Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Bluff Fires Chris Vaughn after Cheating Controversy

The axe has fallen. BluffMedia (Bluff Magazine) has officially fired Managing Editor Chris Vaughn. After initially supporting him following the Mizzi/Vaughn account sharing fiasco at the Full Tilt $1,000,000 tournament, Bluff must have hoped that the story would dry up and blow away. One week of mounting industry pressure, however, has left the cheater Chris Vaughn on the soup line.

Matthew Parvis, Bluff Magazine Editor-in-chief had this to say on the TwoPlusTwo forums:
...and I don't think any one is more sorry that this whole incident happened then he (Chris Vaughn) is...
Oh really? You think, Mr. Parvis? Depending on the price Sorel Mizzi paid for Vaughn's account at Full Tilt, Mizzi might be feeling a sting much more painful than the peanuts you were paying a niche-industry managing editor.

Bluff's handling of this entire controversy shows the general immaturity of most business aspects surrounding the poker world. Do you think this would have been handled the same if the Wall Street Journal editor was caught red handed illegally trading? Of course not. The only way Matthew Parvis and the other bigwigs at Bluff could have ever supported Chris Vaughn is if they either didn't view their editor's blatant cheating as a moral conflict, or they assumed the news would go away without ruffling many feathers.

That's not the type of insight I expect from a leading industry magazine. How out of touch are these guys?