Zee bus? Oui oui I'll throw you under it.

In an exclusive interview with PokerStrategy.com, a lawyer for Groupe Bernard Tapie stated the company’s potential acquisition of Full Tilt Poker was in “serious jeopardy” in part due to unpaid debts from a number of high-profile pros.

As GBT lawyer Behn Dayanim explained to PokerStrategy:

GBT doesn’t want to acquire assets which will need to be litigated over later. In total, the sum owed to the company is between $10 and $20 million. 

Pros named as debtors include Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Layne Flack, David Benyamine, Barry Greenstein, and Mike Matusow.

The only pros to respond so far–and the only one we anticipate to respond–was Barry Greenstein via this post on 2+2. In it, Greenstein admits to borrowing “$400,000 to play on Full Tilt a few years ago, before PokerStars had high stakes games.” He also published an excerpt of a letter he issued to GBT in which he states in some murky logic that:

The consensus in the poker community is that all money owed to Full Tilt or taken by investors after the company became insolvent should be used to pay back player’s funds. If I were to make a deal with you it would look like I had turned my back on the best interests of the American players.

All in all, the statement by GBT left us scratching our heads. There was nothing positive that could possibly come from it. Yes, if pros owe the company money, it should be repaid. But publicly outing the debtors–and having the (de) gall to claim that non-payment puts the acquisition in jeopardy, is highly irresponsible at best or (more likely) a flat-out lie at worst.

For specific reasons as to why we believe GBT made this announcement, plus our analysis of what the GBT statement could really mean, go to Wicked Chops Insider here.

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2012 WSOP Schedule, 2012 WSOP Main Event

The 2012 WSOP schedule was announced today.

The big news is–despite speculation that it would be axed–the November 9 will remain for one more year.

Except it’ll be played in October. October 28th and 30th to be exact. Expect lots of wacky Halloween costumes in the stands.

The reason for the change: the WSOP did not want to run the Main Event final table during the same time frame as the U.S. Presidential elections.

Otherwise, the 2012 WSOP schedule is mostly the same as the past few years.

The 2012 WSOP will run from Sunday, May 27 (with the first open bracelet event on Monday the 28th, i.e. Memorial Day) through July 16th.

The WSOP clearly expects this year to be bigger and better than its record-breaking 2011 iteration. A total of 61 bracelets will be up for grabs in 2012 (three more than last year). A total of 92 tables will be added this year as well, as the Rio is opening up the Brasilia room to accommodate the expected overflow.

The $1,000,000 buy-in Project One Drop tournament will begin Sunday, July 1st. And the 2012 WSOP Main Event will begin on Saturday, July 7th.

Get a full breakdown of the new events and schedule on wsop.com here.

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Sacreblue! Savior faire is everywhere!

Full Tilt Poker has agreed to final terms with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) to forfeit the company’s assets.

This completes the latest complicated move which would allow Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) to take over the company–after it pays the DoJ $80 million ($40 of which it essentially gets back) for those aforementioned assets.

GBT still must get Full Tilt’s gaming licensed reinstated from the Alderney Gaming Control Commission (AGCC) before the site could operate again.

In an interview with Gaming Intelligence, Laurent Tapie said that he hopes to have a re-branded Full Tilt Poker launched by March 1.

We’ll post analysis of these latest developments on Wicked Chops Insider on Wednesday.
Read more about the story on Poker News here.

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Chris Ferguson has seen better days. Although this probably wasn't one of them either.

Subject:Poker dropped a thorough investigative piece on Wednesday detailing Chris Ferguson‘s [not so] secret [anymore] bank accounts with Full Tilt Poker/Pocket Kings.

Give it a read here, but the gist is Ferguson moved a lot of money between accounts, loaned Tilt a bundle of cash post-Black Friday, bought shares from many a shareholder, and is potentially keeping the skids on the Groupe Bernard Tapie deal from going through.

Player reaction to the story via Twitter was expectedly harsh. Some notable remarks:

Jonathan Aguiar:

Given recent reports detailing Chris Ferguson‘s transgressions at FTP I assume @WSOP will be covering his banner in the future

Gavin Griffin:

I’m disgusted, I used to like Chris

Brian Hastings:

Please no

Short-Stack Shamus:

Chris Ferguson‘s lawyer having the name Imrich is the uncanny-name-bookend of Moneymaker starting it all.

The biggest arrows though were flung by WPT Raw Deal host Tony Dunst:

If Chris Ferguson shows his face in poker again I’ll happily be the first one to drive a stake through that piece of shits ankle.

I’d bring retribution to Lederer too if I weren’t so confident that the fat fuck will eat himself to death if he has any money left.

Expect absolute bedlam to ensue if Ferguson actually does keep the Tapie-Tilt deal from happening.

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Gus Hansen is up at the Aussie Millions $100k High Rollers while Phil Ivey bowed out.

We’ve long maintained that if The Events of 4/15^TM were to cause a drop in live tournament participation entrants, that impact wouldn’t be felt until this year. There was just enough money in the poker ecosystem to keep numbers afloat until the end of the year. After that, we thought it’d be interesting times.

That belief has mostly held true. Post-4/15, just about every tour or event, with the exception of the Epic Poker League, has met or exceeded expectations.

But 2012 has seen the PCA Main Event witness its first drop in numbers. Now, not surprisingly given it was basically Full Tilt‘s answer to the aforementioned PCA, the Aussie Millions is taking a hit as well.

A total of 153 entered Day 1A of the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event–down from 238 in 2011. A partial reason for the drop is evident by reading last year’s Day 1A post–the leaderboard was littered by Full Tilters.

This year, the leaderboard is littered mostly with a bunch of Who The Fuck Are Theys.

Brett Watson is the Day 1A big stack with 257,400. He’s followed by Paul Sing with 177,100.

Maria Ho, a woman, is among the biggest surviving names, stacked at 49,600.

Get full Day 1A chip counts here.

Part of the reason for the lack of star quality on Day 1A is that many big names–including Phil Ivey– elected to play the $100,000 High Roller event.

Ivey stopped playing tournaments after he decided to burn down the Full Tilt Poker house with his May 2011 lawsuit. However, with the likely sale of the company to be completed with Groupe Bernard Tapie, Ivey has resurfaced recently, first playing the APT Macau Main Event, and now this. Ivey didn’t survived the day, as he was knocked out in 9th place, one spot shy of the final table.

Continuing his recent good run, Gus Hansen leads the High Rollers final table, stacked at 567,000. He’s closely followed by “Salty” Joe Hachem with 538,500. Hachem earlier in the day announced his new partnership with AsianLogic (more about this on Wicked Chops Insider later in the week).

First place in the $100k will pay just over $1M AUD. Get full final table chip counts here.

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