding a benefit tournament for the Senter’s. Right now the Senter family is really struggling to “stay above water, ” and need help from as many generous poker players as possible. Just to put things in perspective, they are 2 months behind on their rent, the cable has been shut off and the phone will be turned off this week due to non payment. Patty is the only means of income and with medical bills piling up they just cannot afford to survive with out some assistance. Bluff is encouraging as many people to either play the tournament (details below) or make a donation directly into Kent’s Pokerstars account. Bluff will match donations made up to $1,000 in total.

Donations can be made to Kent’s Pokerstars account - username - kentsenter.

Tournament Details:

The goal of the event is to raise money to help pay for Kent’s medical bills that have put him and his family into debt.

Date & Time: September 12, 2009: 8:00PM EST
Tournament Name: Kent Senter Benefit Tournament
How to Sign Up: Register for the event in the Tourney / Private tab
Structure: $10 buy-in with $10 re-buys for the first hour, standard speed

Prize Pool:
PokerStars and Bluff Magazine have come together to put together a great prize package for tournament participants:
1st place: Buy-in to the PokerStars WCOOP Main Event - $5,000 value
2nd Place: Seat to a WSOP Academy provided by Bluff Magazine - $3k value
3rd Place: PokerStars tournament credit voucher for $1000
4th Place: PokerStars tournament credit voucher for $500
5th Place: PokerStars tournament credit voucher for $300
6th Place: PokerStars tournament credit voucher for $200

All players who reach the final table will also receive a free year subscription to Bluff Magazine and Fight magazine courtesy of Bluff.

Thanks to everyone for their support.

Bluff Media

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Peeps,

If you are a Canadian Poker Player as of Sept 3rd you can begin playing on bodog. For those of you who do not know much about this site you are in for a real treat. Not only do they offer a 110% bonus up to $500, but they also give 15% upfront, which means you do not have a play through requirement like most sites.

Additionally, bodog is know for the softest play as most of the players are sports gamblers, which mean you have a better chance of winning playing very bad players. If you have not played the Sunday tournament you will no longer be missing out on the HUGE overlays.

To top it off anyone who deposits and plays a minimum of 100 raked hands will receive a free 1 year sub to Bluff Magazine. Just email me at eric@bluffmedia.com with proof that you came from our link and played the required play through. If you already have a subscription I will either ad a year to your current subscription or offer a sub to our other publication FIGHT (www.fightmagazine.com).

Please click on this link:

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Peeps,

If any of you are in LV July 2nd, please join us at our WSOP Party.

Place: Sapphire

Time: 9 PM to 1 AM. Open bar from 9 to 11.

Musical guests will be The Skeletons from Los Angeles.

Special Note: We will be providing transportation to and from the party. Pick up spot will be the WSOP entrance at the Rio (back entrance).

Please note that any person arriving by cab will have to pay the cover charge as cabbies get kick backs from the club for bringing people there. You are free to drive your own car w/o being charged cover.

Please feel free to bring a friend and enjoy an evening on Bluff Magazine.

Eric Morris
Publisher

Click link for further details and invite.
Printable Bluff Invite

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I have just learned that Bluff contributor and Pokerroad.com producer has passed away this past weekend. For those of you who have never met Justin, I can tell you that he was very well liked and respected by the poker community. he was one who never took himself too seriously and always had a smile on his face. He was just a good guy who worked hard and enjoyed being involved with poker.

Justin will certainly be missed and remembered with great respect. Everyone here at Bluff sends out heartfelt wishes to his family and friends. This is truly a tragic day in the poker world.

I personally will miss Justin and his contribution to Bluff. He was a great friend to the publication. I will certainly miss seeing his smiling face.

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What a week so far! I have been busy getting both Fight and Bluff out the door for press along with working on this years WSOP and planning for the Dream Team Poker Tournament this weekend at Caesars in Las Vegas.

I have to admit that the Dream Team Poker Tournament has been something I have been quite excited for. Team Bluff will once again consist of Justin Bonamo, Matt Parvis and yours truly. For those of you who have not played this event, let me tell you that the first event was one of the most fun tournaments I have ever played in. Obviously winning the inaugural event helped draw this conclusion. Nonetheless, the guys behind Dream Team could not have done a better job of putting the first event together and I am sure this weekends tournament will prove to be equally as grand.

Warren Karp’s team, consisting of Paul Darden and Tony Cusinou (?) has issued a challenge to Team Bluff. Pretty simply, which ever team is out first has to buy drinks for the other. From what Warren tells me Paul and Tony can drink with the best of them, so we are taking the bet very seriously, lol!

The Bluff Online Poker Challenge has 5 days to go and it looks like Brian Hawkins has a lock on first place and an appearance on an upcoming cover of Bluff. As of today he has turned $200.00 into over $20,000. Who says poker is not a game of skill? Great job Brian, you have really done a remarkable job.

Have a great weekend everyone and wish Team Bluff luck…we will definitely need quite a bit should we be fortunate enough to win the tournament again.

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I am just back from Las Vegas after flying out to cover the NBC Heads Up tournament. This is always one of the most fun events to cover as most of the industry people and poker pro’s are in pretty good moods and readily available for interviews and to discuss new business ideas. Plenty of business was conducted and we hope to bring a couple of new ideas to fruition sooner then later. Enough about the boring stuff.

The highlight of this trip is playing in the Pro AM cash game organized by Chris Capra of Lotus PR. Lotus PR handles the PR for Poker Stars and for the second year in a row I was invited to play in the 1/2 NL cash game, which featured the likes of Orel Hersheiser, Chad Brown, Peter Eastgate, Greg Raymer and actor, Don Cheadle. The buy in was $200.00 with as many rebuys as needed. As you can imagine when you bring in world class players along with actors and athletes who have a decent amount of cash at their disposal, the game can get out of control very quickly. The first hand proved this to be the case. Note, that donkey poker was encouraged and expected. Top pair and one card draws will always be called on a push and the 27o will be played as AA. Once you embraced this, losing didn’t seem all that bad.

Before I get into the meat of what occurred, I have to mention Raymer! This guy absolutely killed me. Greg shows up about a half hour into the game with a grocery bag of Korean food. I am not sure what he ordered, but the smell coming from his direction was borderline intolerable. He opened some container that smelled like it had been rotting for years. I can honestly say that the fumes took over the poker room at Caesars. It was enough to make your eyes water. Once he finished and discarded the remnants of his meal, it was almost like looking down and seeing pocket Aces and raking a huge pot. Pure satisfaction and relief! Greg then was ready to play and let me tell you he came overly ready to play. He sits down to my immediate left and starts pulling out envelopes of cash. he then declares he is buying in for $17,000. Needless to say the entire table protested and he was forced to buyin for the amount of $200.00.

So back to the game! I lost the first pot when I called Chad Brown’s all in with top pair and Q kicker only to find him holding KK. No problem….rebuy! Orel then was the recipient of Peter Eastgate’s continuous pre-flop pushes with marginal hands. I think Eastgate went down about $600.00 in the first 20 mins. Needless to say Eastgate did not really care if he won or lost. I just could not take advantage of his willingness to give money away.

Raymer finally gets into the game only to take the same approach as Eastgate. However, this time I was able to take advantage of his generous betting patterns. I must have taken about $600.00 from Raymer. I also enjoyed battling with Orel as he was one baseball player who I absolutely despised when growing up. I was a huge SF Giants fan and if you know anything about baseball, Dodger and Giants fans do not get along at all. Orel caused my many years of misery as he was an absolute Giant killer, so it was nice to give him a little payback on the felt. I do have to say that he has a great sense of humor and I enjoyed the back and forth banter with him during the night.

The game started to wrap up around 3:30 AM when Daniel from www.dreamteampoker.com came up with the idea of everyone putting in $20.00 and letting the cards run with the winner taking the pot. LOL at Daniel for being the biggest loser after coming up with the idea.

I have to say what a great night of low stress poker, not to mention coming out +EV did not suck! Chris Capra did a great job organizing the game and I cannot wait until next year. I just hope that Joe Hechem does not run away scared this year!

Don, Ali, Daniel and Orel

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Yesterday was the beginning of the BOPC and I have to say that there were a few surprises. Duralast, the Lock qualifier, worked his way to the top of the leader board, David C (Maven) has played a total of 260 SNG’s for a total of 27 hours of play and Bryan Devonshire worked his way from $13 back up to almost $200.00. MATTHEW VENGRIN looks as if he was going for broke and used $162.00 to play in one tournament and is now sitting at $38.00. Let’s see if he can work his way back, similar to Debo.

On a personal note, I think these players are finding it difficult to play low level buy in tournaments. Plays that would work on larger buy ins are not effective at the lower levels. Betting someone off an A preflop is next to impossible and most players will be called down on 3rd pair or a 1 card draw. Personally, I think the smartest play is to just play ABC poker. Don’t get fancy and just wait for your spot to make moves with premium hands. Odds are that you will get a caller. Once the bankroll is built up, they can then start playing larger buy in tournament and utilize the skills that have made them world class players.

For those of you that have not seen the BOPC page, please have a look at www.bluffmagazine.com/bluff-poker-challenge

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