Daily Grind: Poker and cults, Armadillo Tim and more

Posted by Steve Ruddock on Mar 09, 2013 Posted in Poker News | No Comments »

PokerNewsBoy MascotEvery day the poker world is inundated with more news, reports, and gossip, than any of us can read. At PokerNewsBoy.com we understand that there are only so many hours in the day, and only so much time you can set aside to follow all of the stories taking place, so we have come up with the Daily Grind as a solution. The Daily Grind will make sure you don’t miss any of the more obscure poker stories, wrapping up the day in poker in one neat, concise, column.

Today I’ll take a look at a number of stories including the strange accusations that Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari are in a cult, a startling but not surprising Amarillo Slim story, and two more Merge Gaming Network rooms going the way of the dodo.

Are cults recruiting poker players?

This week one of the wackiest pieces of gossip I’ve seen in a long time hit the poker forums. According to Donkdown.com’s Bryan Micon, there is a disturbing trend in some poker circles of attending the “cult-like” Choice Center Las Vegas. After the article appeared on Donkdown a number of people in the poker picked-up the ball and ran with it, and before you knew it Daniel Negreanu had to respond to accusations he was in a cult, which seems pretty apparent to anyone who looked into Choice Center Las Vegas for 5 minutes… For a group that is considered relatively intelligent poker players often show their lack of common sense.

So what is Choice Center? It’s basically a $2,700 self-help course which seems something along the lines of Tony Robbins or any other motivational seminar – only I don’t think Choice Center makes you walk across hot coals like Robbins’ does… which is one of the oldest tricks in the book by the way.

Apparently Choice Center’s cult status stems from, wait for this one… People who have a positive experience actually recommend it! Oh the horror! As I stated on the poekrfraudalert.com forum; does this mean my gym is a cult because they gave me some referral cards?

Here are some links for anyone interested in some light reading:

http://www.donkdown.com/daniel-negreanu-antonio-esfandiari-shilling-for-choice-center-scam-cult/

http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/showthread.php?4178-Daniel-Negreanu-and-Antonio-Esfandiari-involved-with-a-cult

The saga of Armadillo Tim

A terrific blog post was penned today detailing a story about the early days of PokerStars and Amarillo Slim. For anyone who wants a slightly disturbing, slightly comical, look at the blending of old school poker and online poker you need to read the SmallTalkDan.com blog here: SmallTalkDan.com blog.

Two Merge Gaming Network skins close their doors

It’s been quite a 12 month period for the Merge Gaming Network. In the aftermath of Black Friday the network solidified itself as the #1 facing US room/network, but soon thereafter pieces of their empire started falling into the sea. First Lock Poker and Merge had an ugly split that saw their largest skin leave, more recently Black Chip Poker moved to the Winning Poker Network, and several skins have simply closed-up shop with their players absorbed into other Merge skins, which is the current story with rather small and innocuous Iron Duke Poker and the larger and more substantial OverBet Poker. PokerFuse has more on the closings which you can read here: http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room-news/merge-skins-overbet-ironduke-close-07-03/



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