My WSOP - Urgent help required

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m the bald guy who attends all the Grosvenor festivals representing Blue Square Poker – handing out t-shirts, caps, free money to play on Blue Square and dropping the occasional trophy.

I also frequently help Jen and Snoops with their updates and have done the odd live update myself when they have not been present.

About a month ago I applied for press accreditation with the WSOP and was told my application was too late, that all their allocated space had gone, but I was welcome to attend as a spectator. OK, so I was disappointed with this, but had no option. Spectator access however has been restricted more and more as the event has gone on and I have relied on sign language from afar to keep up to date with how the 6 Blue Square players in the event were doing.

A couple of days ago Jen and Snoopy finished doing updates – they are heading back to the UK soon so Blonde has been left updateless for the rest of the event. Jen left she gave me her pass, but I declined to use it and yesterday I reapplied for press accreditation in person to WSOP media honcho David Curley. I was up front about it, I gave him back Jen’s pass as an act of good faith and said that as they had now left there must surely now be space available for me to fill the Blonde breeches and continue the updates. At first I got a blanket no, but then he seemed almost agreeable, asking me to return in half an hour. I did so and was told that I would now have to return the following morning for their decision.

So at 11.30am this morning, laptop in tow, I turned up optimistically expecting to be able to update. David was not there but his deputy told me I had been refused. Why I asked? He said that it was because my initial application had been for a gaming company. I asked if this was also the reason why I was initially refused a month ago and received a positive response. They now were refusing me because they could not be sure that I wasn’t just using Blonde as an excuse and actually want to update for the aforementioned gaming company. Basically they think I’m a liar, which is ridiculous because I had been in possession of a pass, but in good faith I had given it back to them – I could have just winged it and used a pass that was not mine, but no, I had gone through the official channels.

My original declination on the grounds of lack of space now seems to be disingenuous as I had now subsequently found out the real reason was gaming related. Bearing this in mind, how come Pokerstars have at least 4 press passes and other gaming related media are also in possession of passes?

In addition, all of the six Blue Square players have now been knocked out so there is nothing more to report to Blue Square. I want only to be able to keep the blonde flag flying and be provide you all with some level of updating on the fortunes of blondites and other UK based players.

So, this is where I need help from you guys. If you would like me to be able to do some updating, please email Dave Curley (email address removed as this is all now done and dusted) and ask him to reconsider my application. Maybe if enough of you do so he will reconsider.

Jonathan Raab