Originally Posted by MikeBucks

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but I thought it was pretty interesting:
http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/05...ker/#more-2936

Fascinating stuff... They seem pretty shady and vindictive to me, but also shrewd and pragmatic. I really don't understand, though, how they could possibly think it fair to require people to play through gigantic requirements just to cash out existing balances on the site. That was money that belonged to people - it'd be like E-trade forcing you to make 1,000 trades before withdrawing the money you deposited. It's simply unacceptable, and his failure to acknowledge this tells me that there's a fundamental lack of understanding there about the customers' side of this situation.

 

Originally Posted by scottypimpin1

Very interesting, he's looking to hire the entire pocket kings/full tilt staff and still provide a payment plan ROW players that have Full Tilt funds locked up if they play on his new site....why does he need ALL of pocket fives key staff members though? And I don't know about being "best of breed in 6-7 months."

Yeah, he's definitely overconfident about this. And I think he's wrong. I'm sure they could build some great software, since the people behind Full Tilt really did do a great job with that. But building a player base is something that takes years, not months. Full Tilt had most of the biggest names in poker endorsing them for a couple years before they really started getting big. They obviously wanted to use the player balances as leverage to get games going - basically like getting props for free. But they won't have that leverage on their new site. I think they can do well if they get all these FT people, but "best of breed" seems farfetched

 

Originally Posted by CANUKEH44

It's probably easier for him to hire existing staff other than scour the world for new. Very interesting article.
I thought after all of this maybe He would try to buy UB/AP and resurrect them from the ashes which might not be such a bad business investment. It would not be that difficult to merge the 2 together and re design the software giving it a fresh start.

Don't really see that happening for a number of reasons - mostly the DOJ and player balance stuff that seemed to hang them up on FTP. I think their software's not too bad, but nowhere near what FT had. It's worth something but probably not worth taking on the responsibility of paying back well into eight figures of player balances.

Also, if Full Tilt was a disaster on the affiliate/rakeback front, then UB/AP is Chernobyl. So many absolutely brutal deals in the mix there. It's hard for me to see any way for that company to be saved.

Oops lol, make that Pocket Kings. I'd sure much rather have yall involved in all their decisions rather than what their current staff did anyways!

 

Originally Posted by Adam

Don't really see that happening for a number of reasons - mostly the DOJ and player balance stuff that seemed to hang them up on FTP. I think their software's not too bad, but nowhere near what FT had. It's worth something but probably not worth taking on the responsibility of paying back well into eight figures of player balances.

Also, if Full Tilt was a disaster on the affiliate/rakeback front, then UB/AP is Chernobyl. So many absolutely brutal deals in the mix there. It's hard for me to see any way for that company to be saved.

Not sure about Ub debt to players. I know it is not as much as FTP still. If a reputable person in business was to swoop in and buy UB/AP basically for a song and dance they could re work the site and redesign it, get it up and running and then align themselves with a B&M in the US to eventually re enter the US market after it becomes legal.
I know I said this before but I think stars is going to have a hard time re entering the US market. Even with FTP.
A site that has been sold to a legit business would have a better chance even if the DOJ closed it down on Black Friday.
I am sure with new ownership UB would do okay.

GBT dragged the deal on and on when they had the chance to close it in the exclusive period. Probably overconfident and thought they were being the only potential buyer in town. Right now the deal is off and they came back to beg those FTP employees to start another site? Kinda pathetic...

 

Originally Posted by MJCACE

So nothing from Stars lately on this?

We've heard nothing from PokerStars other than a statement saying they couldn't comment:
http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/...rumors-587336/

We'll definitely keep everyone posted.

I grant you that I don't know all the "legalese" of exactly what they should, and should not be able to say, etc etc, but after Daniel Negreanu all but led a torch weilding mob to the homes of FTP heads for staying silent for so long, you can't tell me they can't simply say they're working on something, or there'll be more.

It's so insane to me that there are so many people that are so sick of all the absolute relentless stream of rumours and ups and downs through this whole thing and not one single person anywhere can simply step up and tell us what's going on.

 

Originally Posted by Adam

Fascinating stuff... They seem pretty shady and vindictive to me, but also shrewd and pragmatic. I really don't understand, though, how they could possibly think it fair to require people to play through gigantic requirements just to cash out existing balances on the site. That was money that belonged to people - it'd be like E-trade forcing you to make 1,000 trades before withdrawing the money you deposited. It's simply unacceptable, and his failure to acknowledge this tells me that there's a fundamental lack of understanding there about the customers' side of this situation.



Yeah, he's definitely overconfident about this. And I think he's wrong. I'm sure they could build some great software, since the people behind Full Tilt really did do a great job with that. But building a player base is something that takes years, not months. Full Tilt had most of the biggest names in poker endorsing them for a couple years before they really started getting big. They obviously wanted to use the player balances as leverage to get games going - basically like getting props for free. But they won't have that leverage on their new site. I think they can do well if they get all these FT people, but "best of breed" seems farfetched

GBT puts up a new site it's going to be a long slow process to build up traffic without the US players. Unless He gets it done and up and running about the same time as legislation goes through and the US market opens up again.

I never had a good cozy feeling about the deal anyway. Several of the people in our poker league have talked about it on many occasions. One even said He thought that maybe Tapie was planning to screw the players with the huge balances by dropping the doom switch on them. LOL

All the focus seems to be on Tapie's offer to key employees, but these guys all have non compete contracts so the only thing Tapie might have accomplished is getting himself sued, so he could then counter sue and try to tie pokerstars up in court until they offered him some nuisance money.

The real story here seems to be that GBT was negotiating in bad faith all along, dragging out the process until FTP had no money left, attempting to blackmail the pro players who received loans, hoping that the DOJ would fold, or preferably he could convince Bitar to put the company into liquidation and he could pick it up the assets he needed at auction even cheaper - scrubbed clean of liabilities but with repayment commitments from the named pros.

This appears to be one time where the 'tin foil hat' conspiracy crowd turned out to be right, and PokerStars coming to the rescue might only be the second biggest plot twist, with Ray Bitar turning out to be an accidental hero in this saga being the real shocker.

 

Originally Posted by Gotskillz

NEVER!

LOL Exactly what I was thinking.

full tilt has a hearing today at 14:00 local time which i think is 12 minutes not to sure.

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/0...tion-12484.htm

 

Originally Posted by sssssssivarT

full tilt has a hearing today at 14:00 local time which i think is 12 minutes not to sure.

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/0...tion-12484.htm

The hearing isn't taking place. After the FTP/GBT deal fell through, Orinic withdrew its license application:
http://www.gamblingcontrol.org/userf...l%20notice.pdf

lol honestly were probably never going to get paid, GBT was our best hope and that took almost a year to set up so even if stars does buy its probably going to be another year.

 

Originally Posted by ShyGuy03533

Where do you people come up with these assumptions (besides out your asses).

I have high hopes Pstars will come thru. Especially since they snapp jumped on the acquisition of FTP... So chances are they legit were waiting forever for gbt to fall through, and the second it did, they took it. Reason they didn't do it earlier was prolly cuz gbt had a non-intrusion negotiation safety net or something tht allowed only him to negotiate with FTP for a certain amount of time.
I'm speculating here, but I think some FTP people and DOJ people knew Pstars was waiting, so they kept pushing it off.. And then once it was legally allowed for Pstars to interject, they did.

Pstars came thru with $$ first time, I see no problems with them comin thru this time, especially since DOJ is prolly shit tired of us hounding our representatives and wht not, and plus they want their pay day.

Winner. I believe you are BANG ON. March 16 was that intrusion safety net you spoke of.
I see no reason to doubt that stars would come through if this offer is legit.
It takes a while to put a deal like this together also. The lawyers have to be able to make their money too.
Don't think it will be another year but at least 3 months. Aug or Sep.
I guess we will find out eventually.