In a series of Tweets from former Full Tilt Poker pro Tom Dwan (pictured) this week, the man known as "durrrr" reflected on "The Lederer Files," a series of sit-down interviews with Full Tilt Board member Howard Lederer conducted by PokerNews. Despite the first video in "The Lederer files" being released on September 18, Dwan told the poker community that he had just now gotten around to watching the full three-and-a-half-hour vignette."Just watched the last of the Lederer files and then read Andy Bloch's interview," Dwan told the world via Twitter on Tuesday. "I'm pretty confident the majority of what they said is true." You can read Bloch's interview here.
The only time Dwan's name was dropped in "The Lederer Files" was in its seventh and final installment. There, Lederer was orchestrating a plan for Full Tilt to survive beyond July. "The Professor" asked Dwan, "I don't know if a deal is going to happen, but our burn rate is about $1.5 million per month. If we can't get a deal done by the end of July, can I count on you to give us the money you owe the company, which will give us another month?" Dwan agreed, but PokerStars purchased Full Tilt's assets in late July, solving the problem.
Dwan claimed the information he had aligned with what Lederer (pictured) publicly stated. Dwan Tweeted, "I knew a bit of stuff independently and what they said mainly lined up with that (although I thought Howard emphasized wrong a few times)."Much of the poker community frowned upon Full Tilt accepting deposits from players outside of the United States after Black Friday given the company knew it did not have sufficient cash on hand to cover existing liabilities. Dwan echoed this sentiment, posting on the social networking site, "The big gripe I have is both of them not realizing how big of a mistake it was for FTP to accept deposits after April 15th."
Dwan also recognized that he was ignorant of Full Tilt's financial situation and should have kept himself more abreast of the inner workings of the site: "I think I have some obligation as a person/known poker player to when possible help people avoid being taken advantage of - and I messed up some by not trying to make more sure that FTP had the players' $$. I think the owners owed this to the players more than I did obviously."
Dwan added that the site not having enough cash on hand to cover player balances made it "a bit extra ridiculous (although still understandable to me and definitely possible I would've made the same mistake) that so few owners were willing to step up and take Board seats to provide oversight."
Shortly after the final installment of "The Lederer Files" was released, Full Tilt owner John Juanda fired back at the notion that he refused to pay his $256,000 loan to the site. Juanda (pictured) dropped the following bombshell on Twitter late last week: "I owe FTP $256K, was offered to settle for 80% but declined when I found out Ray [Bitar], w/Board's approval, was still taking home $200K+/mo post BF." He added, "As Ray Bitar's boss, Howard Lederer should've accepted more blame instead of trying to shift blame to everyone else."Dwan responded to Juanda's comments about Lederer's interview: "Lol @johnjuanda c'mon. Some of what Howard said wasn't exact, but seemed like he tried to be accurate. He didn't guess enough, and Andy seemed pretty on point. Both of them were way off in thinking FTP taking deposits post-Black Friday was acceptable. Rest wasn't too bad imo."
Visit Tom Dwan's Twitter feed to read his thoughts. If you missed any of "The Lederer Files," check out PocketFives' recaps of Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.
