The battle lines have been drawn. On Thursday, Tiltware, the software and marketing engine behind Full Tilt Poker, fired back at the lawsuit filed by site pro Phil Ivey (pictured). The company claims that the suit has been timed to “thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets.” Despite the hubbub, Ivey’s likeness still adorns the front of Full Tilt Poker’s homepage and the eight-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner continues to be listed as a member of Team Full Tilt.The 130-word response refers to Ivey as simply “Mr. Ivey” and begins by asserting, “Contrary to his sanctimonious public statements, Phil Ivey’s meritless lawsuit is about helping just one player – himself. In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets.”
Ivey, who is supposedly sitting out the 2011 WSOP until Full Tilt Poker players are paid back, allegedly had an opportunity to help the site raise capital to pay back its customers, according to the statement released by Tiltware: “Mr. Ivey has been invited – and has declined – to take actions that could assist the company in [refunding players], including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site.”
What Ivey owes the site for and how much money is at stake remain to be seen. According to Ivey’s lawsuit, about $150 million is owed to Full Tilt Poker players in the United States. Ivey is seeking to get out of his Full Tilt contract, which includes a non-compete clause, and claims, “Plaintiff has been damaged by lost business opportunity, lost income, and damage to his personal and professional reputation, all in an amount that exceeds $150,000,000.”Tiltware’s press statement ends by saying that the company does not expect the litigation to end up in court: “Tiltware doubts Mr. Ivey’s frivolous and self-serving lawsuit will ever get to court. But if it does, the company looks forward to presenting facts demonstrating that Mr. Ivey is putting his own narrow financial interests ahead of the players he professes to help.”
Plenty of poker players and members of PocketFives.com have weighed in on Ivey’s lawsuit against Tiltware and subsequent absence from the WSOP. Among them was fellow Full Tilt Poker pro Tom Dwan, who Tweeted on Thursday, “Wowow FTP statement.” He followed up his series of w’s and o’s with, “I bet both sides have better intentions than the other realizes fwiw.”
In a multi-page thread in the Poker Community forum, one member of PocketFives.com analyzed the lawsuit, saying that Ivey is merely using frozen U.S. player funds as leverage to rescind his contract: “The lawsuit is about using the fact that FTP hasn't paid U.S. players to say that FTP has damaged Ivey's reputation and is also asking for him to not be held to the non-compete in his contract.”
The same poster summarized, “The lawsuit is not about benefiting U.S. players, it's about using the fact that U.S. players haven't been paid to (A) get damages for the damage against Ivey's reputation and (B) allow him to get out of his FTP contract/non-compete and get sponsorships elsewhere.”
Another member of the community echoed those sentiments, explaining, “I would have serious questions about the sanity of anyone who thinks Phil Ivey cares one tiny bit about anybody but Phil Ivey.”
Full Tilt Poker stopped taking real money U.S. action within a few hours of the Black Friday seizures on April 15th. To date, it has not yet started the process of cashing out U.S. players.
Meanwhile, a separate thread in the Poker Community forum centered on Dwan (pictured) making a major announcement via QuadJacks on Thursday. However, Dwan disputed the news on TwoPlusTwo, commenting, “Normally announcing someone was coming on a show when they weren't wouldn't be a very big deal... However, after Ivey's statement yesterday, and FTP's response today, for QuadJacks to say I was coming on the show, and then mention they heard I was stepping down from FTP is pretty bad form (unless they know something I don’t).”Read the entire Phil Ivey lawsuit.
