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The face of PokerStars.com continues to lash out at one of their competitors, UB.com. Daniel Negreanu, who this past year referred to fellow poker pro and former UB.com representative Annie Duke as a “f*cking c*nt”, has accused another pro, Prahlad Friedman, of “joining the dark side”.
Negreanu has made reference to Friedman’s apparent signing with UB.com as their newest rep. Friedman was a one-time victim of the site’s “insider cheating scandal”, widely publicized on the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. The only named culprit was 1994 World Series of Poker winner, Russ Hamilton.
The website AintLuck.com reports that Negreanu’s vitriol of UB.com goes well beyond the cheating scandal (players have all been reimbursed for any damages incurred).
On his blog, Negreanu writes: “When they first launched I was offered an opportunity to invest in the company (ielogic). We were all told that Russ Hamilton would not be investing or involved. He has a checkered past and everyone knew he was a scumbag. I decided not to take the risk by investing, but others did only to find out that Russ was an investor and also a big part of the company.”
AintLuck.com points out that Negreanu does not provide any hard, concrete evidence of Hamilton’s involvement in the company; rather, he points out some names of what he believes were figureheads placed in the org structure to mask Hamilton’s involvement.
Friedman is considered by some to be one of the original online poker superstars.
For his part, Friedman has been very upfront regarding his redemption of UB.com. He, too, has stated in the past that Hamilton was among the co-founders of the 3rd largest North American-facing Internet card room.
"If Russ doesn't get in trouble, karma will take care of itself," he said in an interview with ESPN.com. "I don't think that guy's happy right now. I think he's a tortured soul. He can't even play in a tournament. He has to hide away for life. I'd love to see him go to jail, but it'll play itself out. I'm not sitting here hating the guy every day. I'm not going to let it eat me up.
"I'm playing at UB again," Friedman admitted. "I think they took care of me, did right by me. I don't represent them when I say this. I don't want to get sponsored by anyone. I think they did a good job. Not everyone feels that way, but that's how they treated me. I think it's probably a safe place to play now because everyone's watching so closely. I'm not mad at them, but they'll have to live with their rep for a long time."
Gambling911.com’s own Jagajeet Chiba had this piece of advise to offer Negreanu: “Daniel should just butt out of other people’s lives and decisions. Let Friedman make the millions of dollars you are in endorsements. Why are you trying to deprive people of making a living? Go back to your glass house. In case you didn’t realize it there are only a handful of online poker rooms hiring players to represent them, UB.com being one. Stop acting like you are some type of saint, which you clearly are not.”
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
