FT and WPT Winner's Choice

[DeeMo]

What are your thoughts about Full Tilt offering WPT seats given the recent lawsuit?

My thoughts...meh to FT (but I'll continue to play there anyway)

[shaniac]

[ QUOTE ]
What are your thoughts about Full Tilt offering WPT seats given the recent lawsuit?

My thoughts...meh to FT (but I'll continue to play there anyway)

[/ QUOTE ]

My thoughts:

1. It is somewhat disingenuous yet unsurprising that FTP continues to show interest in promoting its brand on the WPT while there is this big, public beef going on.

2. I don't understand why the WPT can't be more accomodating and make themselevs seem like less of an adversary to players.

3. None of this really matters to anyone except for a few high-profile, already successful players and I think both sides of the WPT War are primadonnas.

4. The title of this thread was terrible. You do want people to read it and respond, right? So how about, next time, something like: "Full Tilt Hypocrites?"

[olivert]

Note that you can use the "Winner's Choice" package to play the Trump USPC, which gets extensive ESPN TV coverage, with 2 TV feature tables each day instead of 1, and TV coverage starting from Day 1 through the final table.

I personally would rather play the USPC than any WPT event.

[DeeMo]

[ QUOTE ]
4. The title of this thread was terrible. You do want people to read it and respond, right? So how about, next time, something like: "Full Tilt Hypocrites?"

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right...my bad.

Another notable hypocrisy is that FT allows their sponsored players and Friends of Full Tilt to play in WPT events. And it looks like the WPT is portraying the lawsuit to be a WPT vs. FT/PS battle and not WPT vs. 7-players.

Anyway...I hope the whole thing goes away..and goes away quietly.

[olivert]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
4. The title of this thread was terrible. You do want people to read it and respond, right? So how about, next time, something like: "Full Tilt Hypocrites?"

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right...my bad.

Another notable hypocrisy is that FT allows their sponsored players and Friends of Full Tilt to play in WPT events. And it looks like the WPT is portraying the lawsuit to be a WPT vs. FT/PS battle and not WPT vs. 7-players.

Anyway...I hope the whole thing goes away..and goes away quietly.

[/ QUOTE ]

If anything, I expect WPTE to file a counter-suit, on antitrust grounds, alleging that 5 of the 7 conspired with TiltWare (software and marketing consultant to FullTilt), ieLogic (software company behind UB), Hollybrook Regency (the promoter that sets up time buy TV poker for FSN), National Sports Programming (the entity that supplies national programming to FSN), and NewsCorp to FIX THE PRICE of TV poker episodes at LESS THAN ZERO in an effort to drive WPTE's U.S. TV business out.

WPTE is having enough trouble with getting any rights fee for the 2nd season of the PPT that I would expect WPTE to sue a big pocket such as NewsCorp, which has been feasting on time buy TV money from online poker "schools".

[shaniac]

Why is this anti-trust, as opposed to just watching your crappy business model become antiquated?

[olivert]

[ QUOTE ]
Why is this anti-trust, as opposed to just watching your crappy business model become antiquated?

[/ QUOTE ]

Article I of the Sherman Antitrust Act states:

"Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal"

Just as the 7 players alleged that WPTE conspired with its "member" casinos from preventing "member" casinos to hold non-WPTE tournament poker events alleged that WPTE "fixed" the image rights of the players at ZERO,
WPTE can file a counter suit, using the same "conspiracy in restraint of trade" argument, against TiltWare and ieLogic, which obtained cash from their consulting contracts with offshore online poker rooms, which WPTE will allege to be "illegally-obtained funds", to conspire with Hollybrook Regency and National Sports Programming to "fix" the TV rights fees of tournament poker TV programs in the U.S. market at "less than zero", thereby preventing WPTE by getting cash from FSN or any other network for the 2nd season of the PPT.

--

As I have posted elsewhere, WPTE, which is run by an egomaniac whose sole aim is the total control of both online and TV poker businesses on a global scale, has one last chance to pull this off, by obtaining an exclusive license to operate a real money online poker business in China and its administrative territories, coupled with lobbying the U.S. Congress to make financial transactions between U.S. financial institutions with the likes of Neteller illegal so that WPTE's online poker competitors will lose access to U.S. customers.

The blueprint for achieving a global monopoly in any industry where the "network effect" is in play has always been:

1. Monopolize the biggest market in the world so that customers in other markets have no choice but to do business with you in order to take advantage of the "network effect"

2. Choke off your competitors' "air supply" by cutting off your competitors' sources of funds

[tailspin4540]

[ QUOTE ]

My thoughts:

1. It is somewhat disingenuous yet unsurprising that FTP continues to show interest in promoting its brand on the WPT while there is this big, public beef going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why? It's not "Full Tilt vs. the WPT", it's "four players who are affiliated with/sponsored by Full Tilt, two who are sponsored by Poker Stars, and one who is sponsored by UB" vs. the WPT. Anyone else associated with ant of those sites can do whatever they want.

[olivert]

Correction: replace all instances of "ieLogic" with Excapsa Software, which is now publicly-traded on the London Stock Exchange. "LoudVision" of Toronto is the marketing arm of "Excapsa Software", which serves the marketing needs of UltimateBet.