Talk:Puggy Pearson

Opening comment
According to an April 15, 2006 obituary in the Las Vegas Review Journal, Pearson was born in Adairville, Kentucky on January 29, 1929.

Urinating on a Dealer
I have heard the rumor that Pearson once urinated on a dealer, but until someone can provide substantial proof, that statement does not belong in this article. I have reverted the edit. If someone wants to write a brief synopsis of his alleged poker table manners then please do so. SmartGuy 06:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Poker authority Mike Caro confirmed the story in a 1997 post to rec.gambling.poker which is archived here, see post 7 and Caro's reply in post 8:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.gambling.poker/browse_frm/thread/b6cfaa8e1853492d/17db92db16f10217?lnk=st&q=mike+caro+pearson+piss*&rnum=1&hl=en#17db92db16f10217

Mike Caro is enough of an authority that I can't see how his confirmation doesn't count as substantial proof.

I've also heard the story many times that he once put out a lit cigar on a dealer but I haven't seen any confirmation of that which would count as substantial proof.

4.239.108.132 19:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)Edgar Siffel

I agreed with Mr Siffel that Mike Caro's confirmation counts as "substantial proof," but I wasn't sure if a citation to that rec.gambling.poker post was necessary or not. If someone thinks it's necessary to include a link to the rec.gambling.poker post, feel free to add it.


 * Substantial proof of this story exists, why was it removed after being included for 2 years? 68.45.106.216 (talk) 15:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Usenet posts are not considered reliable sources. The other two parts of what you tried to add are not sourced at all.  Pearson may have been a jerk, but articles must follow WP:V. 2005 (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Mike Caro is not a reliable source??? A random Usenet poster is one thing, but Mike Caro has been considered a poker authority for about 25 years.  Additionally, I did not "try to add" anything.  That paragraph has been on the page since May of 2006 and you're the first person to have a problem with it.  Apparently you consider yourself the authority of all Wikipedia poker pages, as I've made exactly 3 edits to poker pages and you've reverted all of them--one included information in Chris Moneymaker's biography, a second added Chip Reese to a list of poker players named Chip, where you inexplicably reverted my Chip Reese addition without removing Chip Jett, and now this third one, where I reverted information that was here for 2 years that you deleted and you've accused me of "adding that info."  It is obvious that you have some sort of problem with me for whatever reason, but a rule of Wikipedia is to deal with the content and not the poster.  I see how the other information is unsourced, but only a complete newbie would consider Mike Caro to be an unreliable source.  68.45.106.216 (talk) 10:24, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The following appears on the WP:V page:

"Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer."

Mike Caro has been publishing poker books for at least 25 years, if not 30, so there is no argument that he is not an expert on poker and poker culture. Because Pearson is dead, a self-published Mike Caro quote appears to be acceptable according to WP:V. Were Pearson still alive I would agree with you, which is probably why the "urinating on a dealer" story was not included until Pearson had died. 68.45.106.216 (talk) 10:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Usenet is the issue, not caro, so forget it is him... "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." In other words, it's not worth repeating since it has not been (apparently) off of Usenet.  But that isn't the issue real.  The passage I removed says a dealer hit him on the head with a shoe.  There is no source for that.  It also quotes Amarillo Slim, and all direct quotes MUST have sources.  There isn't any issue with reporting incidents where Pearson was a jerk, as long as they are reliably sourced.  Here there are three different passages.  Two clearly should be removed.  The Caro one could be included, but is marginal.  It clearly though should not be included as part of a paragraph with the other two unsourced incidents.  Add sources for those and it would be fine.  2005 (talk) 11:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Those other two quotations have been on the page since it was created 4 years ago. I understand that quotations need to be cited and I don't object to their removal, but if thousands of people have viewed this page and nobody realized until now that those quotes needed an attribution, that represents a fundamental problem with Wikipedia, and it is silly to complain about "quotes I added" that have been on this page for 4 years.  With respect to the urination story, it IS relevant that Caro is the author.  As the WP:V page states "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."  Mike Caro certainly counts as an established expert on the topic of poker.  He wrote part of Super/System over 30 years ago.  As far as "Why hasn't it been published elsewhere," Pearson just died recently and as the WP:V article clearly states, both with respect to Wikipedia and the real world, that the standard of what you can say about living people is stricter than what you can say about the dead.  That's probably why the urination story was posted into the article until Pearson was dead.  Poker back then was a "good old boys" network where I'm sure lots of Pearson's friends would be more than willing to cover up a story that Pearson urinated on a female dealer, hell they probably thought it was funny.  This is the same guy who is known for putting out a lit cigar on a female dealer.  (I couldn't find a source for that but I was told that story by several very well known poker players.)  68.45.106.216 (talk) 19:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You added something. It silly to suggest that i go through four years of vesions to see if text had been there before.  Clearly though the non-Caro portions are inappropriate and should not be in the article.  Caro also is not the source of the story.  The Usenet post says he herd the story from someone.  He does not confirm it happened, rather he heard the story.  Again, this is clearly not a reliable source that it DID happen.  Caro is a reliable source though that he HEARD it happened. 2005 (talk) 00:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Very hypocritical discussion here. This article, until a recent edit, contained all sorts of unsourced information about things like Puggy Pearson's golf exploits, and this information, which was completely unsourced, was allowed to remain for years.  I see from the user history of some of the people involved that they seem to remove anything negative about poker celebrities, but Wikipedia is supposed to be objective.  It is both hypocritical and non-objective to remove information critical of Pearson, namely that he was notorious for abusing dealers, going so far as to put out a lit cigar on one and urinate on another, claiming that it isn't well sourced, while allowing completely unsourced information to remain.    And there's no WP:BLP at stake since the jerk's dead.  Uhy would you repeatedly remove information that's sourced by a poker expert but allow a bunch of unsourced information to stay???   I do find it amusing that a bunch of you don't even seem to know who Mike Caro is, but I guess he never shows up on TV these days. 68.244.196.144 (talk) 17:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Definitely agree with the above commenter and this seems to be the case throughout the poker articles on Wikipedia. There is a massive bias towards including positive things about these players while removing anything negative, even if the positive information is poorly sourced and the negative information is well sourced.  I just noticed on Mike Matusow, it says "Early in his career, he won 51 out of 53 sessions and $250,000. (It was first believed that he had won 81 out of 82, but he corrected that statement on the Rounders Poker Show.[8][2]."  On what planet is a poker player's own bragging about his winnings considered verifiable?   There are hundreds if not thousands of people who know Puggy peed on a dealer and someone who's been a poker authority for over 30 years heard it directly from the dealer's spouse, and that's considered "not verifiable," but a convicted drug dealer's claims about his own poker winnings is verifiable?  I would love to hear some sort of justification for that.  174.146.255.243 (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Quotes section cleanup
The Quotes section should be broken down into individual quotes, not one paragraph. I'm at work so I can't access gambling sites to look up the exact wording. ♣ ♦  SmartGuy  ♥  ♠ 14:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)