Annie Duke gets roasted for appearing as COVID-19 expert on CNBC

Annie Duke – a highly controversial ‘poker champion’

Annie Duke has incensed the poker community once again, this time appearing as a ‘coronavirus expert’ on CNBC news and giving her opinion on decision-making strategies to deal with the pandemic.

Duke, the sister of Howard ‘The Professor’ Lederer, regularly pops up on the news as an expert. Her credentials are given as ‘poker champion’ with no mention of her status as Ultimate Bet and Epic Poker League outcast within the community.

It didn’t take long for Kessler’s tweet to attract anti-Duke sentiment, despite the occasional attempt to defend her a ‘poker champion’.

Annie Duke gets roasted for appearing as COVID-19 expert on CNBC

Of course, Duke is a ‘poker champion’ of sorts, having taken down the 2004 WSOP $3k Omaha Hi-Lo title and amassing several $million in tournament cashes during her career.

However, it was her dual roles within Ultimate Bet and the ill-fated Epic Poker League that the poker community most remember her for, and why they are so up in arms about her continually being called upon by the mainstream media.

Epic Poker League disaster

Duke was one of the major faces of the EPL as co-founder and commissioner, the plan being to attract the world’s leading players in a PGA-style series of tournaments.

Annie Duke poker

However, after only three events the league filed for bankruptcy with $5million in debts and assets of less than $200,000. Duke and former WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack bore the brunt of the blame for the scandal.

Duke’s Ultimate Bet connections

The Ultimate Bet debacle exploded when Russ Hamilton was discovered to have had ‘God-mode’ access to players’ hole cards. The 1994 WSOP Main Event champion developed and used ‘superuser accounts’ to steal more than $22million from unsuspecting players.

Annie Duke poker

Annie Duke, a spokesperson for UB, was implicated when tapes of Hamilton admitting to his cheating and theft were released. Duke was said to have used holecard information on a 15-minute delay to cheat players.

Duke Version2.0

Since being ostracized from the poker world, Duke has reinvented herself as an ‘experienced corporate speaker and ‘consultant on the behavior of decision making.’

Annie Duke gets roasted for appearing as COVID-19 expert on CNBC

This week’s CNBC article, titled: ‘Betting against coronavirus: A poker champion on how to win with an uncertain hand,’ sees Duke offer up several ‘rules’ for how we should take decisions related to the coronavirus.

She describes wearing masks as a ‘freeroll’ explaining: “Nothing bad comes from it, but a lot of good can come from it.”

Her ‘expert’ guide list covers how guessing, testing, and using intuition can all help to defeat Covid-19. That brought derision from her ex-colleagues in the poker world.

The exact same thing happened two years ago, again CNBC using Duke in a similar article, and again being put straight by poker players, this time Ari Engel taking the lead…

…and others, such as Danielle ‘dmoongirl’ Anderson, swiftly supporting him…

Two years on and there appears to be no let-up in using Annie Duke as an expert and pushing her poker credentials. With 99.9% of the community speaking up, however, the stain she left on the game will at least not be forgotten.

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