The article may have since been deleted, but Marty wrote a piece for pokernews which was published on thanksgiving, criticizing the term "professional poker player" and their role in society.

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[mod inserted this cached copy of the original article (which was posted later in the thread) here per request ]

Here is a cached copy of the article. Not sure if this was the original version or the "edited" one that Poker News cleaned up a bit. I think it might be the edited one but at least it gives you a better idea of the gist of the article (thanks again Allen!) rather than just seeing the apology.

Poker is a Game, Not a Career Choice

Poker is a game, not a job, and it's certainly not a profession.

Most of those who choose to make a career out of something the rest of the working world does on evenings and weekends as a recreational pursuit aren't joining any kind of professional ranks. They are dropping out of society and choosing to live on the fringes.

There are exceptions of course. The exceptionally skilled or lucky few who rise to tremendous success, develop a fan following and become celebrities, endorse poker-related businesses or accept sponsorships and a responsibility to promote the game can make a career out of it.

Most of those who choose to make a career out of something the rest of the working world does on evenings and weekends as a recreational pursuit aren't joining any kind of professional ranks.

Those who dedicate their time to teaching others how to get better at the game may be involved in something more akin to work as well.

The rest of the professional poker playing community is simply gambling for a living. They make few, if any, contribution to society. For the most part, these are relatively smart people who choose greed, laziness and self delusion as their path. They are otherwise capable of doing something a little more meaningful with their lives.

Instead, they opt for a life with little in the way of structure, responsibility or any of the hallmarks of traditional career choices.

The poker industry bears little resemblance to major sports leagues around the world, and despite recent efforts to sportify the game, pro poker players aren't anything close to the professional athletes in the NBA, NFL or even the PGA. The economics of it are different. Poker is not the perfect embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit, nor is it an alternative investment opportunity. It's simply a game.

Casinos have long been considered recession-proof businesses. Part of the reason is that in times of economic trouble, many unemployed people turn to alternative methods to make money. The propensity for people to try to gamble for a living keeps casinos afloat. A global economic downturn over the past decade may explain why so many people have started calling themselves professional poker players. With few job prospects and economic opportunities, they may have had no other choice.

The truth is that most run out of money, backing or credit within a few years and give it up, making way for a new crop of college dropouts and failed job seekers to replace them. It's only the truly sharp among them who quickly realize there was nothing professional about the pursuit to begin with.

-- Marty Derbyshire

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Heres the apology.


"Martin Derbyshire · @MartyDerby


I Am Sorry
It's about time I apologize. No one is forcing me to. It is sincere. This isn't coming out of any kind of censure from my employers. In fact, a decision has already been made to discontinue using me as a by-lined contract and live blogger on PokerNews. No apology is going to change that.
I've made some mistakes and I want to own up to them, learn from them and try to do better moving forward. I've written some hurtful and inflammatory things about poker players and the professional poker playing community. For that I am truly sorry. It's no excuse, but I let my desire to drive traffic, increase hits and rise to relevance as a columnist cloud my judgement, ability to empathize and understand how others may perceive my words.
I propagated extremist views in an effort to create heated debate and painted many good people in the poker community with a harsh brush to try and maintain a position as a lightning rod inside of it. I was overly critical without merit and insulting. I am truly sorry for all of this as well.
When people attacked me and my work on social media I lashed out at them, played the blame game and tried to defend myself by hiding behind the good name of PokerNews, my colleagues there and other work I've done that was considered more positive for the community. I would like to apologize for this as well.
The truth is I can't even stand behind many of the positions I've taken because they do not represent how I really feel. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the overwhelming majority of the people in poker. I greatly admire the spirit and dedication displayed by most professional players. I know that many players make a great contribution to society and their community, I've written about it countless times, and I applaud anyone who fights for the cause of social justice in whatever community they choose to live, work and play.
I didn't rip people off or physically harm anyone. I didn't write anything sexist, racist, defamatory, slanderous or libelous. But much of my rhetoric was blatantly disrespectful to the poker community and for that I feel the need to ask for forgiveness.
I could go on about how I’m being treated unfairly, that this is an overreaction, that the positive nature of the overwhelming majority of my work in poker is being ignored and that the gang-up mentality employed by many people in this case was as bad as anything I ever wrote. Instead, I will simply say goodbye, and good luck.

Marty Derbyshire"

Well it was almost a good apology until he ruined it at the end

http://www.pokerupdate.com/poker-opi...ons-ludicrous/

he was right: professional poker players are the scum of the earth

That was kind of a "left handed " apology ........... You might want to re-read what you wrote and see how your really not coming across as being very sorry. I think you have 1 hour to use "Edit" function.


Or just tell everyone to **** off and stand by what you feel.

works for poker focused media, catering to poker world

sells out poker world for clicks by shaming poker players as shady con artists to appeal to overly sensi t **** s to try to make money

claims to not even believe what he wrote, confirming he is a shady con artist

is surprised he was fired for biting the hand that feeds

is passive aggressive in an apology

is a t w a t

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Sounds like something out of a sketch comedy TV show, a Rom-Com, or one of those fluffy movies for teenagers like "Jonas Brothers 3D" or whatever it was called. I'd love to hear his statement before he edited it, probably had some gems in it

The last paragraph killed it.

Happy pokernews decided to stop using him / contract with him. Way to pull victim card to end a 'sincere' apology lol

just as in life, there are some good and some bad.

Never apologize for your opinion.

As a poker writer/journalist myself I was very surprised when I read Derbyshire's piece. It seemed unnecessarily harsh and provocative, but usually such things have to either come from, or go through, an editor before making it to the site/print/etc :/

I've written some 'dubious' pieces myself but always cleared (or questioned it) first - which of course doesn't mean that it wouldn't necessarily offend poker players in general or specific people, but at least would be unlikely to cost me my job or position.

Edit: Just spotted this in James Guill's poker-update article...

'PokerNews Editor-in-Chief issued what many felt is a weak apology (I’m being generous with that wording), stating that the article was unedited and posted without his approval while he is gone. Does that mean that Derbyshire directly posted the piece without anyone looking it over for accuracy?'

Did you even read his 'apology'?

Unless it was not really his opinion and just a ploy to gain 'clicks'.

Ironicly (?), Chainsaw has never apologized for any of his threads in NVG.

I was not surprised by the vehement backlash the article produced. Telling imo.

wait lemme get this right; he got fired, and now he's upset the poker community ganged up against him to get this accomplished? lol. Good riddance.

Hi Everyone:

I didn't think much of this Poker Update Article. It needed to also list some of the poker charities which turned out to be scams. Two that come to mind were the Johnny Sep's 50 Hour Ironman Podcast (done for the 22Q Foundation which is a legitimate foundation but most of the money collected apparently never made it to them), UCare and the UCare Poker Tour where the owner of the charity was apparently keeping the money collected for cancer victims, the CEO Poker Tour Charity where they were skimming the prize pool and then claimed that some of the money was going to a charity that no one knew anything about, and there were lots of questions about the short lived Ante Up for Africa, and others.

Mason

The silver lining is Bump n Run will probably offer him a job.

His opinions did seem to always be fairly strong (haven't read the article in question) but unlike many, he did actually seem to realize that other people often had logical opinions that were in contrary to his own.

Guess I don't comment under Mr. Kessler's posts too often - however, do wind up reading many of them ... so must like your posts more than you like mine lol

Is there a chance PokerStars might have contacted this writer, and offered him bonus money if he were to try to start a narrative that poker players are bad? That was kind of the feeling would get when reading this author's pieces, but wasn't sure if that would ever happen - wasn't quite sure what to make otherwise of someone writing pieces about poker, who seemed so unhappy about such a major aspect of the game, the players?

never heard of him

This. ****ing idiot.

Holy crap, I agree with ScreaminAsian on something, it must be the apocalypse!

You forgot wounded warrior project. Proven to be a total scam.

Nice attempt at redirection.