Tiffany Michelle

Tiffany has been hanging around the poker world for a couple years now, mostly hosting and conducting player interviews, but usually always on camera. Only recently has her playing “ability” launched her into the spotlight and onto the other side of the microphone.

With a 17th place finish worth more than $334,000 at this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event, Tiffany finished higher than any woman has in eight years. With the media attention she got, it was no wonder the sponsorship dealers came a knocking. Although Michelle was put into the event by PokerNews, she inked a deal with Ultimate Bet when the tourney field started dwindling down, the terms of which have not been made public.

After she was knocked out of the tournament, PokerNews wasted no time filing a suit against Tiffany and her agent for what can possibly be assumed to be a breach of contract violation saying, “We are incredibly disappointed with Tiffany and her agent's lack of respect and professionalism.” In addition, they also dropped any affiliation they had with Ultimate Bet, citing “As a result of such breaches in the online communities trust, PokerNews has decided that it will no longer promote this site within its network.”

Tiffany replied by claiming her contract with PokerNews was legally “nonexclusive” and Tony G (part owner of PokerNews) was in fact working on getting her a deal with PokerStars. In the end, she decided on joining UltimateBet because they were the only site that “UltimateBet was the one site that treated me with the respect and dignity deserving of someone in my stressful situation. Throughout the whole event they were insistent on wanting me to just concentrate on my play and were clear that the decision in the end was mine and I should do what I felt was best for me.”

With Ultimate Bet’s recent flurry of signings including online stars Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy and Eric “Rizen” Lynch (who left the site not long after deal was set) it’s no surprise that Tiffany “Hot Chips” Michelle was brought on with a full sponsorship deal earlier this week. Not long after the ink was dry, online poker forums were buzzing with discontent and confusion. It seemed like UlimateBet was anxious to sign anyone they could when they picked up Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, so a large group of poker fans didn’t give Tiffany’s signing much weight in the first place.

As somewhat of a celebrity outside of the poker world though, Michelle has quite a bit to bring to the UltimateBet table. In addition to her poker hosting and playing “Hot Chips” really rounds out her triple threat status with roles on E.R., Nip/Tuck and Semi-Pro on her resume. "From Hollywood to Vegas, Tiffany Michelle is a rising star in so many extraordinary ways,” said poker tournament superstar and longtime UltimateBet pro Annie Duke.

With all the controversy surrounding UltimateBet and the Pokernews sponsorship fight, Tiffany is sure to bring quite a bit of novel attention to the site, positive or negative.

Stay tuned to Poker.vg to see how the story unfolds.