Home / Poker News May 2011 / UB’s Pro Team Disbanded
UB’s Pro Team Disbanded
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2011-05-11 13:29
The events of Black Friday have stirred up all sorts of problems for the major players of the online poker industry. While
Full Tilt Poker and
PokerStars seemed able to absorb the hit, AP and UB, the two Cereus network members, were pretty much pushed onto the edge of extinction. Rumors have surfaced a while ago about a possible bankruptcy that the two sites would announce. Under such circumstances, it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone when the two sites announced on Monday that they would disband their team of in-house poker pros. A total of 11 professional players were laid off including Prahlad Friedman, Joe Sebok, Adam Levy, Brandon Cantu and Maria Ho.
UB and AP have released a statement regarding the matter in which they expressed regret regarding the circumstances of the layoff, as well as appreciation regarding the contributions of the pro team to the growth of the two sites.
Most of the players concerned chose to remain silent or to only comment briefly on Twitter, and few of them expressed any sort of regret. The dominant mood seemed to be one of relief and joy regarding the forced free agency.
Some of the guys did decide to elaborate though. Brian Devonshire, the player who had secured a contract extension with UB shortly before Black Friday shook the online poker industry, was one of these players.
In a statement released in the wake of the bad news, Devonshire acknowledged that the Black Friday indictments have pretty much turned his world upside down. He had close to $30k stuck on various offshore poker sites including UB and he lost at least 20 months worth of a lucrative endorsement contract. He also said he was surprised other poker sites had not yet started releasing US-based pros.
Joe Sebok also expressed deep disappointment but he also said that he hadn’t lost hope that US players would be able to recover their monies from AP and UB.
