Full Tilt Poker Scandal Howard

4/14/2022

Full Tilt Poker Scandal Howard Stern
Full Tilt Poker Play Money

But the former bracelet winners have received a frosty reception from players, many of whom haven’t forgiven the duo for their role in the Full Tilt Poker scandal five years ago.
Full Tilt is the home of The Deal. Just one five-card hand can unlock a wealth of prizes, including a 50% share of the hefty progressive jackpot. Pull up a seat today and find out what the cards have in.

Nit roll or slow roll? That’s a great debate worth having when it comes to this week’s classic Poker After Dark hand. Let’s examine one of the oddest poker hands in the canon between Andy Bloch and Howard ‘The Professor’ Lederer.

A CLASH OF PERSONALITIES

Howard Lederer If Ferguson was the public face of Full Tilt Poker, “The Professor of Poker” was the man behind the curtain. Lederer ran the shop, serving on the board of directors and devising the dividend payment scheme that ultimately doomed the site. Chief among the disapprovers of Ferguson’s prolonged silence regarding any acknowledgment of his role in the Full Tilt Poker scandal has been Daniel Negreanu. PokerNews caught up with 'DNegs'.

In some Poker After Dark hands, it’s easy to focus on the hand in question because we love both players. With so many heroes at each table of six, it was often a case of viewers preferring one player they liked slightly more than another and not being too disappointed whoever won it, just as long as it was fun to watch. This is no such hand.

In recent years, Howard Lederer has become synonymous with the Full Tilt Poker scandal and subsequent Black Friday closedown of 2011. With the weight of responsibility hanging loosely around his neck (along with Ray Bitar and Chris Ferguson), Lederer has hardly been seen since the events of eight years ago.

A RECENT HISTORY OF NITROLLS

When it comes to nitrolls, some of the best (or worst you might say) have happened in very recent history. In 2015, German player Andreas Gann risked the ire of the world by nit-rolling Donacha O’Dea with the nits when he tanked over calling all-in with the nut flush on the flop. O’Dea miracle a full house on the river for what many fans called justice.

A year later, there was an even more appropriate nitroll to this hand, when, at the 2016 Aussie Millions, Mikkel Habb took an eternity to call Sam Abernathy’s all-in. Habb held pocket kings and was in great shape against Abernathy’s sad-looking sixes. But, just like in the O’Dea hand, a six came on the river to reward the player who hadn’t nitrolled.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

While much has been made of Chris Ferguson, who was the 2017 WSOP Player of the Year thanks in no small part to the structure of the qualification thresholds that year, less was known about Lederer and Bitar in the years after the FTP scandal. Bitar famously pleaded that he had a heart ailment, allowing him to escape lightly from the ensuing court case in the aftermath of the scandal.

Lederer had disappeared for a long time, having given a bizarre non-apology at the time and having been hounded out of the argument by high profile players such as Daniel Negreanu. But he resurfaced a couple of years ago, playing a WSOP $10,000 buy-in 2-7 Draw Lowball event in 2016. He failed to cash, meaning the last time he did make money from a tournament entry was in 2011, just a year after this hand took place. He may have walked back into Bobby’s Room, but he did so to anger from the poker players he met.

BLOCHER BET

Andy Bloch led a more philanthropic life after he took ‘a very long time’ debating over whether to call The Professor’s big slick with his pocket kings. He’d always donated his FTP online winnings to charity but continued that theme in live tournaments too. He still plays poker, but the former MIT student who brought down the house by counting cards also released a blackjack DVD that promised to teach anyone how to beat the system.

While it wasn’t all about charity donations when it came to poker for either of these two very different men, both would look back on Poker After Dark as a watershed moment in their career. For Bloch, the peak of his fame. For Lederer, the last time he sat down at a poker table pretty much universally liked.

You can’t help but like what we have to offer on PokerGO, from exclusive documentaries to the latest Poker After Dark streaming. You can even go back in time and check out some amazing archive footage for the World Series of Poker. Subscribe now and get immediate access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

07:01
24 Apr

Mike Matusow has spilled the beans on what he says really happened at Full Tilt Poker in the run up to Black Friday. Infamously, on April 15th 2011, players logged into their accounts only to find that the domain had been seized by the FBI, along with all the money in the accounts.

Matusow has recently kicked off a new podcast he named “The Mouthpiece”, and in the first episode we hear exactly what his role at the company was like. As a sponsored red pro he lined up alongside star names such as Phil Ivey and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and earned more than $600,000 per year.

When the fateful day came, now almost eight years ago, Matusow was under the impression that everything would be sorted out and all players would receive what was owed. He actually thought the company was rolling in it still.

Following the scandal Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Howard Lederer, and CEO Ray Bitar were all castigated for their roles in players getting ripped off. But in Matusow’s opinion though, Ferguson did nothing wrong apart from consenting to the wrong guys running a business where he was the majority shareholder. In other words, Lederer and Bitar were all to blame.