Earlier this week, the annual World Series of Poker conference call was held, gathering together WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, Tournament Director Jack Effel and producers of tournament broadcasting network ESPN to speak with the media. While many of the questions were regarding the tournament that is set to start May 27th, the subject of poker professional and Poker News Daily guest columnist Annie Duke’s appearance on “Celebrity Apprentice” was surprisingly prominent in the minds of both sides of the conversation.
An article in Tuesday’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle recounted Commissioner Pollack’s verbal barrage at Duke’s main foil of the reality program, comedienne Joan Rivers. When he was asked the innocent question of whether a woman could win the WSOP Championship Event, Pollack unexpectedly fired off, “We would love to see a woman win the Main Event…unless that woman happens to be Joan Rivers.” This induced a series of questions as to whether Duke’s appearance on the program has helped or hurt poker players in general and the game as a whole.
According to the Chronicle, Pollack believes that Duke has only heightened the appeal of poker and its fans through her appearance on the NBC reality show. “Annie is representing poker players beautifully. I think she’s playing the game masterfully”, Pollack said. “We think the net effect is that it’s going to be very good for poker and for the World Series of Poker.”
Through the run of “Celebrity Apprentice”, Rivers has been the main thorn in Duke’s side of. Verbal disparities comparing Annie to Adolf Hitler, calling the WSOP bracelet holder “white trash” – despite her Ivy League background and education – and lumping poker players in with organized crime and stating that poker players are “scum” playing with “blood money” have been just a few of the gems that the septuagenarian comedienne has fired off. Pollack disagreed by stating, “Anyone who thinks that poker players are anything other than a great group of people, that represent not only America and the world, is absolutely wrong”, he opined. “No one will defend the honor of poker players more than the WSOP.”
Another topic at the forefront of questioning was player conduct in light of last year’s exasperating behavior of two former World Champions, Phil Hellmuth and defending $50K H.O.R.S.E. champion Scotty Nguyen. A look at the rules for this year, echoed by Pollack and TD Effel, indicates that there will be significant changes in place for tournament participants this year. “After the episode with Phil in the Main Event last year, we said publicly we’re going to review our system of warnings and penalties. We have done that”, Pollack flatly stated. “We saw a couple of things last year that we weren’t too pleased with or proud of and recognized that some changes needed to be made.”
Most notable of these changes is a running log of player violations that will be kept for the entirety of the WSOP. Using this log, floor personnel and tournament directors will have the ability to enact penalties on players based on their conduct throughout the entirety of the run of the 55 event schedule. In Pollack’s opinion, this should ensure that repeat offenders will be dealt with, regardless of status.
Action in the fortieth anniversary of the World Series of Poker starts on May 27th with the $500 Casino Employees event. The next day, one of the most significant tournaments on this year’s schedule – the celebratory $40,000 buy in No Limit Hold’em event – will kick off action. After that, we should see how this year’s WSOP will be run, with its stricter conduct rules.
I think that Melissa should not have been fired. Annie had done everthing last week and took full responsibility for doing this and doing that and when the boarding room came along she put her tail between her legs and that was not fair. She is a stupid poker player and Brandy is a dumb blond who does not know how to spell. Donald should have seen that and it is a shame. The dumb blond stayed just because she is a dumb blond and I guess looked have a big role.
Give us a break. The only ones who showed no class and who whined like children were Melissa and Joan; obviously both very spoiled individuals whose opinions and knowledge are seldom questioned by anyone. Throwing childish tantrums is hardly a desirable business trait.
Annie was cheatwed out of the game. It was mentioned that Joan won two of the five categories and Annie won two, when did they mention who won the tie breaker until Piers Morgan mentioned that Joan won the task overall. There is conspiaracy in the boardroom against Annie and it was evident again when Donald allowed Joan to throw tantrum and whine out of control.
Donald did not have the guts to tell his beloved friend Joan that she is fired and so he fired Annie as it was the easier thing to do. Can you imagine if Joan was fired??? Donald you have lost my respect for making a fair judgement in the boardroom. It goes to show that loyalty to friends still supercede logical decision making in business. Shame! shame! shame!