Daniel Negreanu‘s recent blog post on Full Contact Poker lauding Choice Centerhas once again brought his association with the self-help organization into light, prompting a debate over whether the institution’s primary focus is exploiting its members for financial gain. Read the post.

Choice Center describes itself as a “leadership university” for successful people, offering a 100-day course “designed to take you to your next level of performance and in the fastest time possible.”

Negreanu (pictured) had positive comments about the program, which he outlined in his post. In one session on “emotional intelligence,” he explained the result of having defined three specific goals for himself in a three-month period. “One of those goals was poker-related, getting back in the top 15 of the GPI, and quickly after completing the course, I jumped to #1 and held that spot for about 19 weeks,” he said.

According to the 39-year-old, the program also teaches students “the value of making a difference in the world via a legacy project.” In his own project, Negreanu and his team were able to raise $280,000 for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in just one week.

Other poker pros have taken Choice Center courses as well, including Nick Binger and Antonio Esfandiari (pictured). Binger described his experience in a TwoPlusTwo post: “Going into it, I knew that there was a broad spectrum of LGAT-type trainings that range from the craziest cults imaginable to really boring mainstream business development courses… From the beginning, I was on the lookout for violations of integrity that would signal time for me to go, but I never saw anything that would qualify.” In the end, he summed up the course as “very interesting, fun, and generally a catalyst for positive life changes.”

Esfandiari seems to have found working with Choice Center to be even more impactful. After going on to take first and $18 million in the inaugural WSOP Big One for One Drop, the Iranian-born pro credited two people for his success: his father and his life coach Robyn Williams, the Founder and CEO of Choice Center.

But not everyone is a fan of the organization’s methods or what they say is an aggressive recruiting campaign to sign up new students. Brian tsarrast Rast is another poker pro who was convinced to take classes at the urging of a friend, but after a few sessions decided not to go back.

In an interview with Bluff, Rast called the $2,700 program “interesting,” but believed that Negreanu and Esfandiari were assigning too much credit to Choice Center for their success and too little to themselves. “It’s basically a crash course in psychology and group therapy,” he said, recalling his experience. “I think anyone can benefit, whether it’s at Choice or not, or going and doing meditation with Buddhist monks for three days. Choice was valuable… but I don’t think it’s special in that it’s the only way you could help yourself.”

He was also concerned that the program’s methods of “tearing students down” before “building them back up” could lead to people being dependent on the Center for their happiness. “The whole point of Choice is great… but I’m not going to replace my family with Choice Center,” he said.

Furthermore, since Choice Center is for-profit, students are “basically turned into recruits,” he said. “You could make an analogy that it’s like a self-replicating virus or bacteria if you want to put it in a negative spin.”

Negreanu was quick to respond to Rast (pictured) in his own video and reiterated that out of 100 of his friends who had taken classes, only four had decided to quit early, while the others had a great experience. He said that since Rast had only finished a small portion of the class, it would be hard for him to be critical of it.

Whatever you think of Choice Center or its methods, Negreanu’s recent results in the poker world speak for themselves. Since 2013, the Canadian pro has earned nearly $5 million in tournaments worldwide. This year, he is banking on the fact that Phil Ivey or he will win a bracelet in this year’s WSOP, offering a $5,000 minimum wager on the proposition.

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