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A glance at Google Trends shows that "Jeff Shulman Rumors" were starting to enter into the rankings at number 93.
Should poker star Phil Ivey fail to make it to the final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker main event, Jeff Shulman should at least provide some entertainment for what would otherwise likely be one of the worst WSOP final tables ever.
The rumors in question revolve around Shulman, Editor of Card Player Magazine, telling WickedChopsPoker.com he intended to throw away the World Series of Poker bracelet should he win.
Harrah's entered into an exclusivity deal with Bluff Magazine, a Card Player Magazine competitor, to provide coverage of the World Series of Poker events.
Shulman reportedly believes the selling of WSOP media rights is unfair and that the coverage now is unacceptable.
We're all about the righteous "Eff You," and we understand why Shulman would feel scorned. But if you truly care about the game of poker, why would you possibly do this? What good does this do for the game, or bringing more people to it? And if you're the Editor of one of the two major poker publications, isn't one of your goals to bring more people to the game?
The folks from Card Player haven't always been seen in the best light by the poker community. There was a big controversy recently on the Two Plus Two posting forum over having Shulman family members on the Board of Directors of the Poker Players Alliance.
The WCP story quickly resulted in a few "not-so-nice" comments directed at the Shulman clan.
Said one reader:
"The Shulmans have always been unethical greedy bastards that only look out for themselves and don't give a crap about the industry. Look at how they treated the AP/UB scandals! Barely a mention and their adverts still run since they are a big time affiliate farm."
Another had this to offer:
"Of course, Card player did an AMAZING job when they had the EXCLUSIVE rights in 06. Rights that they made sure gave them the power to exclude ALL OTHER POKER MEDIA - rights which they made sure were strictly enforced!
They brought great hand by hand coverage, accurate chip counts and wonderful live streaming video of final tables... Whoops.. that was the other guys!
2006 was a mess. They lost the rights because their coverage was poor, their attitude poorer and they sold out the WSOP reporting in total to http://FTP."
Regardless of what you might think of the Jeff Shulman or his family, we at Gambling911.com can tell you he's getting more search traffic right now than Phil Ivey...and that's saying quite a bit.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
