In what should not come as a surprise to anyone, Full Tilt Poker has informed former FTP “Red Pros” that they will not be retained as sponsored players now that Full Tilt has been re-launched. PokerNews’ French outlet originally got a hold of the e-mail to the “Red Pros,” which explains why the decision was made and what options those pros have going forward.
The news was communicated to the players by Dustin Iannotti, Full Tilt Poker’s new Manager of Team Pro. After apologizing for the company’s silence on the matter, Iannotti wrote:
The “Red Pro” team is not being continued by the Rational Group and a new team has been launched under the name of “The Professionals”.
Unfortunately, we do not have any immediate plans to expand the Full Tilt Pro team at this time.
We do not rule this out as a possibility in the future, and because of that, we will keep your contact on file should that plan change at any point.
The Rational Group is the new owner of Full Tilt Poker and is also the parent company of PokerStars.
Later in the e-mail, Iannotti explained part of reasoning behind the decision:
Other than the non-US player balances, The Rational Group did not assume any liabilities of the previous Full Tilt Poker companies and therefore previous contractual agreements that Full Tilt Poker may have had including with FTP Red Pros were excluded. As such, The Rational Group is not liable and will not pay for any amounts which may have been due to you under your agreement with any former Full Tilt Poker company.
Basically, The Rational Group did not agree to take on the “Red Pro” contracts as part of the deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, and since there is no reason for Full Tilt Poker 2.0 to field such a gigantic stable of sponsored pros, it is not going to commit any to something it does not deem beneficial to its business.
As was mentioned in the e-mail, there is a new team of pros called, appropriately, “The Professionals.” Former Full Tilt pro and railbird favorite, Gus Hansen, was the first player hop on board, named as one of the site’s ambassadors in early October. Less than two weeks later, young nose bleed stakes phenoms Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Viktor “isildur1” Blom were added.
Prior to Full Tilt Poker’s collapse, the poker room was bloated with “Red Pros.” On April 14, 2011, the day before Black Friday, there were 14 core members of Team Full Tilt, including Hansen and Dwan, along with such names as Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Jennifer Harman, and the now infamous Howard Lederer and Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. Another 11 “Red Pros” were from Team CardRunners, four comprised the Hendon Mob, and another six made up what was called Team Limpers. As if that wasn’t enough, there were a whopping 160 players who were simply called “Full Tilt Pros.” 34 more players were considered “Friends of Full Tilt,” including actors Don Cheadle and Mekhi Phifer, NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, and 2007 World Series of Poker Champion Jerry Yang.
The scorned “Red Pros” will be allowed to keep the names they had at the time Full Tilt went down or revert back to the screen names they had before they became sponsored pros. They will also be allowed to retain their custom avatars.