It's been a rough couple of weeks in the poker world.
Legend disparages star's achievement
Maria Konnikova, one of the best things to happen to poker since Chris Moneymaker, won her first WSOP bracelet. It was online, and involved re-entries. So what? Virtually all WSOP bracelet events have re-entries now, and online events make up the majority of bracelets won. Unfortunately, Norman Chad, a walking legend of WSOP broadcasting, took to Twitter/X to disparage Maria's achievement. It was an unfortunate take, made only more so because it was targeted at a woman – one of two women to win open field bracelets in 2024. There was more than a whiff of sexism in the whole mess.
So instead of quarts of ink being spilled to celebrate Maria's inaugural bracelet, gallons were spilled in point/counterpoint and outrage. Norm 'walked back' (what a phrase) his original statement, but I'm sorry, you can't un-ring a bell. This idea that you can say anything you wish, then follow it with 'No offense intended' is baked into white male privilege and just doesn't cut it.
It was an inexcusable taint to what should have been a joyous couple of weeks for Maria.
Sexual predation by cash stream producer
Just two weeks before that, everything blew up at Hustler Casino Live, because a tsunami of credible reports came out that HCL owner/producer Nick Vertucci had been sexually harassing female HCL players. Even worse, it appears that he caused a female dealer, Lauren, to lose her job, proximate to other sexual harassment.
The good news is that Vertucci is gone from HCL, though I'm sure there will be more echoes of that explosion to come.
Do I really want to be around all this?
Having been around the poker world for most of 40 years, I've seen stories like this far too many times. Of course, this sort of thing isn't limited to the poker world – every industry and every community has its bad actors (whether it be one ill-thought take, or a systematic pattern of abuse).
What prompted me to write this was the most recent episode of the award-deserving Third Man Walking podcast by Charlie Wilmoth, entitled A Rough Couple of Weeks. Charlie is one of the most thoughtful and introspective guys in poker, and he's a huge blessing to the game. He has done commentary at HCL, and played on the stream there.
In this episode, he looked at the Vertucci scandal, then wondered rhetorically, "Do I want to be around all this?" He followed it up noting that as many higher stakes cash games go private, access to the best games is coming under greater control of people who are not casino employees, who are not vetted through an employment process, and are not subject to casino rules and regulations (including those related to sexual harassment).
There's no pure path through a professional career
Early in my 40 years in the professional workforce, I came to realize that if you're going to be employed, you're going to live with some level of hypocrisy. Fresh out of college, I was recruited by a company that was making guidance systems for torpedo warheads. Even at that young age and wanting a job, I decided that was a step I just couldn't take. So I went to work for IBM's Federal Systems Division in Manassas, VA. Working on sonar systems. For submarines. That carried torpedos, maybe nuclear weapons.
Welcome to the real world, Lee.
Throughout my career, I had to draw lines between what I felt was acceptable and what wasn't. In 2010, I left a poker site I was working for because I felt their business practices were intolerable, even though I had no new job awaiting.
In 2015, while working for PokerStars, including acting as a spokesman, I found myself in the middle of the infamous Supernova Elite (SNE) debacle. You can look it up if you wish, but suffice to say that PokerStars yanked SNE out from under people who had worked all year to qualify for it. It was later described by somebody who was a Stars executive at the time as a "massive clusterf*ck." Indeed it was.
Many people said that the only honorable thing for me to do would be to quit PokerStars. My view was that if I quit every time an employer did something awful, I'd be bouncing from job to job with no end in sight. Importantly, I felt that, despite the clusterf*ck, PokerStars was still the most honorable, pro-player enterprise in the space. Not least, this was three short years after Stars, in the form of Isai Scheinberg, made all the Full Tilt Poker players whole (on the heels of a supernova clusterf*ck by FTP). Isai and PokerStars negotiated an agreement with the U.S. DoJ that would eventually lead to the spreading state-by-state regulation of online poker. This deal cost PokerStars on the order of one billion dollars.
Did I have selfish motives, like wanting to pay my mortgage? Don't be absurd – of course I did. But I left other situations that were worse even when I didn't have another job to jump to.
In short, unless you're going be a Thoreau-esqe hermit, and in particular if you're going to work for The Man, you're going to live in some gray ethical areas. Each of us has to navigate those grays to our comfort level.
Charlie, Maria – please don't leave
I get the sense that Maria Konnikova has no intention of leaving poker any time soon, thank goodness. I can't imagine the level of armor a woman must don to succeed in any professional environment, and Maria has dominated in a few of them. So one snarky tweet, while inexcusable and no doubt off-putting, is not going to deter her from the next book, the next tournament, or the next success, wherever it may be.
But I heard real existential worry in Charlie Wilmoth's voice on that podcast. So Charlie, this is for you...
Every industry will have its bad actors. The success of that industry depends on the determination and resolve of its good people. Who do the right thing day in and day out, not least censuring (or removing) the bad actors.
I was going to start listing all the Really Good people I knew in poker, but I quickly realized that would change this piece from 1,000 words to 3,000. And I'd still leave out some names.
But those people are everywhere, and Charlie, if you'll look around, I believe you can find others like you. People who love poker for everything it is, acknowledge its failings, and seek to make the game better with every passing year. I know for a fact that your presence in our community improves poker.
I wrote this initially for Charlie, but it's really for all the good people in poker. You know who you are, and guess what: we all know who you are too. Be your best, shine your light all over the game. Ultimately, people are drawn to communities that make them feel comfortable. The more great people we have in poker, the more we attract great people – it's an excellent feedback loop. Minimize the bad, amplify the good, and we'll continue filling poker tables with people who make us glad we're there.
It's been a rough couple of weeks, but we've been through worse – brighter days await.
