Posts Tagged ‘annie duke’
Annie Duke Responds to Being Called a ‘F***ing C***’
August 24th, 2010
Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu, in happier times.
As you may have heard by now, poker pro Daniel Negreanu teed off on fellow player Annie Duke in an interview the other day, referring to her as a “F***ing c***.” Now Duke has responded in an open letter to one of his biggest sponsors, Poker Stars, that takes exception with Daniel’s choice of words.
After Negreanu called her that less than charitable name, a female poker player, who goes by the alias PokerLawyer, wrote her own open letter to Poker Stars. In it, she said she hoped they would chastise Daniel in some way, for his use of the ‘C’ word. They didn’t make any mention of the offensive word in their response to her, and basically just said that Daniel was entitled to his opinion, and they support his right to say what he wants, as an individual. And that’s what made Duke mad.
In Duke’s letter, she says, in part: “I am not offended by Daniel’s opinion. He has a right to disagree with me and dislike me…This is not about his views. This is about a particular word he chose to express those views. The word “c***” is not an opinion, it is an abusive epithet, and PokerStars is completely ignoring the use of that term…” She goes on to say how disappointed she is that they support Negreanu and his role in the controversy.
To complicate matters further, the two have a bit of a history. A few years back, Negreanu posted a laundry list of reasons he didn’t like Duke. He’s since gone on the record to say he was out of line with some of those comments, but clearly the animosity remains.
Which means this all probably isn’t over. Will Daniel Negreanu take it back? Will there be another flurry of angry open letters? Only time will tell…
Daniel Negreanu: Annie Duke Is A ‘F***ing C***’
August 20th, 2010
On the Annie Duke fan leaderboard, Daniel Negreanu ranks dead last.
Daniel Negreanu, the world’s second-winningest tournament poker player of all time and a beloved figure to many poker fans, is known for running his mouth over just about any topic you can think of. Usually he stops short of saying anything too offensive, but in a new interview he goes off on Annie Duke and unleashes some pretty harsh language on her.
In what almost looks to be a throwaway part of the interview, Negreanu is asked about the men who played in this year’s Ladies Event at the WSOP. After three sentences about the event in general, Negreanu turns the conversation to Annie Duke and doesn’t hold back:
What irked me is that this woman has the audacity on her website to call herself ‘the best female poker player in the world’. So on one side of the coin she’s fighting for, ‘Oh, we’re all equal, there shouldn’t be any gender thing,’ but when appropriate she decides to call herself the best female poker player in the world.
So I’m like ‘how offensive are you, you f***ing c***? You want to say you’re speaking for women, yet you claim superiority over all of them.
This isn’t the first time that Kid Poker has gone off on the reigning NBC National Heads-Up Poker champion. In the past, though, he wasn’t so terse about it. Check out this old post for a laundry list of reasons that Daniel Negreanu hates Annie Duke, including her behavior the first time they met, at a tournament at the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas back when he was 22 years old. Neither of them yet had their faces plastered all over television and magazines, so the account is an interesting window into a different time in poker even though it’s clearly biased.
ESPN WSOP Coverage Features Tournament of Champions
August 3rd, 2010
Huck Seed will get plenty of airtime on ESPN tonight.
After kicking off its coverage of the 2010 World Series of Poker last week with Michael Mizrachi’s victory in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, this week ESPN is bringing the Tournament of Champions to viewers around the world.
The field for this year’s Tournament of Champions – the first one held since 2006, when Mike Sexton defeated Daniel Negreanu heads-up for the title – was split between automatic qualifiers and players selected by the public. The three previous TOC winners (Mike Matusow, Annie Duke and Mike Sexton) and the reigning WSOP Main Event and WSOP Europe Main Event winners (Joe Cada and Barry Shulman) all got automatic invites; two seats were held back by the event’s sponsors, and the rest were selected by the public from the ranks of living players who had previously won a WSOP bracelet.
Former WSOP Main Event champion Huck Seed was among that last group, though he never expected to be there. But as he has done so often in the past, the 1996 world champion made the most of the opportunity presented to him. He jumped out to an early advantage and held on to it long enough to make the final table against a tough lineup that included Duke, Negreanu and Jennifer Harman. Then he outlasted Johnny Chan and Howard Lederer in three-handed play to win the $500,000 top prize – not bad for a guy who never thought he would get voted in to the tournament in the first place.
The two-hour coverage of Seed’s victory in the Tournament of Champions begins tonight at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Huck Seed Wins WSOP Tournament of Champions
July 5th, 2010
Add another prestigious title to Huck Seed’s collection. (Photo: Rob Gracie)
While most of the Las Vegas poker scene was partying it up on Independence Day, 17 of poker’s best-known players were at the Rio playing out the conclusion of the Tournament of Champions.
The final day of this $1,000,000 freeroll began at 11 a.m. after an attempted restart went badly the night before. The action got off to a quick start, and Allen Cunningham was the first to go when he ran his set of tens into Johnny Chan’s set of kings, which turned into quads on the river. Mike Matusow, who came in with the chip lead, would quickly follow; first he ran nines into Daniel Negreanu’s kings, and then he shoved with K-3 on a king-high board only to find that Negreanu once again held pocket kings. Matusdow and Cunningham were quickly followed by Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Ferguson, Scotty Nguyen, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Phil Hellmuth, setting up a ten-handed final table.
With only nine players getting paid one of those ten would be the unlucky person to pop the bubble. That ended up being Erik Seidel, who moved his short stack in with Q-8 only to run into Jennifer Harman’s pocket aces. TJ Cloutier immediately followed him in ninth place, but the action slowed down for a while before Annie Duke had her A-Q cracked by Barry Greenstein’s A-J and left in eighth place. The next few hours would see the departures of Harman (7th), Negreanu (6th), Greenstein (5th) and Joe Hachem (4th), all of them earning $25,000 just like Cloutier and the other cashers.
The final three players – Howard Lederer, Huck Seed and Chan – were all within about 20 big blinds of one another, and all three would take turns as both the chip leader and the short stack. Lederer would eventually cripple Chan with Q-9 against Chan’s K-J and royal flush draw, and the two-time WSOP world champion left in third place with $100,000 when his 7-5 couldn’t top Lederer’s J-9. That gave Lederer the lead going into heads-up play, but even The Professor knew that didn’t mean much. “Just got head up with Huck,” he tweeted. “I have 468 to his 342. Given his HU record, I feel like a small dog.”
Lederer actually increased his lead a bit before getting Seed all-in as an underdog with 9-6 on a 6-5-3 flop against Lederer’s own pocket tens. But an eight on the turn and a seven on the river gave Seed a straight, dramatically shifting the momentum. Only a few minutes later Lederer shoved with Q-8, Seed called with A-2, and an ace on the river sealed the deal. Lederer took home $250,000, while Seed walked away with $500,000 and the Tournament of Champions trophy- not bad for a freeroll.
Annie Duke Wins National Heads-Up Poker Championship
March 8th, 2010
Made-for-television poker tournaments have been good to Annie Duke.
Annie Duke, who has become known more in the past few years for promoting poker on television than for playing it, is the 2010 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Champion.
The quarterfinal brackets in this year’s NHUPC saw eight-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Erik Seidel defeat former WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate; former WSOP Main Event champ Scotty Nguyen beat 2009 Bluff Magazine Player of the Year Jason Mercier; former WSOP Main Event runner-up Dennis Phillips beat two-time world champ Doyle Brunson; and Duke beat former world champ Jerry Yang.
In the semifinals Seidel had the tougher of the two matches but still emerged victorious over Nguyen. Duke had the slightly easier, though still unenviable, task of vanquishing Phillips – and once she did so she set herself up to play the role of underdog in the best-of-three finals against one of poker’s all-time greats.
The final matchup proved to be as dramatic as NBC’s producers had hoped. Duke won the first match after winning two big pots with a straight and a flush before getting into a confrontation on the flop with A-K against Seidel’s spade flush draw. Big Slick held and Duke was up 1-0. But the second match went to Seidel, who was already in the lead when he hit trip deuces to cripple Duke before finishing her off with 8-7 against her K-5.
In the ultimate round Seidel once again chipped up and had Duke’s back to the wall, grabbing a 3-to-1 lead that looked as if it would be enough to seal the win. But Duke got in with Q-9 against Seidel’s A-K and hit two pair to double up into the chip lead. Short-stacked, Seidel shoved with A-2 not too long afterward and Duke called with pocket nines, which became the championship hand when they were still ahead once the river card was dealt.
The $500,000 score in this year’s version of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship is Annie Duke’s first win since 2004, when she took down the made-for-TV WSOP Tournament of Champions by defeating Phil Hellmuth in a now-classic heads-up battle. (That was the same year she won her only WSOP bracelet.) Seidel, meanwhile, grabbed $250,000 for finishing in second place.
Joe Cada Wrestles With Newfound Fame
November 17th, 2009
Joe Cada Moves From the Poker Table to the Wrestling Ring
Ahhhhhh, the life of a WSOP Main Event champion. Just a few months ago, he was a mild-mannered, relatively obscure online poker player. And now, Joe Cada spends his days trying to decide what to do with his millions of dollars in winnings, and his nights making appearances on WWE Monday Night Raw and David Letterman.
Joe Cada showed up at Madison Square Gardens in New York City for last nights’ episode of Raw, along with a fledgling entourage consisting of agent Dan Frank, and fellow pro Dennis Phillips. Unfortunately for those who bet on someone other than him to win the WSOP, he didn’t actually get pummeled in the ring by any pro wrestlers. He stayed ringside, making only a brief appearance at the announcer’s table with his posse.
Tonight, he’ll be continuing his NYC tour of TV appearances with a slot on The Late Show With David Letterman. He’s the first poker pro to get an invite from Dave, since Annie Duke sat on his couch way back in 2004. The fact that he’s the only WSOP champ invited to appear on The Late Show seems like a clear sign of the growing popularity of the event, and the good job Cada has done promoting himself and the game.
WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack Steps Down
November 14th, 2009
Jeffrey Pollack, former WSOP Commissioner
You might not know his name, but if you follow or watch the World Series of Poker, you’re familiar with his work. Well, as of yesterday, his former work. Jeffrey Pollack stepped down from his role as commissioner of the WSOP, a job he’d held since 2005.
The WSOP is the longest running, most popular and richest poker event in the world. Under Pollack, the WSOP became more aggressive in pursuing sponsorship and marketing opportunities, while also working to improve the playing experience for those who take part in the event. One of his biggest innovations was flattening the prize money structure – so players at the final table make a little less, while players eliminated early, but still in the money, won a little more cash.
He also was a big part of expanding the WSOP into Europe and partnering with Annie Duke and Don Cheadle to add the Ante Up For Africa celebrity/charity event.
A clear sign that he did some good work, is that his departure was met with a lot of warm goodbyes from the industry and, especially, poker professionals. A quick check around those pro Twitter accounts mentioned yesterday will show lots of messages thanking Pollack for his good work as commissioner.
Erik Seidel Pops up on Curb Your Enthusiasm
November 13th, 2009
Is Erik Seidel looking to launch an acting career?
Poker fans watching Sunday’s episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm may have spotted a familiar face lurking in the background. Popular pro, and veteran of many a televised final table, Erik Seidel got some rare non-poker-related TV time on the popular cable comedy. One of the show’s regular stars is Cheryl Hines, who is herself a familiar figure to poker viewers, from her many appearances at charity tournaments and pro-ams.
So is this the start of a new acting career for Seidel? That doesn’t seem too likely. He actually bought his way onto the program, as part of a charity auction. Apparently he’s a big fan of the show, so he jumped at the chance to both appear on the program, and give some money to charity at the same time.
This isn’t the first time the Seidel’s generosity has got him on TV. When Annie Duke competed on the Celebrity Apprentice, Erik was one of her go-to guys for raising money for charity. Among other charitable donations he made on the show, he paid $5,000 for a cupcake, helping Duke’s team win a challenge.
Tiffany Michelle, Maria Ho Officially on Amazing Race
September 10th, 2009.jpg)
Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho are switching gears from the poker table to The Amazing Race.
We reported back in July that poker pros Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho were most likely contestants on the next season of the Amazing Race. Well, it’s official now as the two are now on the Amazing Race website.
This is good news for the game of poker in general as it continues to edge further into the big goopy eye of the mainstream media. Annie Duke did her part in the last season of The Apprentice when she went the distance and came in second to poker-hating, plasticine-faced Joan Rivers.
While there have definitely been some poker show flops, (memories of Face the Ace still makes me want to beat my head against the wall until all I remember is how to breathe and feed myself) there have also been some good additions to the world of Poker TV. Our current favorite is 2 Months. 2 Million, oh and there’s that WSOP thing. That’s pretty good too.
ESPN has in fact recently committed to continued WSOP coverage for another seven years, so clearly they are confident in the continuing popularity of poker.
You can catch Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho when the Season 15 of The Amazing Race premieres on Sunday Sept. 27 at 8/7C on CBS.
PPA Celebrates National Poker Week in Washington
July 22nd, 2009
Poker pro and PPA representative, Annie Duke, is in Washington for National Poker Week (Image Courtesy PopTower)
It’s National Poker Week this week and the Poker Player’s Alliance (PPA) is celebrating by heading to Washington with a petition and nearly 100 meetings with members of Congress and their aides.
For those of you who follow any prominent poker pros over Twitter you’ll have seen updates from players like Annie Duke and Andy Bloch that mention their numerous meetings.
Greg Raymer, likewise brought a great deal of attention to the poker push on Capitol Hill by participating in an online chat with Washington Post readers.
On Monday, the PPA representative poker pros hosted a congressional staff briefing discussing online poker regulation with about 20 congressional offices attending.
On Tuesday night, the PPA hosted a charity poker tournament, which raised $35,000 for the USO and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The PPA topped up the donation itself and contributed an additional $25,000.
The PPA boasts over one million members with a well-known recent addition in shock jock, Howard Stern.
You can learn more about and sign the PPA petition while earning yourself a Cake Poker freeroll on this Saturday. This is the last chance to sign the petition as it will be presented to President Obama this week.
