Phil Ivey Public Relations a Total Trainwreck
While a number of 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine finalists have found their respective ways to Gambling911.com's Senior International Correspondent, Jenny Woo (Team PokerStars Eric Buchman among them), the most famous of the November Nine, Phil Ivey, finds himself a patch of poison among a forest where, if a tree were to fall and make a loud thump, nobody would hear it.
Case in point: Phil Ivey's last "media blast" took place on July 17. His Twitter page declared the following:
New Life of Ivey posted. Phil talks w/reporters about making the November 9 then chats w/Tina behind the scenes. http://pkrrd.com/t/10361
Click on that link and it goes nowhere and probably hasn't since July 17. Perhaps Team Full Tilt Poker will fix the link in the meantime. Here's what we were getting Sunday night August 9: "The requested URL /t/10361 was not found on this server." This is beyond embarrassing.
Here's the problem we have at Gambling911.com: Phil Ivey's accomplishment at this year's World Series of Poker making it to the Final Nine is an extraordinary feat. Few sites covered Ivey's riveting WSOP play more extensively - hour by hour - than Gambling911. Yet here's the guy who should be the talk of every mainstream publication (forget Gambling911.com, Card Player, Bluff). Ivey, if handled properly (which he hasn't been thus far), should be doing for poker what Tiger Woods has done for golf: Reel in new fans. Heck, Chris Moneymaker wasn't even a poker player's household name and look what that guy pulled off for poker. Here we are nearly a month out of Ivey making it to the November Nine and there is little talk of this outside the usual poker blogs and online mags. Gambling911.com continues to give him the props he deserves.
But Ivey deserves better.
Maybe things will change come November, especially if he wins. We're keeping our fingers crossed.
Perhaps someone in the Phil Ivey camp will study the brilliant promotion of UltimateBet.com spokesperson, Annie Duke, during her stint on last season's Celebrity Apprentice to understand how to get things done.
Unfortunately we suspect these folks have their heads too far up their asses to figure it out.
Please Phil, you have a little over three more months to exercise your independence and take the media by storm. Don't let the Man keep you down.
Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
