Poker Full Tilt Online

It’s about time For the last several years, Full Tilt Poker has been like Dr. Malcolm Crow in The Sixth Sense, an online poker room that didn’t know it was really dead. On Thursday, finally, the. Full Tilt Poker was launched in 2004, just three years after PokerStars’ inception. It was opened with the involvement of some of the biggest names in the industry: Raymond Bitar, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow, Jennifer Harman and others.

One of the most iconic — and perhaps most infamous — brands in poker will become a thing of the past on Feb. 25.

That's the reported date on which PokerStars will shelve Full Tilt Poker, its former arch rival, for good. The news was first released by Pokerfuse and is confirmed by a FAQ page on PokerStars' website detailing some of the minutiae of the move for its remaining FTP players.

Those players will essentially just be migrating over to the main skin of the network, so there won't be much meaningful change in their playing experience.

'Our commitment to improving PokerStars software and the PokerStars customer experience in recent years has limited the amount of focus and resources we could apply to the evolution of Full Tilt,' the company stated. 'We feel it is time to consolidate brands so that everyone has access to the newest features and most innovative games which are available exclusively on PokerStars.'

A Rich History...

Full Tilt Poker was not one of the early sites to market, dealing its first virtual cards in 2004.

However, co-founder Ray Bitar teamed up with some of the biggest names in the industry. The likes of Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Mike Matusow were behind the brand, and their celebrity, combined with an aggressive marketing push, led to huge success for the site.

'Learn, chat and play with the pros.'

That ubiquitous slogan, along with the trademark black and white commercials creatively utilizing the site's immense roster of sponsored pros, beckoned countless thousands of players to give Full Tilt a try. The brand became a world leader, trailing only PokerStars in a raw numbers.

But where PokerStars laid claim to the biggest quantity, Full Tilt could credibly claim to house the best quality of poker in the world.

The highest stakes games in the world usually ran there, including monstrous and legendary games as high as $500/$1,000 blinds on the famed Rail Heaven table. Patrik Antonius, Viktor Blom, Hac and Di Dang, Gus Hansen, Ivey and more made Rail Heaven their favored battleground, which in turn made it the greatest place for fans to watch six-figure pots trading hands on the regular.

Correspondingly large pot-limit Omaha tables eventually produced the biggest pots in online poker history.

The software, too, was almost as celebrated as the quality of the games. Colorful avatars and lively animations made for an entertaining experience for the casual player. A fun MTT schedule gave tournament grinders tons of options at every price point and let players aspire to one day earn a custom avatar by virtue of winning a Full Tilt Online Poker Series event.

Considered industry leaders in many respects, the FTP team birthed innovations like fast-fold poker — now a mainstay almost everywhere — and rolled out creative ideas like Irish poker that were later adapted in some fashion by PokerStars.

It all made for a high-quality and incredibly popular product. And it all came to a crashing halt in 2011.

...But a Marred One, Too

The machinations of Black Friday dealt harsh blows at many levels of the poker industry, with the ripple effects being felt to this day.

However, perhaps the most shocking development in the aftermath was the revelation that Full Tilt's accounts were more than $300 million underwater. The company had $60 million cash on hand but player balances amounted to $390 million, with $150 million of that owed to U.S. players.

After repeated assurances from company reps that players would be paid, the fact of the matter was the company simply didn't have the money to make good on that promise.

Luckily for everyone involved, PokerStars stepped in and acquired Full Tilt's assets, with part of the deal stipulating they'd make the players whole in the process.

Entire books could be written about the ordeal and the fallout thereafter, all of which is to say the whole thing is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say some former FTP brass paid millions in penalties, others became pariahs, friends became enemies and countless poker players everywhere were left with sour tastes in their mouths regarding a once beloved company.

Relaunch and Merger

Full Tilt Poker relaunched in November 2012, but it quickly became a shell of its former self. FTOPS returned, and high-stakes action even got rolling, but the site predictably failed to regain its former glory.

As the operator slid in the worldwide rankings, company brass attempted some moves that left many in the industry scratching their heads. Rake was bumped up in many spots, rewards were cut in others, table maxes were changed from six to five players in some games and many high-stakes offerings were removed from the client altogether.

The result?

A dive in traffic as unhappy players left the site. That was in August 2015.

Early the next year, decision-makers at parent company Amaya opted to pull the plug on Full Tilt being a standalone operator, migrating the players into the same pool with PokerStars. What would have once been monumental, industry-shaking news, barely registered as a blip on the poker radar, the surest sign of all that the glory days of Full Tilt were far in the past and never likely to rekindle.

Seemingly Little Chance of Return

After the merger, PokerNews spoke to industry expert Chris Grove to get his take on the functional end of the once-proud brand. He pointed to the decline of the international online poker market as a whole as a big reason for the decision to migrate the players to PokerStars.

'In a world where Full Tilt found a unique niche or footing, or in a world where online poker continued to expand, I think we certainly could have seen the two sites continue on separately,' he said. 'Only when it became clear that Full Tilt wasn't finding that footing did a merger start to seem like a matter of 'when' more than 'if.'

With online poker moving toward a regulated future in the U.S., that meant there could have been buyers interested in acquiring Full Tilt. They'd get to avoid the headache of constructing software from scratch, to say nothing of the brand's name recognition stateside. Grove estimated PokerStars could rake in between $10 million and $50 million with such a move.

Of course, that would require interest by the selling party as well, and that never seemed much of a possibility. Poker Industry PRO reported being told by a company rep the software wasn't for sale ($), and nothing that happened in the intervening years has made that appear to be mere lip service.

The most likely case going forward would appear to be Full Tilt Poker simply collects dust in a virtual PokerStars storage room. In one sense, having your once-chief rival neatly tucked away on some backup storage drive is the ultimate power move.

In another, though, it's the most sad, meek ending imaginable to a company that took the poker world by storm more than 15 years ago.

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Online PokerFull Tilt

Full Tilt Poker used to be one of the biggest and most popular destinations during the early days of onlinepoker, and while it had to compete with the likes of PokerStars and Party Poker, Full Tilt managed to hold its own over the years for many reasons.

The first and the most obvious one was their
roster of high-profile players.

With the likes of Phil Ivey, Chris “Jesus”
Ferguson, Howard “The Professor” Lederer, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan wearing their
colors, Full Tilt quickly became the number one destination for poker fans.

Secondly, their software was unique and quite
modern for the early to mid-2000s. Featuring a cartoonish design and funny
avatars but still offering a very player-friendly and easy-to-use interface, it
was well ahead of its time.

So, what happened to Full Tilt Poker?

If you try to look up the room today, you might
get excited initially as the website still exists.

However, that excitement will be short-lived as
you’ll quickly realize it’s just a skin of PokerStars that kept some of the
original design, but not much else.

If you’ve been wondering what happened to FTP,
this is the full story, from the glorious beginning to the bitter end.

Full Tilt Poker Takes
The Poker World By Storm

The poker boom started during the early 2000s, before things really took off in 2003 after the legendary WSOP Main Event win by Chris Moneymaker.

The writing was on the wall, and those in the
know saw a huge business potential in the game.

Chris Ferguson, already an established and
accomplished player at the time, was among those who saw the opening and
decided to take his chances. He paired up with Ray Bitar, and together they
launched Full Tilt Poker in July of 2004.

They wasted no time bringing big names onboard.

The likes of Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Erick Lindgren, and Jennifer Harman joined Full Tilt Poker, and the room devised a very clever strategy to attract new players.

Under the slogan “play with the pros” FTP appealed
to the masses of poker fans who rushed to the site for their chance to sit
across from one of their favorite players.

The room received plenty of additional
marketing thanks to High Stakes Poker’s sponsorship, easily the most popular
poker show ever filmed.

On top of all this, many fans of the game would
log in to Full Tilt just to observe some high stakes cash game action.

The site became the go-to place for everyone
seeking to playonline nosebleeds, with $300/$600+ games running regularly.

By the end of 2005, Full Tilt Poker had taken over the onlinepoker scene, leaving Party Poker and PokerStars, their two biggest competitors at the time, far behind.

Full Tilt was the synonym for onlinepoker
during those early years.

FTP Rolls The Dice As The UIGEA Is Passed

By this point in time, there is hardly anyone
in the poker world, especially if they happen to be from the U.S., who doesn’t
know about the infamous Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

The Act was targeted at financial institutions in the States, expressly forbidding them to process any transactions directed towards online gambling sites.

This was a big hit for onlinepoker.

Prior to 2006, players from the U.S. made up a
large percentage of the overall player pool.

However, the UIGEA was directed at financial
institutions and not gambling and poker operators themselves, so there was some
grey area.

Party Poker decided that it was too much of a
risk to continue operating in the States, but PokerStars and Full Tilt saw
another opportunity here.

The people behind Full Tilt Poker decided to
roll the dice and continue business as usual. Some years later, this would
prove to be a big mistake.

Once the initial dust had settled, it seemed
things were back to normal.

With one competitor less to worry about, Full
Tilt made the brand even stronger and it seemed like their decision to ignore
the UIGEA was spot on.

This was just an illusion, though.

Full Tilt Poker Online Chat

Things were happening behind the scenes that
the general public and even some of those inside the company weren’t aware of.

The pin was about the drop, and when it finally
did, FTP received a huge blow that it would never recover from.

The U.S. Department Of Justice Takes On Online Poker

April 15, 2011, is a date that almost every
poker player who’s been around for a while is well familiar with.

It became known as Black Friday as it was easily the hardest and ugliest day in the relatively short history of onlinepoker.

Players who logged on that day were faced with this shocking message:

On that day, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) made it very clear that pretending the UIGEA didn’t exist wasn’t the best move.

They spent several years building the case and collecting the evidence, but they went hard when they were ready to go.

In a single day, they took down websites of
three major poker operators in the U.S. Apart from FTP, PokerStars and Absolute
Poker’s domains were also seized.

The shock that players experienced on that day
when they tried to log in to their Full Tilt accounts can hardly be put into
words.

Many people had substantial amounts of cash
stuck on the site, and no one saw the DoJ coming.

False Promises And The
Fall Of Full Tilt Poker

Initially, Full Tilt Poker issued several
reassuring statements that players had nothing to worry about as their money
was safe.

With the promise of paying U.S. players in
full, the room was allowed to continue operating in the rest of the world for a
short while.

However, after a few weeks, it became clear
that something wasn’t right. The DoJ shut down FTP once again, and underlying
problems started to surface.

It would turn out that the promises about funds
being safe were completely false.

The room didn’t have all the players’ money
readily available, and the DoJ launched a full-scale investigation into the
matter.

Soon after, the claims of the “Ponzi
scheme” operation came about.

Full Tilt Poker has been experiencing problems
processing payments for years.

Some payment processors that dealt with U.S.
deposits weren’t sending them money, but the room continued to add it to the
players’ balances just the same, while actual transactions were stuck in limbo.

While the room was operational, they could
handle the backlog, although players were complaining about delayed withdrawals
long before Black Friday.

But, once they were forced to shut down the
operation and money from new players stopped coming in, it was the end.

There simply wasn’t enough money in FTP’s accounts
to cover everyone’s balances.

Players were furious and felt betrayed, but
there wasn’t much anyone could do at that point. It was hopeless situation.

Who Was To Blame For Full
Tilt Poker’s Fall?

Once the FTP scandal came to light, both the
authorities and players started to ask questions.

Whose fault was it? How did such a big room
with such a great market position end up where it was?

All eyes were directed at the main honchos: Ray
Bitar, Howard Lederer, and Chris Ferguson.

At the very least, they had to know about these
issues, and they had the responsibility to act before it was too late.

But, the poker community was hit with deafening
silence for the most part – they never got the answers they were hoping for.

By that time, Ferguson (below) was no longer as involved with the company management.

Lederer did a few interviews, but his response to most questions was, “I don’t know.” Bitar stayed away from the public eye.

During the investigation, it was revealed that
the management of FTP further deepened the crisis by issuing big loans to some
of their big-name players.

In the end, the blame for the FTP fiasco falls
to those in charge at the time.

Full Tilt Net

For that reason, they were ostracized by the
poker community and had to pay hefty fines.

But, the whole story of what was actually
happening behind the closed doors in those last years and months of Full Tilt
Poker was never told in full.

One must wonder what would have happened if
Black Friday had never occurred.

Perhaps the story of Full Tilt Poker would be
much different. Maybe they’d have found a way to get the funds, and we’d have
been none would be the wiser.

PokerStars Buys Full
Tilt And Restores Player Funds

The uncertainty surrounding FTP was concerning.

It soon became clear that the company couldn’t
pay players back, so they had to find someone willing to take over and rectify
the situation.

With the brand tarnished and the player trust
severely shaken, this was not an easy feat.

In July 2012, former FTP players could finally
see the light at the end of the tunnel after long and painful months of
waiting.

PokerStars agreed to purchase the fallen star and
reimburse all players’ balances: those from the U.S. and the rest of the world
alike.

Shortly after, the ROW players could log back in
to their old FTP accounts and access their funds.

Money was available for withdrawal, and players
could also opt to transfer it to their PokerStars account through a rather
simple process.

However, U.S. players weren’t so lucky.

Although the repayment money was secured, there
was a long process ahead. It wasn’t before 2014 that first installments started
to come in for those who went through necessary steps to claim what was owed to
them.

It took several years for this process to
complete.

With financial issues out of the way, the
question became: what would happen with Full Tilt Poker?

For a little while, the room was up and running
again, and with PokerStars now backing the brand, some players believed the
room would bounce back and reclaim its position.

FTP Discontinued: The
End Of An Era

It seems that PokerStars entertained the idea
of keeping Full Tilt Poker alive but eventually decided not to go through with
it.

While the brand certainly had some value,
everything that happened over the years made it very difficult to rebuild the
trust.

Plus, with PokerStars being the biggest brand
worldwide now that FTP was out the picture, there wasn’t much incentive to
spend resources on what used to be its competing brand.

PokerStars created a huge amount of goodwill
with the player base by purchasing FTP and reimbursing players in full.

They came through like a knight in shining
armor, making sure everyone got every single cent of their money back.

From a marketing perspective it was a great
move, even if a costly one.

PokerStars demonstrated their care for the
community, regardless of what their business motivation might have been. They
came through on their promise with no excuses.

But Full Tilt Poker had to go.

Once repayments were done, PokerStars decided
it was time to send the legendary room to the sidelines.

They kept the domain and the software, as this
was a part of the purchase, but FTP stopped existing as a standalone entity.

Instead, it is now just a skin of PokerStars
with a slightly different design.

If you download Full Tilt Poker today, you’ll
find that it features exactly the same games and players as the original
PokerStars client.

The Final Goodbye To
Full Tilt Poker

Those involved with onlinepoker during the
early 2000s will always remember Full Tilt Poker with a bit of nostalgia.

It was the place where some of the most epic
high stakes battles took place and where many up-and-coming players made a name
for themselves.

On the other hand, heaps of freerolls and
small-stakes games and tournaments made it possible for everyone to experience
the game and build their bankrolls from scratch.

Had chips fallen differently, there is no
telling what would’ve become of Full Tilt Poker.

Perhaps it would be the strongest brand today.
Perhaps it would run its course and shut down, like so many other rooms over
the years.

In the end, the story of Full Tilt Poker wasn’t
a glorious one, but the room certainly had its moments.

It’s a shame that PokerStars decided to put it
away for good, but maybe it was for the best.

Full Tilt Real Money Usa