Tag: Howard Lederer

Epic Poker League Suspends Lederer and Ferguson

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The Epic Poker League decided to tackle a potential problem before it could even happen this time.  After running into issues twice so far at their two Main Events, the Epic Poker League has decided to suspend both Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson from playing in any events.  The EPL had its first issue when their first Main Event champion, Chino Rheem, was outed for having multiple debts to some other big names in poker that he had refused to pay.  He was placed on probation by the EPL until he pays back all of his debts.  Then was the situation with Michael DiVita, who was not allowed to participate in the Main Event, which he won a seat into; due to the fact that he is a registered sex offender.

These two things above lead to the decision on Lederer and Ferguson, both of which have not played in any Epic Poker League Events to date.  What’s especially interesting about this situation is that Lederer is the brother of the Commissioner of the league, Annie Duke.  Both Lederer and Ferguson are five year card holders for the league, but only Lederer has signed the league’s Player Disciplinary Policy and Players’ Code of Conduct.  To this point though, it has really been unlikely that either of them would participate in any other event until the situation with Full Tilt Poker was handled.

One other situation that comes from this, is the question of what will happen with Rafe Furst.  Furst is not a card holder with the Epic Poker League, so they could not specifically ban him from any of the Main Events.  One could assume that if he was to attempt to enter any of the Pro-Am’s though, that he would be banned from playing in the league as well.

The Epic Poker League has done well to this point, but is still sorting out the situation with DiVita and the code of conduct with the league.  It will be interesting to see if any other leagues place bans on Lederer, Ferguson, and Furst within the next few months while the Full Tilt Poker situation continues on.

Full Tilt Poker Puppet Show

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According to a post on QuadJacks.com the person who has been keeping the poker community informed of what’s going on with US player cash-outs from Full Tilt Poker is none other than Full Tilt Poker PR representative Michelle Clayborne posing as “FTPDoug” on the 2+2 Poker Forums. As source close to Full Tilt Poker claims that “the real FTPDoug left the company a long time ago and they just use the name since he had some credibility on 2+2.”

According to the same source claiming to be very close to Full Tilt Poker, “Ms. Clayborne is/was the personal assistant to Howard Lederer, among other Full Tilt pros. Another source reported in late May that she had also worked closely with Phil Ivey, but that he had since terminated their professional relationship.”

Michelle Clayborne is also said to have written the angry response issued by TiltWare to the announcement by Phil Ivey that he is not playing in this year’s WSOP and is suing Full Tilt Poker.

What exactly does this all mean?
It means that someone at Full Tilt Poker, possibly Howard Lederer himself, has been pulling all the strings and feeding the online poker playing public misinformation for the past 2 months. With the exception of the initial press release by Full Tilt Poker claiming that they are working with the US Department of Justice to release player funds the only information players have received has come from the “FTPDoug” account on 2+2.

Most US online poker players have lost faith in Full Tilt’s ability to pay and as time passes players from other countries are beginning to as well. According to Pokerscout.com Full Tilt’s traffic is now down over 52% since April 15th, 2011.

Now that the “FTPDoug” account has been outed, we have no idea how Full Tilt will try and get a message out to players but we’ll keep an eye out for the next puppet show.