Since Deb actually won the playubt.com Aruba event in December and was offered the Palms as a "consolation" of sorts, I can relate what they told us.
The Aruba UBT event got cancelled due to UIGEA. The sponsor(s) bailed out on them because said sponsors, online gaming sites as they are, no longer wanted to market to the U.S. since UIGEA screwed that all up.
LeftNut,
The seat the Deb won, and this is strictly MY understanding, was supposed to be to the final table in Aruba at a March 2007 UBT stop. That never materialized, just like the European event at the Aviator Club.
My post about Aruba deals with UB and their weeklong poker event in October 2007. UB seems to be going ahead with their event and I don't see why, for the life of me, UBT wouldn't want to piggy back into this event like they did last year.
There's plenty of time. UB.com IS, at least according to the playubt.com site, a UBT sponsor and as it is only one of the two sites available to play EBJ is would make sense, at least to me, that they host a UBT stop in Aruba as well.
I mean the dealers will already be there, all you need is the tables and cards. While I understand that some of the problems have dealt with the expense of transportation of the TV production equipment who says you gotta film the final tables? In fact if I were running UBT I WOULDN'T film any final tables at the event like they are doing. Instead have all the final table people fly to a studio in LA or whereever and do all the filming under controlled conditions like they did in December 2006.
Now people will be upset that they didn't film the final table at [fill in the blank]. To that I say hogwash. In fact I would say that people would be more inclined to go to the studio than to sit on the beach in the wind and sun and have it shot (which did you prefer Ken, the studio appearance or the Aruba beach one?)
Come on UBT people, get on the ball and hit up UB.com for some sponsorship and have a UBT event(s) in Aruba.
PS. While I can't speak for him, I'm sure that TX would be happy to host the UBT events in Aruba for the 10%
