Annie Duke: ‘I Never Used Tool That Gave Me Access to Hole Cards’
Poker pro and former UB.com representative/owner Annie Duke released a statement on her Facebook page over the weekend insisting she never used a tool that allowed her to see other players hole cards while online.
Secret recordings scraped from the hard drive of UB.com insider cheat Russ Hamilton indicate that Duke obtained a copy of a tool that allows someone to cheat or see hole cards. One of the tournaments for which she had access to this tool (known as AuditMonster) was won by her then boyfriend (a poker novice), who took home a prize of over $200,000.
Duke flat out denies having access to such a tool.
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.
Knowing what I know today, I would have never encouraged anyone to play on the UltimateBet.com site under that management. I’m horrified at the lengths to which these people went to try to cover up their actions, and I am very sorry that I ever agreed to work with them. I remain very upset that people were cheated and that, partly because of the actions of the people on this tape, it took far too long to pay back the $23 million that was owed to the victims, and that hand history information was never fully provided to the public.
However, the audio recordings and the data dump from Travis Makar and others also make it completely clear who the perpetrators of the UltimateBet.com cheating were, and that I was not involved in their scheme in any way. For those who have not taken the time to listen to the full audio, at one point Russ Hamilton mischaracterizes my legitimate role as a commentator as he tries to concoct a cover story for his scheme. I can only assume that he is referring to the several times that I commentated on tournaments in which a delayed broadcast was provided to the public, as this was the only delay that I was ever aware of.
In the audio Dan Friedberg says, “I think for the public, it just has to be former consultant to the company, ah, took advantage of a server flaw by hacking into the client…” (This can be heard at 47:01 on the audio). Then Russ Hamilton adds, “And what you could also say is that the tool was originally set for a 15 minute delay and he [Makar] hacked it to a, uh, yeah, to a real time…” (47:29 on the audio). Then Russ continues, ‘Annie Duke used it on a 15 minute delay quite a few times.’ (47:41 on the audio). It is clear that they are trying to concoct a story to cover up what they did by suggesting that a third party hacked a legitimate delayed broadcast tool to create a cheating tool.
Duke has remained mostly absent from the poker scene over the past year following the epic failure of the Epic Poker Tour, a venture for which she acted as Commissioner.
Her brother, Howard Lederer, recently settled with the US Justice Department for his role in what they deemed to be an elaborate ponzi scheme associated with Full Tilt Poker, an online poker site Lederer had ownership in.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
