Three-letter review of the new issue of All-In Magazine: wtf?

[Jordan Olsommer]

No, seriously - wtf?

I was under the impression that there were only two issues ever printed of this publication, but another poster stated that he subscribed and received four. In any event, I picked up the new issue (with Doyle on the cover) today, and this magazine did a complete 180 from the first issue I saw (the one with Chris Ferguson on the cover). For example, in the first issue there were actual articles about poker strategy [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

This one, on the other hand, could pretty much be renamed "TV Guide: Poker Edition"

Let's see what we have here:

- "The Flop" a bunch of press-release-esque tidbits, mostly "reporting" the release of television programs, Daniel Negreanu's videogame, the DVD release of "High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story", and the Chris Moneymaker book. At the risk of being sued by the publishers of All-in Magazine, here's a synopsis of this section with no loss of content:

"There are many television programs about poker on the horizon, Daniel Negreanu has a videogame coming out, check out Chris Moneymaker's book, and there's a movie about Stu Ungar that just came out on DVD."

Man, they could've saved so much in ink and paper alone it's ridiculous.

- Celebrity Poker Rundown: a complete...well, rundown of every episode of Celebrity Poker Showdown from this season, and four hands listed from the grand finale game. These four hands are the only hand analyses in the entire magazine. Yes, really.

- "The River": a photo gallery of celebrities and pros gathered together for a tournament celebrating the inauguration of bet on sports poker. Did you know Nicole Ritchie played poker at this event? Neither did I. Now three seconds of my life and more than a few neurons have been completely wasted reading and remembering this fact.

- "Living Legend and Action Hero: An Exclusive Interview with Doyle Brunson". Pretty much self-explanatory, and pretty much the only thing worth reading in the entire magazine.

- "An Excerpt from Super System 2": I think this is useless, and I'll tell you why. Firstly, most of the people buying all-in magazine are probably going to own Super System 2 in the first place. And secondly, this is supreme editorial laziness in my opinion. Last issue we had original articles from Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer on strategy - why couldn't they write for this issue too?

- An enormous (43 pages) advertising section promoting the NBC heads-up poker championship containing photos, a two-page blank bracket for people who apparently have run out of ways to attempt suicide and thus feel the need to keep score on a poker tournament at home, and 64 player bios (which not surprisingly are the exact same content that is available at the website for the heads-up tournament). Are you sitting down? Well of course you are, unless you use your computer while standing up. And if you do, please sit down. Now that all of you are sitting, get this: this advertising section comprises almost half of the entire magazine. Yep.

- "All-Star Poker with Michael Jordan"; an original article by Phil Gordon where he uses poker as the backdrop for namedropping. Pretty much the same as the "new england patriots play poker" article in the Jesus Ferguson issue.

- "On & Off Track" - an article about the nascar poker tournaments on Speed TV. NASCAR and poker - together at last....

- "Poker and the English Language" - an article by Richard Lederer (who wrote the wonderful book "Anguished English", and is of course Howard Lederer and Annie Duke's father). This article is really....bad? Sorry, I lost my thesaurus. In any event, the article describes in a very basic manner the origin of some poker terms, not by doing the straightforward thing (listing them along with their origins , glossary-style), but rather including them in the text nestled in puns with learning disabilities, and in bold italic (in case you don't have an eagle eye, I guess). Do yourself a favor and don't get lost in the shuffle; you might find yourself drawing dead if you read this complete piece of crap.

- "All Business: Playing Poker, New York Hedge Fund Style" - the other shining star in this magazine. Katy Lederer invites a bunch of Wall Street nerds to play poker with her and writes about the goings-on. Read this and the doyle brunson interview, put the magazine back on the rack, and walk out of the barnes and noble like nothing happened.

- Tournament Round-Up: Tournament results you couldn't find anywhere else, assuming you had no access to cardplayer magazine, pokerpages.com, or really just the internet at all. Next!

- "Ten-Seven Suited": an OK article about the differences between the poker you see on the WPT TV broadcasts and the poker you play. Hence the title; they can play ten-seven suited, but you can't. So don't even try. I'm serious. Connie Slockbower (wow, she's definitely got some surplus karma coming for being stuck with that surname) will kick your ass if you do.

- "Body English Spoken Here": Antonio Esfandiari's guide to nightclubbing. No, really. Complete with the obligatory "you know you've had too much to drink when you think something's Not Quite Right and Lo! You are actually on the floor!" joke.

- "Presidential Poker": Presidents who play poker. Did you know the nipples on Howard Taft's enormous man-breasts would shrivel up whenever he was bluffing? OK, so that's not true, but it's made-up facts like this that would have made this article decent.

And the cherry on top - the last feature in the magazine is a page of photographs of Annie Duke's Birthday Party which are low-resolution to the point of being pathetic. Up until now, I was not aware that Jesus Ferguson's face could be represented by only four pixels. Ain't technology neat?

So yeah, I'm a bit disappointed with this effort. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] If anyone from all-in is reading this (*deludes a healthy heaping of grandeur*) please please PLEASE go back to the way it was - Cardplayer is good, but I'm sick of it being the only game in town.

-

[vabogee]

where do i subscribe?

[Nfinity]

Your cynical commentary amuses me.

Post more.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
Your cynical commentary amuses me.

Post more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you very much for the kind words.

Now if there were only a foolproof way I could figure out whether or not you're being sarcastic...

[jrz1972]

Just run a few more photoshoots of Shana Hiatt and all will be forgiven.

[Tom Bayes]

Here's my 3-letter review: P.O.S.

Hint: First word is piece, second word has 2 letters.

[SossMan]

very nice...well done.

[PokerAce16]

I know this is my first tim eposting, but I had to add soemthing here. I felt completely ripped off after buying the current issue of ALL IN. 40+ pages taken directly from the NBC website, which I had already read previously. Not to mention they were 4 months late getting their 2nd issue out. How can you be that late if you are stealing content from another source? I guess they had to wait until NBC put the article up before they could go to print.

Personally, I dont even want to read 40 pages on the NBC event. Half of it was over before the magazine even came out.

I would also have to disagree regarding the Wallstreet article by Katie Lederer. this article was really bad. Not sure what anyone saw in it, but I could not even finish the article.

The Michael Jordan article could have been really good, but again it was more of a self fulfilling piece without any substance.

The Celeb Poker article was also a complete waste of time. I did not care about that show then and care less now. If I wanted to know who won any of the events, I would have gone to the site.

This magazine is really bad. I guess Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson stopped writing for a reason. It is only a matter of time before Phil Gordon leaves as well.

I would recommend both Card Player and Bluff. Both are excellent magazine and each have a different twist on Poker.

All IN will be ALL Out. I doubt they will come out with another issue.

[MicroBob]

Haven't read all-in....although I have read some of the exciting comments regarding Antonio's ego-drivel.


Regarding the advertising section for NBC HUC.
This was likely nothing more than a marketing move by NBC.

First - there will be several people watching this show who still aren't very familiar with the people or 'characters'. If they see this in the magazine they might be more likely to buy it.

Second - NBC aired some all-in ads during the HUC. I assume this was a trade for the advertising insert. All-in getting advertisements on a national television broadcast is pretty nice publicity for them. Especially if all they had to do to get that publicity was throw in a gigantic insert (in other words - not pay any of their own cash).


I also have to disagree with one aspect of your post:


[ QUOTE ]
Cardplayer is good

[/ QUOTE ]


No it isn't.


Maybe (and that's a big maybe) it's better than All-in.
But cardplayer is really pretty bad.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
Regarding the advertising section for NBC HUC.
This was likely nothing more than a marketing move by NBC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course - people generally don't give you half of an entire magazine for nothing. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
[ QUOTE ]
Second - NBC aired some all-in ads during the HUC. I assume this was a trade for the advertising insert.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably. Personally, it doesn't make me feel any better about having paid $2.50 for a 43-page ad and the other $2.50 for contentless crap like tips on how to impress girls with chip tricks at a club.

[ QUOTE ]

Maybe (and that's a big maybe) it's better than All-in.
But cardplayer is really pretty bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know of any other poker magazines other than CardPlayer and All-In, and between those two, CardPlayer is clearly the better magazine.