If you thought the now defunct online poker room Victory Poker was simply an afterthought in the world of online poker you were wrong. Even though Victory Poker ceased offering online poker after Black Friday (initially withdrawing from the US market, before completely ending their poker room operations) the site announced it would carry on as a poker portal of sorts –a project which has yet to materialize over six months after the online poker site went offline.

Recently, both Alec Torelli and Andrew Robl, two of the best-known poker pros who were signed by Victory Poker, announced they are no longer associated with the Victory Poker brand. Why the two poker players decided to announce their parting with Victory Poker within minutes of one another is a bit of a mystery, as is the very brief, and on Robl’s part frank, statement both players issued on their respective blogs:

“I’m parting ways with Victory Poker to pursue other business opportunities. I had a great time representing Victory Poker and wish them continued success in everything they do.” Robl wrote on his website, www.andrewrobl.com, “I no longer have any association with the company or any associated businesses/products.”

Torelli was far more gracious in his parting statement on www.Alectorelli.com ,which had the nuts and bolts of Robl’s comments: “I have officially parted ways with Victory Poker to dedicate my time to other endeavors. The past few years working with them has been a blast and I am very grateful for the opportunity to do so. I wish them lots of prosperity and continued success in the future, but as of now I am no longer affiliated with them in any capacity or associated with their marketing and products.”

My best guess at the odd timing of the statements (as well as the similarity) is that the two players are letting the poker world they are available for sponsorship. The only other possibility is that the two were somehow still sponsored by Victory Poker (which seems a long-shot considering the site no longer exists) and were somehow managing to receive a paycheck from the site.

There hasn’t been an update on the potential re-launch of Victory Poker (a visit to the victorypoker.com website features only an E-Mail notification sign-up) although the former CEO of Victory Poker Dan Fleshyman has been a regular on the tournament poker scene.

No other Victory Poker pros have spoken out since Torelli and Robl, and no former Victory Poker sponsored pros, like Antonio Esfandiari, have been sporting Victory Poker patches since the site went offline.

In the obligatory thread on 2+2, Robl posted an answer to a player asking if Victory Poker repaid all of their players when the site shutdown:

“Yes. When Victory closed all player accounts/balances were transferred to cake.

“I and many others were able to successful cashout at that time and for months after.

“For the record I’m not saying it’s safe to have money on cake, from my point of view it is actually unsafe.”

Tags: Afterthought, Alec Torelli, Best Guess, Black Friday, Business Opportunities, Endeavors, Great Time, Nuts And Bolts, Odd Timing, Online Poker, Parting Ways, Poker Online, poker players, Poker Pros, Poker Room, Poker World, Prosperity, Similarity, Victory, Website Www

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2012 at 7:42 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.