UltimateBet has announced that it has signed up Adam Levy as the fifth member of its prestigious Star Players Team.
The other four celebrities on that team are Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, James “P0KERPRO33” Campbell, Tracy Scala and Tiffany Michelle.
There was a furor in the poker world when Tiffany joined UltimateBet in the middle of WSOP 2008. No such thing happened with Levy.
Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth have been Godmother and Godfather of UltimateBet since the inception of the online poker room and have stuck with it through thick and thin, including the superuser scandal. It is they who decide whom to select on the Star Players Team. UB also teamed up with Absolutepoker a Mac and Linux poker compatible site earlier this year.
Annie has a high opinion of Levy and says that he meets her requirements of being a player “who has an undisputed high level of skill and lots of integrity, and who is well-respected in the world of online poker.” However Hellmuth thinks that Levy is an idiot and called him so at a featured table during WSOP 2008 in full view and hearing of the cameras, not once but thrice, and this is why the selection of Levy is a bit curious. Perhaps that is Hellmuth’s way of acknowledging class.
Levy entered the world of poker through the game of Magic: The Gathering, which teaches strategy, odds and opponent reading. David Williams and Eric Froehlich are other poker pros that graduated from Magic. (Erica Schoenberg does not think much of players who entered poker through Magic as she made evidently clear in her verbal duel with Jay “pr1nnyraid” Rosenkrantz, but that is her opinion.) Speaking about his entry in the world of poker Levy said in an interview, “I was surrounded by Magic players. …We were watching Rounders and were addicted to watching Chris Moneymaker.”
Levy first found success in online poker where he took on the moniker “Roothlus”. When he won $31,000 at PartyPoker in 2005 (during the good old pre-UIGEA days) he knew he had come of age and turned pro. Levy’s to date online winnings exceed $1.8 million and that is one reason why Annie has picked him for UltimateBet. Levy, who hails from Orlando in Florida, came into the limelight of live poker when he just missed out the final table of the 2007 WPT North American Poker Championships, but cashed $84,437. Despite being called an idiot by Hellmuth he was one of the stars of WSOP 2008, cashed five times in that tournament and finishing 48th in the Main Event winning $135,100 in the process.
A lot of players say that Adam “Roothlus” Levy is crazy, but the eccentricity often accompanies greatness. And Levy does have his share of both. One of his eccentric moments was when he decided to skip WSOP 2007 in order to participate as a children’s camp counselor in a Jewish sleep away camp. Another sign of craziness is his penchant for soccer football. Levy loves playing FIFA with other players around the world. And of all the land and online tournaments that he has played the PartyPoker $30 rebuy remains his favorite.
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