Annie and Hellmuth Exit UB
On December 30 in separate blog posts the Marketing team of the online poker room UB announced that its lead icons Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth were parting ways with UB. Simultaneously the images of these poker professionals were removed from Team UB. On December 31, Annie and Hellmuth through separate Twitter messages conveyed this news in a more personal manner to their fans.
The manner and the timing of the news were not lost. Separate messages were used to convey the departures of Annie and Hellmuth indicating that these had been independently discussed with the two players and were two separate decisions. That the decisions were announced at the fag end of 2010 was also significant. It indicated closure of past commitments and a desire to reshape the future for all three parties concerned.
The message from UB concerning Hellmuth began as follows. “The poker pro who is famous for his grand WSOP entrances is making one final exit.” The blog went on to say that the parting of ways was mutual and without rancor. UB appreciated the decade long association with Hellmuth and looked forward to his next move on the world poker circuit. This message also had a veiled hint about the remodeling of Team UB. It said, “Team UB will continue to be stacked with young, aggressive poker professionals who today’s passionate online poker players can really identify with. In fact, in early 2011, we’ll announce some big additions to Team UB. Stay tuned for more on that.”
The message announcing Annie’s exit stated the reason as her decision “to pursue other projects on a full-time basis”. The announcement lauded Annie’s contribution to building Team UB. It also had a short message from Annie that said, “I have nothing but positive things to say about UB and my experiences with the brand, management and the incredible people who work hard daily to deliver a terrific online poker experience.”
Annie had on Christmas Day announced her engagement to boy friend Joe Reitman, so she may well be concentrating on her personal life in the immediate future. Speculations of the Poker Brat’s departure from UB were on since November 2010. PokerStars has been named as the most likely online poker room that Hellmuth will move to. If that does happen it will be interesting to see what it does to the internal dynamics of the already top heavy Team PokerStars.
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