Archive for April 10th, 2007

The world is so thick with poker news and gossip today we almost need our own tabloid…

The Poker Biz reported yesterday that Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker have dropped their entire stable of sponsored American poker pros. Antonio Esfandiari, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, and Mark Seif were all given their walking papers, their estimated $500,000 a year endorsement contracts up in smoke. What would happen to UB’s Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke was less clear, but a visit to both sites reveals that all references to Duke, Hellmuth, photos of “Team UB,” Absolute’s weekly $1K heads-up matches with site pros for the TLB winners… everything related to them was gone. It seems to be a cover-their-ass move for the safety of these pros, all of whom live in the U.S. In light of the Neteller arrests, Absolute/UB wouldn’t want them getting pinched as an employee of a gaming site or anything like that.

Though wouldn’t that be kind of a treat? Seeing Phil Hellmuth hauled out of the WSOP in handcuffs? “They forgot one thing! I can dodge bullets, baby!” (more…)