Rising Poker Star Joins LA Times Business Staff

He finished in 60^th place at the World Series of Poker last summer and came in 4^th place in September's California State Poker Championship.  Stuart Pfeifer may not be a big name on the poker circuit YET but he is certainly well regarded in the media sector.

He's been a reporter at the Los Angeles Times for a few years now and this week, the paper announced his transfer to the Business section, where Gambling911.com anticipates a story or two on the business of poker as another WSOP fast approaches. 

The online gambling industry, which encompasses poker, takes in billions annually. chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank has said that legalized online gambling can help fuel the U.S. economy once again.  Tournament poker players become instant millionaires.  A single weekend of Super Bowl betting helps stimulate the economy.  Who better to cover the U.S. financial sector than a poker player?

During his foray into the 2008 WSOP, Pfeifer recounted how his family was not especially supportive of the new sport he decided to take up.

"I'm 43. My mother and closest friends are concerned about me. Even though I win more often than I lose, they see poker as an addictive and potentially damaging hobby. Perhaps my mother remembers the trouble my father used to get into at Artichoke Joe's Casino, a few miles south of San Francisco. He once bet, and lost, his car there."

A memo to staff from Los Angeles Times Business Editor Sallie Hofmeister welcomed Stuart Pfeifer:

I'm pleased to announce that Stuart Pfeifer has joined Business.

For the last eight years, Stuart has poked around California courthouses chronicling legal battles, exposing government bungling, and offering fascinating tales that were supposed to be hush-hush. Stuart jogged the streets of London with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca while writing a profile of his quirky management style. He wrote a frightening series of stories about violence and murder inside the Los Angeles County jails.

For four months, he recounted details of the Michael Jackson child molestation trial in Santa Maria. His reporting helped two wrongly convicted men win their releases from prison--DeWayne McKinney in 2000 and George Lopez in 2002. More recently, he has been covering the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the prosecution of former Sheriff Michael S. Carona. He has worked both in The Times Orange County and Los Angeles Metro newsrooms.

What better background is there for a new assignment in Business, using the courts as a mirror into the business world and the personalities that dominate it? Emerging from court files, depositions, flamboyant judges, colorful defendants and trial testimony are compelling stories of corporations in crisis, consumers battling for justice, moguls in conflict. Stuart will mine these stories in state and federal courthouses, and keep all of us alert to stories on our beats.

Stuart graduated from Cal State Fullerton, where he was editor of the Daily Titan. Before joining The Times, he worked at the Orange County Register, Daily Breeze, the (Hayward, Calif.) Daily Review and the (Fremont, Calif.) Argus.

Runners, bikers and risk-takers on the staff will have good company. Stuart has cashed in at the World Series of Poker (hello, Andrea?) and completed an Ironman triathlon. He lives in a downtown Los Angeles loft, where he can often be found swimming in the rooftop pool.
Please join me in welcoming Stuart, who will sit in the pod in the Business Baja with Bill Heisel and Peter Pae.