Excuse Me While I Whip This Out

We interrupt our previously scheduled trip reports for my unsolicited reaction to the recent posts from a couple high-ranking members of the poker blogging community.

I'd like to say, for my part, that I am a big fan of both Boy Genius and Pauly and have been from the moment I found their blogs. I enjoy their writing, their insight and, most of all, their humor.

Which is exactly the point I think they are both missing:

They are inspiring.

It is their ability which has contributed to the mass increase in poker blogs. It is something I think they should know and take pride in. Furthermore, their gracious and voluntary support to the nascent blogs/poker players has been a catalyst, the proverbial liver in the HCL.

No time any longer to offer that support? Fine. No problem at all. I, for one, am not offended by that.

Uncomfortable with unwanted attention from anonymous circles? Ibid.

I've mentioned this before, but it goes to the heart of what I'm saying. When I first set out on this poker journey, months before the idea of my own blog ever fermented, I e-mailed HDouble with some of the problems I was having on Party's low-limit tables. I did this because I respected his knowledge, which clearly comes through on his blog. And I was plenty appreciative when he quickly and benevolently replied with his usual insight.

And I think, perhaps, that is the impression that most have of y'all long-timers. A willingness to lend a hand. As such, the explosion of new blogs and their authors' assumptions that they are, or will be, a part the community is not an unnatural expectation based on the enviroment which you have created.

So, now the poker blogosphere is a little out of control. Demands are being made you're not willing or able to accomodate. I get it. What I gather from those posts is the feeling that people are out for a piece of you, a piece of those friendships you've nurtured and cemented. And you are loathe to allow a parade of strangers (some with questionable motives) into something you hold close.

The trip reports from the Vegas Blogger Tourney were a perfect storm. They were intimate, hilarious and thorough. They brought us newbies into the fold, even if only as observers. It's apparent now that it meant much, much more to those involved. It didn't entirely translate to the rest of us. Because it couldn't. Not even with your best words. And the instinct now, from what I gather in the posts, is to protect that.

That's fair.

I just think it needs to be (re-?)stated that it was the openness of the community--real and imagined--which helped spawn the frenzy in the first place. If it's necessary for there to be a change in that regard, it's going to be abrupt for some, take some time to accept.

Me? I am, as always, completely devoid of expectation.

Though I expect to get my ass handed to me on Wednesday at 6.

I'll see you all there.