The belle of poker, Annie Duke, is to become the commissioner of a new poker league planned to become the equivalent of the PGA in the poker world. The league goals include becoming a showcase for the best games of the best players as well as to host invitational tournaments for the best of the best. Best, best, best – we get it.

The, as yet unnamed, league will televise four regular-season events and a $1 million championship freeroll in Las Vegas within the year.
Duke told The Associated Press:

“This is incredibly pro-centric…This is the one piece that’s kind of missing from the poker landscape right now, which is something for the best players in the world to compete against the best players in the world.”

The biggest poker event presently is the World Series of Poker which is open to anyone to play if they can afford the hefty entry fees. The main event, the no-limit Texas Hold’em event, costs a whopping $10,000 to enter but still manages to draw in thousands of players every year. Last year’s main event winner, Jonathan Duhamel, wasn’t known before winning and taking home $8.94 million and with the growing number of tournaments and players, ever-entertaining showdowns between the ‘big’ players cannot be guaranteed.

Duke has certainly claimed her place in the world of poker fame. She’s racked up a series of wins and also featured as a contestant on the “Celebrity Apprentice” series. She thinks this league will showcase what it really takes to become and remain a poker pro.

The league will use a mathematical formula to measure who will get to be part of it. The formula will take into account finishes in major events, money earned and recent wins. Cash games and online poker will not factor into these calculations.

Players in the league will have two-, three- or five-year terms and less than 10 lifetime cards will be dished out to living players who have experienced remarkable success at the tables.

“This is something that I really wanted to see happen for a very long time,” Duke said.

Daniel Negreanu: I hate it when people say 'You messed with the wrong person.' Truth is that person is usually the perfect person to mess with. 1 Dec

Doyle Brunson: OMG… I’m rich. Silver in the hair, gold in the teeth, crystals in the kidneys, sugar in the blood, lead in the ass, iron in the arteries. 7 Nov

Phil Hellmuth: I consider myself a “Hero!” I inspire millions, I have perfect ethics + morals! But public thinks [I’m a] VILLIAN! 9 Dec

Annie Duke: Took care of the no wallet problem by winning $500 in the $1/2 nl game. Now I can go crazy in the Philly airport. 11 Dec

Dan Fleyshman: Moral of the Story: People like sex and controversy. 20 Dec

We already had a post about the Negreanu/Duke insult throwing silliness earlier on this week. And now, for the sake of having a frivolous Friday we’re going to propagate the gossip and the rumours.

Here goes:

Negreanu recently referred to Duke as a “f***ing c***” in an interview but it seems this is only part of a stream of verbal abuse that has been going on between the two poker pro's since before fame was even a twinkle in their respective eyes. It seems it all started over a decade ago when they first joined the professional poker circuit in the early 90’s. Duke got there first and apparently when they were first pitted against each other Duke was extremely critical of Negreanu and his style of play.

Fast-forward to the beginning of the ‘naughties’ when the feud became public on the rec.gambling.poker forum where a  particular exchange between the two took place after they had played against each other online. Negreanu insulted Duke via chatbox and Duke responded by reporting to the support of the online poker site and Negreanu then sent a hostile email to Duke. At this point Duke’s brother, Howard Lederer, decided to get involved by posting Negreanu’s email on rec.gambling.poker where it remains in the archives to this very day.

After this the criticism continued on occasional blog posts but nothing too salacious, UNTIL the clash picked up again this summer- see our recent Negreanu takes another dig at Duke! post.

Howard Lederer is now back on the scene, saying the following on Twitter soon after Negreanu’s insult about Duke: “Hey Daniel, nice job representing poker and reinforcing that our attitude towards women is still Neanderthal,”

Negreanu is ranked number one and Duke is ranked fifth meaning that Negreanu is the top male player in the world while Duke is the top female player in the world and perhaps this is where the tension is coming from. With both of them at the top of their game who is ultimately the better player? Claws Out!

                                  The poker celebs, during happier times.

While he’s really good at poker...ahem...extremely good at poker, he’s not the greatest at making his point diplomatically and with restraint. Daniel Negreanu has successfully stirred up the controversial pot of whether there should still women-only tournaments while adding a nice direct insult to Annie Duke to the pot.

He recently had a rather large rant about Annie Duke in an interview; when asked to comment on an incident earlier this year in which a group of men dressed in drag and played in the Ladies Event at the WSOP, he had the following to say about Duke: “What irked me is that this woman has the audacity on her website to call herself ‘the best female poker player in the world’. So on one side of the coin she’s fighting for, ‘Oh, we’re all equal, there shouldn’t be any gender thing,’ but when appropriate she decides to call herself the best female poker player in the world.”

Now this is an interesting, and to some a valid, point but he doesn’t stop there, he’s goes on to say: “So I’m like ‘how offensive are you, you f***ing c***? You want to say you’re speaking for women, yet you claim superiority over all of them.”

Youch! Plus, this isn’t an isolated incident: Before both of them became famous for their poker prowess, Negreanu made a series of scathing comments about Duke’s poker tournament behaviour.  Perhaps Negreanu should have joined Duke on Celebrity Apprentice to really have upped the entertainment stakes.

WSOP bracelet winner Annie Duke, otherwise known as the “Duchess of Poker” can now add another name to her collection- a congressional witness- as she is now advocating the right for every American to gamble online in the privacy of their own homes.

Duke expressed this view to the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, and also argued that there were huge advantages to legalising and regulating an ever growing and lucrative underground online gambling market.

"At its most basic level, the issue before this committee is personal freedom, the right of individual Americans to do what they want in the privacy of their homes without the intrusion of the government," Duke said.

As it presently stands, online poker is illegal in the US but players still go to the online casino sites that are set up offshore and therefore beyond the reach of federal regulators.

Duke is firmly behind the views of Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, who is trying to introduce a bill that would legalise and tax the online gambling websites.

Frank advocates the players’ freedom to choose: "Unwise choices [are] part of freedom."

If this bill is passed the taxes on it could bring in almost $42 billion for the federal government for the next 10 years.