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Today in the 3-Bet we find Annie Duke fueling her haters’ fire with a statement about the Ultimate Bet tapes, a judge in Atlantic City putting the final nail (maybe) in PokerStars’ bid to buy the Atlantic Club and Sam Trickett living out his boyhood dreams at Old Trafford.
1) Annie Duke on UB Tapes: Sorry I Ever Worked With Them
We reported on Phil Hellmuth’s statement about the leaked UB tapes last week and now Hellmuth’s main co-pilot in UB sponsorship, Annie Duke, has delivered her own statement via Facebook this weekend.
It’s filled with the expected denial/abhorrence of the cheating although it didn't take long into her statement for a major discrepancy to materialize. From her statement:
“Listening to the leaked audio that describes an elaborate attempt by some of UltimateBet.com’s founders, including Russ Hamilton and Greg Pierson, to cover up cheating reminds me once again how much I regret having been associated with the people that were involved in this conspiracy.
“The release of this audio has spurred accusations and I want to make it clear that I have never used a tool on a delay or otherwise that gave me or anyone else access to hole cards for use during real money play nor was I aware that such a tool existed until the scandal broke.“
Only problem, detractors have pointed out, is that stands in contrast to her very own tweet about seeing hole cards last week:
This delayed viewing was made this public during those broadcasts and is standard practice for WSOP commentators for live events also.
— Annie Duke (@AnnieDuke) May 12, 2013Read the full statement from Duke here; more from her detractors here.
2) New Jersey Judge Rules in Favor of Atlantic Club
Speaking of ongoing poker sagas, the bid by PokerStars to buy the brick-and-mortar Atlantic Club Casino in Atlantic City looks likes it's finally squashed for good. Maybe.
After the announced deal dragged out while New Jersey considered and re-considered its legal stance of online gambling legislation, The Atlantic Club used an April 26 "drop dead" clause to pull out of the sale altogether.
This didn't sit well with PokerStars, who initiated legal action shortly after to re-open its bid. A contentious back-and-forth over PokerStars’ owner Isai Scheinberg’s “criminal past” later, a judge in New Jersey has backed the AC in its pulling of the plug.
According to John Brennan on the NorthJersey.com blog, the judge held up the “drop dead” decision on Friday and said it was within the casino’s rights to scuttle the deal.
Net result for PokerStars? No casino in Atlantic City and $11m spent on floating the troubled casino during the negotiations, apparently.
Not one to give up easily, as we've seen, PokerStars still might not give up the fight according to a Tweet from Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications:
RE TODAY'S NJ HEARING: We are reviewing today's ruling. We remain committed to New Jersey and tocontributing to its economy.
— Eric Hollreiser (@erichollreiser) May 17, 2013More on the deal here.
3) Trickett Suits Up, Scores at Old Trafford
You know that age-old story of a boy who has aspirations of football stardom, makes his way up the semo-pro ranks, gets injured, picks up poker, grinds up the ranks of that a bit, gets backed by a multi-millionaire sportsbetting kingpin, cracks a big score, steps up stakes and wins three seven-figure titles in a year, comes second in the richest poker tournament ever for $10m, plays in the highest-stakes games in the world, gets engaged to his super hot long-term girlfriend and then last weekend gets his name on the back of his favorite football team (which also happens to be one of the greatest in the world) and lives out his lifelong dream of scoring on the pitch at Old Trafford?
Oh, that’s only ever happened to Sam Trickett in the history of the known world? Lucky him, then.
Boom...... twitter.com/Samtrickett1/s…
— Sam Trickett (@Samtrickett1) May 18, 2013Just scored 2 goals on Old Trafford,Im the happiest man alive right now.. twitter.com/Samtrickett1/s…
— Sam Trickett (@Samtrickett1) May 18, 2013Visit www.pokerlistings.com