Newsstands flush with poker magazines

Bluff seeks to feed young players’ dreams — wealth and fame beyond imagination — by focusing more on poker personalities and lifestyle and less on strategy. It’s that creativity that publisher Eric Morris credits with the magazine’s impressive growth in popularity in just 12 months, now with a self-reported circulation of 250,000.

“I didn’t want to be a stats and strategy magazine,” Morris said. “We recognize that poker has moved to the mainstream.”

For example, in a Bluff article titled “The Magician, the Unabomber and the Guy Who Never Wins,” writer Rob Fulop visits his poker pro friends Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari and Phil “Unabomber” Laak in Las Vegas.

“I do a quick scan of Antonio’s new house ... Bellagio chips, ranging from $10, to $1,000 lie scattered over the coffee table, serving as drink coasters. A rubber-banded two-inch thick wad of $100 bills sitting on one of the cushions of the sofa looks as if somebody just tossed it there a few days ago and forgot about it. I’m in poker dreamland,” Fulop writes.

Chronicling the lives of poker pros regularly seen on TV is “an ideal fit,” said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“It’s part of the whole evolution of poker, (from) guys who smoked cigars and had never seen the inside of a gym to a younger, hipper audience,” Schwartz said. “By buying a poker magazine, you can kind of join in the community in that way. A magazine can play a pretty big role in that.”

Card Player, published for 18 years and one of the oldest in the industry, takes a much different approach to its poker coverage. It’s full of what Shulman, himself a player in the world’s richest tournaments, says is “hardcore poker strategy.” For example, recent articles discuss how to play a pair of Jacks in the first round of betting and major tournament winner profiles. Now the veteran magazine is working on a poker television show to complement its Web site.

One of the new magazines that has followed Card Player’s focus on strategy is All In. Created in May 2004, the magazine recently featured world champion Johnny Chan, made famous by the poker movie “Rounders,” discussing the value on betting. In another issue, world champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson gives tips on how to compete against small numbers of opponents.

“We bring in pros to give you instruction after instruction to make you better,” said Bhu Srinivasan, president and publisher of New York-based All In. “The central theme of our magazine is to ... help you win more money.”

“We’re out to be the Golf Digest of poker,” he added.

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