I deserve some credit for the "poker boom", seriously.

I just read The Economist's July 8th, 2010 article about poker... http://www.economist.com/node/16507710 and it stirred up some old bitterness that I feel the need to address. So I'm writing this blog post as an attempt at catharsis. I'm conflicted because I'm deliberately going against the sage advice of Lynda Obst (which I've reverentially quoted many times to friends and mentees) - "Never let them know that you know that they screwed you. (i.e. alerting evil-doers makes them avoid doing business with you in the future for fear of retribution --- and this town is too small to make enemies. so let them think you're a chump)." Nevertheless, I'm compelled to set the record straight here. Forgive me for the following blatant self-promotion --- No joke: I should be mentioned for my significant role in the poker boom. I produced the WSOP TV show in 2000 (when Chris Ferguson beat TJ Cloutier) for ROSSTV (aka RIVR MEDIA) that aired on The Discovery Channel. I was the first producer of any poker on TV to put "running statistics" graphics to show which player was in the lead on each street (which made watching the gameplay much more understandable to beginners). I also included card graphics which were tantamount to hole-card cameras. Somebody uploaded the final hand of my WSOP show here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbV7Bgy0r7A NOTE: I was also the Post Producer/Writer of the first season of the World Poker Tour and co-developed that show's design with WPT Founder Steve Lipscomb (substantially based on my WSOP show). For corroboration on any of this... Go ahead and check with Chris Ferguson and/or Steve Lipscomb and/or read "Positively Fifth Street" written by James McManus (who placed 5th that year) and/or find a copy of the 31st Annual WSOP (2000) and see for yourself. Here's my conjecture for why I'm forgotten so often when people write the history of the poker boom... ESPN dropped the WSOP after 1998 due to the fact that their comparatively unwatchable shows led to poor ratings. Steve Lipscomb produced the WSOP in 1999 for the Discovery Channel and it got decent enough ratings that Discovery wanted it again in 2000 (so Lipscomb found me to produce it). My WSOP show did so well that ESPN came to their senses and started producing the event for TV again (largely using my show design). Consequently, ESPN doesn't own the rights to the 1999 & 2000 WSOPs so those shows never got rerun after ESPN regained the the rights to the event. ---- Yeah, I'm more than a bit bitter about not getting the credit I deserve. ;-) This particular emotional sore hasn't sufficiently healed for me since things like this ("getting ripped off" and "not getting credit for my work") have happened so many times in my life (as my close friends must be sick of hearing about). While I know I should humbly "count my blessings" since I'm otherwise pretty damn spoiled (my well-off parents have substantially supported me in myriad ways in various endeavors), it still deeply offends me when I think about my "bad luck" with "cruel fate". Better to let sleeping dogs lie and move on with life. Ok, that should be enough for this post. Now I should be more able to focus on making my current ventures succeed. Good karma to you. P.S. Regular readers of this blog know that I normally attempt to write something that can help the reader/society. But this one was pretty self-indulgent and unnecessary. Please forgive me.