Daniel Negreanu calls out poker community over UB and AP Poker

One of Daniel Negreanu’s favorite targets over the years has been Ultimate Bet Poker (or as it’s now known UB Poker) with the site drawing even more ire from Negreanu than Annie Duke. Now, for the first time since Black Friday Negreanu has taken to his blog to condemn the site, as well as voice his dismay with the poker community for not being vocal enough about UB and Absolute Pokers’ checkered past.

In the blog post Negreanu writes:

“There is one thing that frustrates me to no end. It’s been a fight I’ve been fighting for a decade now, and I’m so very disappointed in how few top players would publicly join the fight with me. Privately, most are disgusted by UB, but publicly they’ve not said a word. As a poker community, we failed miserably when it comes to the AP/UB tragedy… We can cast blame on Paul Leggat and players representing the site, but there is plenty of blame to go around in our community. Plenty of media outlets took UB money and often sugar coated/glossed over the scandal(s). Very few people dodge blame here… I mean that company is a just an absolute joke! The owners (not past owners, same darn owners) cheated their customers, stole from their investors, and it looks like the last straw is that they will likely fold up like a cheap suit and run off with the rest of the customers money.”

Negreanu also discusses his possible return to Toronto in order to play at PokerStars, saying:

“I’m considering renting a condo in downtown Toronto, exclusively to play on PokerStars. If I set up residence in Toronto, I can rent a place, and then also play online on any of my European trips or anytime I’m outside of the U.S. Not sure exactly how that plan looks, but I’m thinking my central hub would still be my home in Las Vegas, and then when there are no games in Vegas, I can spend a couple weeks in Toronto to grind online.”

While I agree with Negreanu that the poker community could have been more strident in their efforts to “blackball” UB and Absolute Poker, I think he misses the point that this shouldn’t be the players’ responsibility to do so -and that not every player is in his position to not need a “soft” site like UB Poker to play at. The real blame belongs to the lack of regulation, mainly in the US, but also in the sham corporations who purport to license and regulate many of these online poker sites. The real reason to criticize the poker community is for not speaking up about the lack of consumer protections; not for staying silent regarding AP and UB.