Full Tilt Restrains Sponsored Players
The competition between the major online poker rooms seems to be getting fiercer every year. It was reported by some industry sources that in a recent and fairly controversial move, Full Tilt Poker has told their sponsored professional players to not attend poker tournaments and events that are sponsored by sites considered competition. The territory restrictions are very ambiguous in this statement and nobody from the administrative staff of Full Tilt has confirmed that this “ban” will be enforced.
Their reasoning behind this move is that it is not good for Full Tilt Poker having its players add to the prestige of rival’s tournaments. News also broke that Howard Lederer has decided to step away from the operational front of Full Tilt Poker and has left Ray Bitar and his team to make all the decisions from now on.
Critics from all poker news sources are already reacting to this. Gary Wise, ESPN poker blogger, wrote the following; “For the last eight years, ‘good for poker’ has been a unifying rally cry. The game and the online industry built upon it, fought for growth and acceptance… are we seeing the increasingly corporate mentality of the industry bring an end to that chapter?” This might be something for all of us to think about.
Tags: full tilt poker, gary wise, howard lederer, ray bitar