http://www.quadjacks.com/2011/05/16/...ker-5162011-2/

highly recommend everyone checking this out. it's good to see someone speaking out against FT and the people who have a piece of it. (Ivey, Lederer, Ferguson, etc)

Matusow's rebuttal interview is here:

http://www.quadjacks.com/wp-content/...kemattie11.mp3

Listened to the whole thing. It's 40 min long. It got pretty bleak there at the end. I feel like Tony G has his own angle in all this, whatever that angle may be. But anyway...

Tony G's take on all this is that he doesn't think FT has the money to pay us back but the "faces" of FT do (Ivey, Lederer, Ferguson, etc). He is calling for said faces to speak out and say that player funds are safe. He also thinks said faces are personally financially responsible (as a group) to repay player funds. He believes that they profited from FT for so many years and that the 25 million dollar mansions they live in aren't theirs but in fact belong to the players until all funds are returned.

I wasn't really seeing it from this angle until now. I think I agree.

ya going to be interesting to see if FTP hasnt paid out by the time the WSOP starts, if these guys show up (Tony G mentioned that none of them showed up for the 25k WPT) and what type of reception they receive from players and media. Youd have to imagine that players will definately give them flack and possibly outright rude to them and media/interviewers are going to mob them all with questions constantly throughout the series about FTP and US player payouts.

 

Originally Posted by MarkFSU1

ya going to be interesting to see if FTP hasnt paid out by the time the WSOP starts, if these guys show up (Tony G mentioned that none of them showed up for the 25k WPT) and what type of reception they receive from players and media. Youd have to imagine that players will definately give them flack and possibly outright rude to them and media/interviewers are going to mob them all with questions constantly throughout the series about FTP and US player payouts.

If this isn't resolved by wsop time then those big names won't show up imo. It'll be all about risk/reward for them at that point. They will choose to protect their lifestyle over playing for a bracelet. Remember they are already rich and don't play tourneys for the money anymore. We may see a complete absence of the top FT pros this year.

Matusow's interview isn't a rebuttal, it came before the Tony G interview.

He said this

"everyone will get paid"

he said the players dont understand what it takes to run a business and there's a lot of shit happening and that FTP is working round the clock, and that everyone will be paid.

Matusow is a fucking moron. I wouldn't trust a thing he says.

And FTP is such a joke that not only are they not transparent with things like PnL sheets but they aren't even transparent about their ownership. And I think that was part of TonyG's point. They were basically tied into the profits and now wanna vanish when shit goes wrong.

I"m not gonna say they're obligated to honor player deposits but it would be nice if they were just a little bit more transparent about what exactly is the reason for the delay and when exactly we can expect payment. They were the face of FTP and now they are taking zero accountability.

the truth hurts

One theory that I haven't seen voiced yet that might deserve some consideration would be that FTP has funds buried away in the tax havens that needs to be cleaned before it can be dispersed. In which case they could still conceivably move it through a so-called "investor". Any chance of that?

I have a hard time believing that FTP can't cover the customer deposits, but perhaps the phantom deposits and the wild marketing budget made a bigger dent than I realize.

so obv FTP is hiding something, if stars is paying out no reason FTP couldn't pay out too.

I agree 100% with what Tony G. said, you have to take the risk with the reward. I understand Team FTP not running out and saying "We will make it right" but the way they are acting is redic.

Ivey is all about his word when it comes to big sides bets, this is no different. You can't tell people to come play with the pros then just walk away with their money when it all goes to shit.

Tony G interview was good, good that he is trying to do something to get the money back.

 

Originally Posted by adamsapple19

Also, I gotta say that Mike Matusow is the last fucking person I wanna be hearing from representing FT during all this. Can't we get someone well-spoken and thoughtful like Andy Bloch or Eric Seidel? Jus sayin.

Exactly. What a classless interview from Mike.

I believe what mike is saying though, he's just frustrated with all the angry people hasselling for their money. He could handle it with more class though for sure.

Agreed Matusow is probably one of the worst/least credible people to hear from. He's pretty notorious in the poker world about being bad about money; I've seen high stakes episodes that he had to get backed just to play his cash games, comments I've seen him taking from other high stakes players etc. Even here he was talking about how he had to ask for money from Tony G for a 10k buyin because he "couldn't get his money wired on time." Seriously at the stakes he plays and he doesn't even have 10k in his bank? Not trying to bash him just stating the facts. I can understand that anyone affiliated with Full Tilt very likely had some level of legal advice as to what they could and could not say. But I don't see any harm in them simply getting onto a radio, a poker forum, etc. and assuring the online poker players that they will get their money.

The more concerning thing I heard him slip is two things: (1) When he was badmouthing stars "what did they ever do for the poker community?" to which one of the hosts says "well they paid the poker players their money," he says "yeah but they have like 100x more money than tilt." Yeah isn't that our concern? That Full Tilt doesn't have enough money to cover? He also got caught backpedaling from being certain the players will get their money to he strongly believes they'll get it. And he also says he has no idea of the details of fulltilt - so how can he possibly know anything anyway?

When you think about it, it really comes down to accounting. You have a "Player Account Fund" then you have a "Rake Fund". The "Player Fund" would cover all funds owned by players on the site. The "Rake Fund" would be the sites profit and would pay for site pros, marketing, web development, software, CEO pay, mansions, cars, jets, strip club bitches, blow, herb, etc. For simplicity you would think that these accounts would be kept separate, though we have discovered recently that this may not have been the case. Lets say, hypothetically, that these funds were kept separate. Here are some things that would directly affect the "Player Fund", and if not done could account for the "Player Fund" coming up very very short when everyone wants to withdraw....

1. It has been stated that for every dollar you receive in profits from these sites they have paid $.20-.30 to get that money on to their site and then to you in numerous transactions. This is just bank/processor charges. Are we assuming that the poker site reimburses the "Player Fund" at the end of every month to cover this?

2. Deposit Bonuses are grinded out and eventually those bonus funds should technically be deposited into the "Player Fund" each month from the sites "Rake Fund"....

3. Random Payment Processors get shut down and run with millions in pending player fund transactions.... the site should be reimbursing the "Player Fund" with all of those loses on a consistent basis.

4. Deposits from US banks that havn't been clearing for months, yet the site credits the players' account and allows them to lose their funds on the site.... Did they reimburse the "Player Fund" for all of those uncleared deposits that they are unable to get their hands on?

5. FPP's that are used for buying into mtts or converted to cash.... this is basically creating money in the player fund that does not exist. Did the site reimburse the "Player Fund" each month to compensate for the FPP transactions?

In reality all of the money was lumped into one massive account and the company figured they had more money than god and spent it accordingly. So when we hear a site describing their current situation as "an accounting nightmare" this is why. So call it a "ponzi scheme" or operating on "expectation" either way they spent massive amounts of player funds on bull shit that they clearly could not afford to do. Hopefully some of that bullshit is recoverable and we all see a % of our account balances, if not all.

got big love for tony g, hes never been 1 to sit back an be quiet and really speaks the truth here

where are the poker stars pro's coming out against the full tilt pro's.

seriously unacceptable they havnt said anything now let alone not promised some percentage of the players fund back already

 

Originally Posted by ShyGuy03533

no.... stars and ub and ftp all act as banks do with their accounts.

when you depo money in a bank, there isn't a file or box that says 'Joe Schmo's money' and you have your actual money in there. The bank has like an admin account of millions of dollars, and they withdraw the funds from their admin account into your account.

If your account says 50,000, and they only have 20,000, they call the fed reserve and get more money and blah blah blah

ub and ftp dont have a fed reserve to call, and real banks also dont have people dipping into their main admin account.... or at least most banks dont.

if a bank gets seized due to federal money laundering / fraud, ur account is wiped out with their assets, which is why when you go to the bank teller, theres those little signs saying

'ur money is gaurenteed up to $15,000' or whutever

the only reason why stars is able to pay people back is not because they kept money seperate... its because their assets far exceeded their debts to players... they didn't have crooks and 'pros' dipping into the main sites account for $ like UB, and apparently ftp is starting to seem like they did too.

at least UB is paying international players back and increasing their pay limits.

i posted this like a week ago on another thread and everyone just laughed at me or called me an idiot... :(

while stars may have had seperate accounts for players funds and rake... the point is, they didn't have pros grabbing funds from their MAIN account like ftp seems to has been.

lol one week later tho..