I guess it's because with the online poker market falling, they just aren't getting much advertising anymore. As said it's nearly always free.

If 2+2 ever publishes another book, hero's holecards will be spread over two pages and the footnotes will extend all the way to the moon. I hope.

Absolutely mate! Saving a special issue was the best. I would even make sure to keep it in excellent condition with no tears or folds. Nothing like saving a special issue. Gna miss magazines..

I don't think you know how an over/under bet works

The magazine industry has been in decline for several years now due to technological advances. bluff is one of many magazines that have discontinued/are planning to discontinue hard copies.

a major figurehead at two plus two is apparently completely unaware of this, and instead cites small print as the likely cause.

I don't think two plus two it's going to be around much longer. Lol

The current cardplayer magazine is very thin compared to prior issues.

With the demise of bluff, what other print poker magazines are still printed?

All-In and Ante Up both show up in my local poker room.

lol i dont think ive read a book or magazine in 10+ years


just feels so old

rip bluff, i did not know ye.

Dunno why you would cease a magazine. You can pull a Charlie and business will be booming

So now what will I skim through for 5 minutes while waiting for a table when I go to a poker room?

The small print in Bluff and the reduced contrast of running type over a color photo are both pretty annoying practices, and one of the characteristics I sure as hell did not miss when I switched to the app version of the magazine. (Note: I read while doing cardio stuff at the gym so small typeface does matter if I'm moving).

But to cite it as a reason why Bluff is ending its print version? Just no. Or better yet, if it's a factor, it's a very tiny, almost insignificant one.

Mason, I suppose you could test it. Gather a sample of publications with similar typefaces and/or page layout styles to Bluff. If their sales/subscription drop-off has been much sharper than those publications with larger typefaces or with mostly black-on-white print, then you might have something. However, I suspect you'll find that the decline in print media has been steady across the board. Cosmetic switches from Times to Caslon or Utopia have not rescued newspapers.

You're right. I have very little understanding as to what is happening in the industry I participate in.

When an entity like Bluff Magazine ceases publication, it's usually for a number of reasons, and the general pressure on printed magazines due to technological advances is certainly one of them. But when I see something like print that is too small, it makes me think that there were probably a number of mistakes that were made which contributed to the cessation of printing, some which may be internal to the organization that I would have no knowledge of.

Mason

As my other post implies, using font size that is so small it's difficult to read implies to me that there may be other mistakes made as well in addition to the general negative pressure on printed magazines. Frequently these mistakes are caused by financial pressure, and in this case it just might be that going to smaller print allowed Bluff to produce a magazine with less pages but the same amount of content, and thus saving money on their print cost.

But it is an indication, at least it is to me, that there were issues leading to the cessation of their print magazine and that these issues may not have been addressed correctly. However, I have no inside information on Bluff and my comments are speculative in nature and certainly don't necessarily reflect what was really going on.

There's lots of things I could do which never happen, and this would be one of them. But advertisers for magazines tend to want their ads to go in magazines that actually get read, and if the print is too small to read and an advertiser realizes this, they may take their advertising someplace else. So while I can't say for sure, it's my opinion that going to print which is too small may be a more significant error than some of you might think.

Mason

I think it is much more likely that the cause of the small type is the lack of advertisers, rather than the small type causing a exodus of advertisers. It doesn't mean that it wasn't an error, just that using a larger type wasn't going to save "Bluff." Going smaller may have gained them a couple of extra issues but the end result was going to be the same no matter what.

Without going to a "Huffington Post" or "2+2" model where people provide content for free, it seems that going to an online model is just one more stop gap to avoid facing the reality that narrow based content providers need their consumers to fund operations to survive.

Mason:

I own a half-dozen 2+2 books, and the type is indeed easy to read. However, the graphic design is awful. I stopped buying them because they are so ugly.

The content is almost always outstanding. But after a while, the nonstop Times New Roman with amateurish line and paragraph spacing, the lack of font variation (at least mix it up with sans-serif headers, for God's sake), and the hideous diagrams make me want to poke out my eyes with knitting needles.

There are two or three of your newer books I would have already bought if I didn't know they'd hurt to look at. Jeff Hwang's first PLO book is similar in overall format, but the design is (subtly) much better than any 2+2 book, IMO.

You are correct about font size, though. Graphic designers need to understand type is on the page to to convey information, not just to look pretty as a design element. Readability trumps all.

You are still in business because your content is excellent. Bluff's content and design were both mediocre at best.

All that said, thank you for the most entertaining site with the best group of users on the interwebs.

Clear sign that I am now part of the older, obsolete generation is that I still love reading magazines. I love reading Esquire and GQ and even SI on occasion. Don't get the same thrill reading them on tablet.

I am getting old too. My friends put their Yankees and UCONN special national champeen SI editions on display. They are under the glass surface of his coffee table. You can't do that with RSS feeds.

If this is true — and it very well could be because it makes sense — then the small typeface is a symptom, not a reason.

It can be both. Mason realizing it may be one of the secrets for him being a successful publisher. In the end it may much be about really realizing that 2+2=4.

Btw, Mason: not one page has disintegrated from any of my poker books from 2+2, no matter how I've treated it. That must also be an indication of taking realities into account, helping being successful.

Publishing, is folding.

I never had a problem with the small type, but Bluff did several things that made their content difficult to read, like running text over dark backgrounds, strangely patterned backgrounds, or pictures where the contrast was not very high.

Given than most people reading print magazines are going to be older people who may have trouble with this sort of thing, I can certisnly see it being a factor in their declining popularity relative to other poker magazines.

All printed magazines must suffer due to IT. But some suffer more. Bluff was the one to go. That may at least temporaily strengthen some of the survivors.

Btw, didn't like the name "Bluff" to begin with. Maybe the suboptimal name of the magazine got to it. I mean partly, so nobody says I'm thinking it just was the name that brought the magazine down.

Lol. Perfect.

Basically 100%, even if they are mostly just for collectors and hipsters.

LPs and radios are still going strong. Books will be around for at least a hundred years in some form imo.

Thumbing through an issue I have on my desk right now. Forget the typeface or the monthly writeup from Jennifer Tilly, it's the overuse of stock photos that did this thing under.