Poker Paparazzi Crosses the Line
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While the widespread coverage is undoubtedly great for poker, the added press does have one major downside, and that is the sumo-sized clusterf**k it creates inside the tournament area, making life harder on both the players, the tournament staff and even the media itself.
Covering a poker tournament in depth is a difficult task in its own right for one media organization, let alone 100. Space is quite limited inside the ropes of a poker tournament and things can get pretty disorderly at times. Picture a big hand developing between two well-known players at a major event. Now picture that hand as a french fry. Now throw the french fry into a nearby flock of seagulls and watch what happens. That's basically how things go down around here.
Moreover, we've seen instances of accredited media personnel ignoring some of the most basic professional 'no-nos,' if you will, involved in covering a poker tournament. Common sense rules such as: stay out of the tournament staff's way; refrain from the use of flash photography while a player is in a hand; and perhaps most importantly, never affect the natural progression of play, have been nonsensically broken. There was even one instance in which an unknown accredited reporter tapped a head-phoned Chad Brown on the shoulder during a hand to ask him for his chip count!
The situation has gotten so bad here today that members of the media have been impermanently relegated to spectator status until given further notice, and the tournament staff is policing the new policy in a big way. A few of the dealers are currently acting as security guards, shooing anyone who's not a player, dealer or member of the EPT staff out of the area.
The situation is perhaps best described as straight-up insanity, with no end to the madness in sight. The word on the street is that the ropes will be re-opened following the bubble burst, so the players are safe for now - at least until then.