Late last week, Full Tilt Poker announced the crowning of its first batch of sponsored Black Card Team Professionals, determined by a competition that spanned the second half of 2013. The dozen poker players will now have their names lit up in red for the next four months.
The Black Card sponsorship program was launched in mid-2013 in conjunction with the rebirth of Full Tilt’s popular Black Card loyalty program. Before Black Friday, when Full Tilt Poker was footloose and fancy free, not giving a single care about which funds belonged to players and which funds were for operating expenses, the site had an overwhelming number of sponsored pros. Some were the core, founding members of Full Tilt, like Phil Ivey and John Juanda, but as time went on, more and more fringe poker celebrities were added until the term “red pro” could pretty much apply to anyone.
In its recent incarnation, Full Tilt has been much more judicious about its sponsorship choices, originally signing just three players – Gus Hansen, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan – as the founding members of “The Professionals.” Dwan has since left the group. With the new Black Card Team, the roster has increased, but it appears that rather than adding new players on top of the old ones, the Black Card Team will be turned over when the new winners are decided.
The new members of Black Card Team Pro were determined by their standing on any one of twelve Full Tilt Poker leaderboards for the period spanning July 1 – December 31. The winner of each leaderboard was automatically chosen to be a Black Card pro. Here is the list of winners, along with the leaderboard which they won:
1. NL/PL Hold’em High (Above $1/$2) – Triviani20
2. PL Omaha High (Above $1/$2) — feliceko
3. PL Omaha Low (Up to $1/$2) — MadSickoHead
4. Rush Ring Games High (Above $0.50/$1) — PlayinWitDreams
5. Rush Ring Games Low (Up to $0.50/$1) – Trickshot625
6. Heads-Up Ring Games (All stakes) – moos29
7. Other Ring Games (All stakes) — stronghawk
8. SNG (All stakes) — XAPJIAMOB
9. Heads-Up SNG (All stakes) – Jasonc6
10. MTT (All) – Silent_0ne69
11. FTOPS – betong
The twelfth leaderboard is for Mini FTOPS, which will conclude January 19.
These inaugural members of Black Card Team Pro not only get their “red pro” status displayed at the Full Tilt tables, but will also receive $20,000 worth of FTOPS or Mini FTOPS buy-ins or a clearable $20,000 bonus, as well as 100 percent rakeback while members of the team.
After six months, a new set of pros will be chosen via the same method. This time, the qualifying period will be just the first four months of this year, rather than six (so it sounds like there will be some overlap between the tenures of the first and second groups). Additionally, everyone’s best three-month results will count towards the leaderboard standings.
For the next four months, most of the qualifying leaderboards will be the same. The exceptions will be the removal of the FTOPS and Mini FTOPS leaderboards and the addition of NL/PL Hold’em Low (Up to $1/$2).
