Diamond Flush Articles: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

DF just posted this.

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...lederer-files/

Part 2:

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...files-part-ii/

Part 3:

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...iles-part-iii/

Part 4:

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...files-part-iv/

Part 5:

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...-files-part-v/

Part 6:

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...files-part-vi/

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Interesting stuff and well done...

But I think people will eventually find he was a poor director of a private company.

I'd say poor directors are pretty common

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Let me give the real footnotes:

1)FTP was founded by a bunch of degen liars and thieves

2)As it became more successful, they increased the number of liar and thieves to be part of ftp

3)1 of the head liar/thieves, Mr. Lederer, realizes he is sitting on a gold mine of free cash and starts looting from the company. Jesus, Bitar and Furst join in and each becomes multi millionaires 10 x over.

4)Black Friday comes, the truth is exposed and everyone thinks that Lederer will actually all of the sudden tell the truth.- HA HA HA, GOOD ONE!!!

The truth is, we as former players on the site will never get the full truth but I am sure of 1 thing - Howard Lederer, Jesus Ferguson, Rafe Furst will randomly show up at a poker tournament within the next year or 2(maybe even earlier)and will try to start playing in public again once online poker is legalized in the US.

Those are the REAL FOOTNOTES

Quoted from the the 'backs out of interview thread'.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Eh, I found this article to be lacking.

Seems to be she is attempting to point out any minute legal discrepancy from Howard's interview.

Hope for more in the coming installments.

Edit: Thanks Diamond Flush for all the work.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I have to give df big kudos for the collection and dissemenation of this information.

It is clear to me that Bitar, ferguson, lederer, and furst conspired to buy owners off with payouts, eventually using player funds, to keep them from asking too many questions or causing trouble.

It is also clear to me that they likely used player funds to finance the rapid growth of their business from nearly the beginning. Why wait to earn the miner to launch that new promotion when you got 40 million of player deposits in the bank? Just take a little and pay it back later.

It cracks me up to no end when people want to blame the doj or Phil Ivey or anyone else for what happened. The buck stops at the board of directors. Those four bear the entire burden of responsibility here. Incompetence mixed with greed and ultimately criminal behavior is what got FTP to where it is.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

They should have wanted outside eyes because the four of them were completely incompetent and entirely lacking experience

It is very common for companies to have outside board members to offer perspective. The problem was the company was run incompetently and unethically from day 1 and any outside board member with actual experience would have called them out on what they were doing.

Even some of the owners had misgivings but they were bought off.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I like the post and I do believe that on top of the player loans that they probably used company loans for advertising from the start. Of course guys like Ivey who are off shooting craps or playing golf and receive the call that we're going to start paying you 800K a month aren't the root of the problem the buck stops with the board.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I hope so...

This first installment was pretty devoid of new, salacious, or incriminating info. I'll take DF at her word for now, though, that she's got something more substantive to offer.

A suggestion, which I'll try to make in the least-douchey way possible: I think you should spend more time formatting & checking your article for grammar, vocab, and punctuation. I'd like your articles to get taken seriously, especially if they're to form the basis for a revelatory assessment of FTP's implosion and Howard's personal failures. But that article was chalk full of errors, and in several places unclear as to whether you were recapping Howard's testimony, giving your own commentary, or simply laying out known facts.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

[QUOTE=Mr. J;35084887]First we should thank DF for her contributions and also wish her well in whatever matter she recently had to attend to.


Yes I've only recently become introduced to the writings of Diamond Flush and I'm a big fan. Sorry to hear you might be having family or personal problems. You're a royal flush in the poker community. P.S. I like that you stay anonymous. It gives the ******s less ammunition.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Definitely appreciate DF's work in all this!

So far, I don't see anything major exposed other than some clarifications of things that Howard exaggerated and minimized, which pretty much would have been expected under any condition. I expect this will build to something more and am looking forward to reading the rest of the articles.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Untrue. It was not "chalk full of errors". Prove it, quote it and show us all the mistakes Longfellow?

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Nice work. Looking forward to more of what I initially thought happened. Howard spends a year coaching himself through every question imaginable....then quits his agreement with DF because he knows she knows more than everyone else knows.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I mean is the goal of her articles to tell the truth or make HL look like a liar?

Is it even relevant that she says anything outlandish about HL/FTP, as long as we get the truth?

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

got rid of that colon at the end eh

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

"That same article references Perry Friedman raising concerns in late 2006, that the coming was growing too fast and in fact that he had called for a vote to remove Ray Bitar as CEO."

"in a manner reasonably believed to be ion the best interest of the Company and its member and with such care"

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

HAHA that's it? Two sentences with a couple typos that any 6 year old could figure out the real words in under 5 seconds? This after DF had a family emergency today? Pathetic even for the tardiest of NVGtards.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Well, one of the big things to come out of this article, that wasn't directly stated, was that the Tiltware was formed as a manager managed LLC and not an owner managed LLC and that Lederer and Bitar were the managers. That greatly diminishes the responsibility non-managing shareholders had in the company. Lederer tried to paint the opposite picture.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

People expecting someone to say Howard ordered the code red are being silly. All these little facts contradict everything Howard did after bf and clearly show him being complicit and guilty. The information provided is fairly significant when taken in scope with all we know and all the crazy things Howard used as defenses.

It can't be brought up enough that Howard says the operating agreement did not call for an independent audit of the financials. That is absurd excuse making that seems to work on the uninformed. It is absurd that FTP did not have audited financials and Howard is one of the people most responsible for making it happen and who most benefitted from it happening.

I understand that most people here don't have experience running private or public businesses but they should have been having audited financials from the beginning. It was a multi million dollar business with multiple owners.

The idea of a company with alleged billon dollar revenues not having regular independent audits is simply ridiculous.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

hmm, i think I would rather the way she does it now. Get the information out quickly, edit later. If you look now, many mistakes have already been fixed.

the few that were spamming f5 all day got what they wanted as soon as possible, and nits like you can wait an extra hour, because you don't care about the info, just that it is well written

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I'd like to hear more about the formation/role of Tiltware/PocketKings and how they tie into the picture.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Not having independent audits is really not that unusual in the real world. There are multiple companies that are closely held by their owners (like FTP, although at the end they brought in investors) that do not follow this practice. The majority of private companies place the trust in a a few finance employees who are tasked with producing accurate documents.

Although hindsight is 20/20, and any audit would have revealed the fraud, only publicly traded companies are required to have outside audits.

SOURCE: MBA in Finance.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

+1

I think this is a pretty significant piece of information (and important to note your last point, that Lederer tried paint a different picture).

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Thank you for the link :)

There were so many details in the two HL interviews - I guess if the whole thing had mattered enough to me, I'd have taken notes so I could have better processed all the info and looked for contradictions. But it didn't, so I didn't lol :D

So it's nice that somebody is doing that for those of us who aren't - sounds like DF really knows her stuff, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the series ... especially the ending when she ties it altogether. Sounds like it all ought to be interesting read!! :)

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

DF is a badass. Shes our Ben Swann and is about to dish out a healthy reality check to Howie.

something tells me he would have been better off doing the interview.

cant wait to read all of this.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

This is simply not true. To get any sort of credit will require audited financials. Was silly when Howard and Andy talked about them getting investors or buyers. Nobody is going to take you serious if you don't have independently audited financials or they will demand their own audit as part of due diligence.

Please list these 100 million dollar plus companies without independently audited financials. Now show me ones where the ownership consists of non related disparate shareholders.

It is very chicken and egg when they chose to use player funds to grow the company they no longer needed audited financials because they did not need loans or new investors, which they could not get without the financials which would expose the plundering of funds.

External audits are a key part of protecting the financial health of a business through checks and balances. If they had regular external audits like normal people this would never have happened. It is that simple.

What is funny is people get put off by Howard saying he was not required to get an independent audit but nobody asked him why he actually chose not to do it.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

There were a few quotes she listed that I really didnt understand how they played into the "argument" she was making.

That is exactly what Howard told Juanda [albeit a bit more politely]; if you arent on the board, then you do not run the company. if you want to run the company, get rid of the board and/or ray. That quote completely backs up what Howard said. Is that what she was trying to do? Her wording seems to suggest this somehow contradicts what he said.

Bolding mine. This again reaffirms exactly what Howard said. Yes, if they had gotten independent accountants he would be allowed to listen to them, but nowhere in there at all does it say that he must consult all of those sources, or even that he has to consult any. Further, it says that he is allowed to take what other managers say about finances at face value unless he has reason to believe it is incorrect which he didnt until April. Again, everything she quotes supports exactly what Howard said.

I dunno, I mean I think Howard ****ed up big time and that there is plenty he isnt telling us, but this first installment seems like she is really grasping for straws. I dont want people to think Im a Howard defender, because I dont think the poker community should just let those guys [including Ivey] show up to tournaments without getting some serious questions asked, but honestly, read the things she is quoting and ask yourself if her conclusions are correct. Unless I am severely misinterpreting these quotes, they support Howard and not DF. Hopefully the next installments will be more thorough and less ambiguous in regards to DF's implications.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

anyone who is capable of reading this ridic tl;dr thing pls post good cliffnotes tnx

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

In order to make an accurate presentation regarding the operation of FTP, a journalist needs to employ a person with substantial experience in the actual operation of similar organizations. This means using a CPA, MBA or lawyer with years of exposure to business organizations.

Quoting verse and word of the operating agreement and comparing that to actions of some persons is uninformative. Every LLC has an Operating Agreement and in virtually every case begins to violate the LLC from the first day of actual operation. Courts recognize this practical problem and, usually, will not hold managers or members liable for such violations if they were known to most other members and no one objected.

Most LLC's, with just a few members, are operated fairly informally and on a friendly basis. Anyone who questions an action and receives a blunt response quoting the Operating Agreement as a reason for a less friendly response should be very concerned.

The real substance of what went wrong won't be found in nit picking the Operating Agreement to look for violations by the managers. Enough people (probably members and employees) with knowledge need to be interviewed by someone prepped by a business specialist and those interviews integrated into a chronological history. If done properly, that chronological history will make clear what went wrong, who was responsible for it and why controls were not in place to prevent it.

In response to some above discussion regarding independent audit controls. My experience is that any business organization of this size without independent audit controls will be stolen from, most likely by its employees or officers, but certainly by someone.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

The blog is Diamond's take on Part 1 of the PN interview, and since part 1 was essentially nothing but "I don't knows" and "California LLCs", there isn't much for her to dispute other than semantics.

Cliffs: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.c...e_along_sm.jpg

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

ty

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Gioco: You are making a good point in your whole comment, but it seems to me that DF article was more focused on comparing HL answers in his ITW to some factual reference rather than to fully establish his responsability from a legal standpoint. I think it was enough to underly some obvious contradiction between HL answers and reality and can not be called uninformative (for me at least).

markksman: Keep posting, it's so anoying to see that many ppl buying HL version.

DF: Thank you.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Story telling time ! Tell us more about what could possibly go wrong and maybe few real life examples ?

I have to admit that it is mostly to satisfy my curiosity, but i think that it has it's place in this thread as it would help 2p2ers not familiar with the business world to understand how ridiculous this absence of audit is in the FTP case.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq-poN6sLF8

alternative to clicking on the link:
search for "How to Catch a Liar (Assuming We Want To)" in youtube

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

true, most companies in the real world do not have independently audited accounts as most companies (90%+) have an annual turnover <2mil and are confined to a single country. these companies are generally not in a financial position to employ independent auditors to go over their books and any decent CPA will be able to a good job for such a firm. however, any global company turning over >2mil on an annual basis that is not having it's financial records independently audited is asking for trouble. trouble like having a massive misjudgment on liquidity issues in a company operating in an industry that is subject to potentially drastic regulatory/legal rulings that would force a run on a firms accounts payables (in this instance players with positive balances) that would force a firm into insolvency. this is, IMO, a gross dereliction of duty of the board, whos responsibility it is to ensure the engagement of said independent auditors on behalf of a firms shareholders who elect the board to perform such duties. if the shareholders in this case had not been receiving such ludicrous distributions over the past few years, they would be lining up to sue the board members of Full Tilt.

Source: 7 years experience in forensic accounting/financial fraud investigation

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Is it also not unusual to not have independent audits in a company where some of the owners think the CEO is stealing and multiple people approach the board about the issue?

And just because something is not unusual doesn't make it right. It's not unusual for people to have a drink or two with dinner, not realize how impaired they are and get behind a wheel. If they get into an accident or pulled over they'll get a DUI.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

The "deadline" didn't do the article much good.

So far I missed where HL distorted the truth.


These audits should have been in place, but that was not in the companies culture. Eventhough there were fractions most owners were also personal friends.
Audits would have been a delicate issue.
But that will be in one of the next articles no doubt.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I cant believe people are buying this ****. Companies culture, delicate issue. Fml. Its a global company turning over a billion dollars annually. Lets not forget the guys driving the ship here are not dribbling ****ing spastics. These are intelligent, well educated men.

As repetitively stated by some posters with real world business experience, the only reason they didnt have independent auditing is they had something to hide.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Ya got that right. This whole "we had a billion dollars coming in a year maybe we were wrong to let our stupidest, sleaziest board member Ray write down how much we had without anybody questioning it" answer is getting old.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

If they had something to hide that would only make it more delicate.
At some point at least Ray must have felt like he had to.
If the culture had been different he would never have gotten that chance.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Its just a opinon on the matter. DF never interviewed HL so she went over the tapes and is giving her opinon

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

a lot of standard business practices that could go wrong. equity and range...

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

You do realize that DF has been investigating the FTP fiasco since 'black friday'??
I'm sure her opinion comes from more than the tapes.
But, I'm sure you are an expert on D F also. Since you have answered a question or two about 'what' the new FTP is going to do you are also an expert on them also. You are also an expert on what the DOJ is going to do. Personally I hope you are correct regarding the DOJ but until you offer a 'source' your opinions will be taken with a grain of salt.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Without wanting to come across as a massive douche- in the UK & Ireland it is required that companies over a certain size have to have an auidt by law (regardless of ownership structure) I find it hilarious that no one has actually questioned the auditor of FTP as to how they demonstrated that the cash on hand in the balance sheet was actually there?

I remember seeing some accounts from 2010 and there was no qualification in the audit report. Therefore the auditors must've been happy there was the cash in hand.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

The phrase is "chock-full." Not "chalk full."

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I do understand she has been investigating them. The point I wanted to make was we already heard from two sources who inteviewed HL and provided transcipts of the talk. It makes no sense to have someone else come along and write their opinon of these interviews. We don't need HL remarks hashed again, what is needed is interview new board members.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

This is an awful post. DF isn't a random person giving an opinion. I'm not sure if you are new to this issue or something but she clearly knows more than probably everyone but Chris, Howard, and Ray about what really went down. If HL was lying, she is one of our best chances to find out the truth, why would we not want to hear it? Just because he already gave two interviews to people who weren't as clued in as she was and so were unable to call him out on his lies? We can wait and see what she publishes this week and reserve judgement until after it's all out there, but my god why discourage the information from coming out.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

DF is an anonymous person giving her interpretations based on information she obtained from her anonymous sources. How is that better than hearing directly from people within FTP as Eli stated? These people will likely come forward at some point if people stop calling them thieves.

It's fairly easy to tell Lederer was lying at some points. There were contradictions within his own interviews as well as discrepancies between other things we've heard and inconsistencies between generally accepted and observed practices.

A lot has already been written on the subject. My favorite were Bill Rini's first two posts on the Poker News interview. He also recently posted his thoughts on the PokerCast interview here http://www.billrini.com/2012/10/01/h...2p2-pokercast/

DF is late to the game on this one. While she may have some more inside information and people on here will trust she's not making up the source material she has, it would have more weight if it was coming directly from named sources. So while DF's post will have value it might not be that much at this point.

I was wondering if Lederer had planned to cancel the DF interview from the start for a couple of different reasons. I'm adding "to keep her quiet during the peak of the buzz" to the list.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

You obviously did not follow this story well enough, DF is not simply commenting the ITW: she is using the result of her long investigations to point out where and how HL "distorted truth/lied" along his ITW.

Pokernews guy and pokercast team had nowhere near the amount of properly sourced information and work that DF had put in... it is ridiculous to compare.


Hilariously, this is probably very true.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Its is much better because she has no vested interest in the story, has collected a lot of infos, has a lot of sources from multiples sides, is being thorough and disciplined in the way she treat information (trying to bring the truth rather than to publish).

She has BY FAR the best track record when it comes to bringing out information about the FTP case for the last 1 year 1/2, that's the reason why she has more credibility than anyone else.

Guys to cut it short, it's pretty simple: if you are unable to understand what she has to bring it just means that you did not follow this story closely enough to bring a constructive comment. Some of us in this thread literally spent hundred of hours reading and discussing the details of this story...

Go reread the gigantic 30k+ thread and all the content on subject poker/diamondflush poker and then maybe you can start to have a clue about the work produced.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I agree she has a lot to contribute and is best placed to dissect the interviews, but it's kind of ironic that in the thread you refer to she called out Harry Demetriou for not naming his sources.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Yes Howard ruled the company with his obvious arrogant attitude and iron fist and the other owners had no say. He would pat them on the head and move on.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Yolo is correct. I'm looking forward to part 2:

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Hdemet was basically whoring for attention pretending to be "in the know" of everything and getting everyone on an emotional roller-coaster by presenting as sure facts information which later revealed to be false...

Calling him out, by pointing out that he had access to very few and unreliable source was a great service for the psychological well-being of the community.

DF dont need to name her sources because she has shown to be very careful about vetting those sources and the information they provide and clearly focused on publishing real reliable news and not rumors.

Many of you seems to be attacking her about her anonymity and her sources ... why don't you rather try to point out anything she wrote that has proven clearly untrue* ? It should be easy, she has published more things than anyone else on the subject.

*they are very few small instance which have been corrected/explained (like the LA Times thingy on S:P).

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

It would be amazing if DF finally came forward and it was Annie Duke ...

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Were any of these companies holding $300m of other peoples money. Comparing FTP to other private comapanies that aren't responsible for their customers $$ just seems pointless. It couldn't be more apples and oranges.

Tilts me when Howard keeps saying, we're not like 'Apple' where we are required to do audits. No, it's actually less important for Apple because they are only responsible to their shareholders, whereas FTP was responsible to both its' shareholders and its' customers.

The owners sold FT to PS for $700+ million.

Had there not been a black Friday that money would have gone to the owners. Instead it's being used to pay players and to settle cases with the DOJ.

I'm sure Howard believes he has made players whole by selling his interest in the company.

Howard and the other owners probably believe they owe nothing more.

As it appear everyone will get their money back the story becomes more of an academic exercise in what went wrong.

DF's articles will be the first of many to tell the story.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Pokerstars dintn't buy FT for 700+mil. Alot of that money was paying a fine for stuff Pokerstars is alleged to have done.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

This is just not true. The $731m price tag is reduced by $150m immediately in money set aside for US players so the starting number is $581m. A large portion of that goes to pay off PokerStars/FTP civil indictments with the DOJ(they had fines of 2.5b). We will likely never know how much of that $581m gets credited to DOJ fines and how much was actually for the FTP asset.

If you think the DOJ calculated about a $300m fine(which is probably low), then that alone reduces the value of the FTP asset to about $280m or so.

Jeez

PS wouldn't have made US and ROW whole without receiving something in return.

It really doesn't matter how much they paid. As part if the agreement PS would pay ROW, give DOJ money to pay US players and pay FT fines as PS were dropped.

The FT owners sold their interest in the company in effect to make the players whole.

All I'm saying is that is what HL was getting at and on paper he's right.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Hm, and i learned something today.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

The FT owners did not sell FT to anyone for any amount!

They forfeited their assets to the DOJ, in exchange for the dropping of charges.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I think Howard et al would argue that through the forfeiture of their asset, which will allow PS/DOJ to repay players, that they have met their obligations as owners. As such, discussion of how the former player money was used becomes irrelevant.

IMHO, if the owners of FT use the above arguement in any fashion, then they truly fail to grasp the ****ing over they have done to the poker community.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

HL has spent the last month trying to convince us that Bitar and Coronado were unstoppable, if not removed by the shareholders. They flew to Ireland and hide their mismanagements from him.

This first installment says that the operations agreement gives the board the tools to avoid it and the management the order to try to avoid it.

Juicy enough, and promises a lot.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

The first part of DF's article didn't really do much for me, but hopefully more concrete things will be revealed later. In fact, she comes off as quite bitter that she didn't get the interview, and though obviously she has a right to be, it doesn't help one to believe she is unbiased. She'll get the benefit of the doubt though, mainly due to her previous articles over the months.

So far, she's been quoting things from contracts and legal documents. I'm skeptical how much sway this will have, because I don't doubt that Howard and many of the other board members and owners acted in direct violation of many of these things. The problem with going this route is that their excuse is pretty much "We honestly had no idea how to run a business, and no idea what we were doing." I actually kind of believe them in that regard. We all know what Howard SHOULD have done, but unless someone comes with a recording or concrete proof that he and/or others were maliciously ignorant in order to screw the players and line their own pockets, I just don't see opinion changing much since the last two interviews. He's an idiot who shouldn't have been on the board, along with many of the other owners. In the end, the players are probably gonna get paid and they'll have forfeited a company worth hundreds of millions simply because they were too stupid to run it correctly.

I understand this is just the first of DF's articles, so maybe I'm completely wrong and something outrageous will be revealed.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

the content was good, but i found myself very distracted by the very obvious lack of editing before this article was posted. way too many typos and needing to re-read a sentence 2-3x to understand what the author was trying to say.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

No. The value of FTP in this case would be 731 - 300 = 431M. The fact that DOJ uses part of the money to pay off players doesn't mean Pstars paid any less for it.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

It was my understanding that Pokerstars didn't buy ftp poker, they bought the assets from the doj?

HL stated in one of the tapes that he tried to get durrrr to pay back his loan so FT could meet monthly operating costs.

While the assets may have been turned over prior to the actual sale
It was most likely after agreement with PS was made and required FT signing off.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Only the beginning, folks, just setting stuff up, and please cut back a little on the elementary school teachers posts on puctuation and sentence structure, JHC

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

What a terribly scummy piece of text. The whole start of it screams "You don't give me my interview, then I will take you down to get those pageviews!". It's annoying that this story will get stuck with even more little tangents that have no effect on the bigger issue.

The interviews said all they needed to say about Howard Lederer, although a summary or critical look would be welcome, and an interview with Diamond flush would've been some extra popcorn.gif - this is just all very blegh.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I'm not attacking her and I respect all the work she's done, but she didn't just call him out, she accused him of trying to stiff the US players in a deal to buy FTP. Now he may well have been - I obviously don't know the truth - but in my opinion accusations like that shouldn't be made without providing some evidence especially when you're a respected member of the community and people take your word for things. I've never seen any mention of this since actually, now I think about it - was there really an attempted deal that would have stiffed US players?

Also, if I remember correctly, Harry was highly sceptical of the GBT deal and how they intended to make ROW players whole. He was right about that although he got slated for it at the time, because everyone just wanted to believe they were getting paid at last (which is understandable; just making the point that he wasn't wrong about everything).

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Exactly and it is even more since 40% of the fine was for FTP.
So in this example 731M - 300x60% = 551M was paid.
They actually must have paid 498.2M for it, because the fine must have been exactly 388M.

FTP was clearly a lot more profitable than most of us assumed.


DF, you said:

"Essentially, the AGCC will need to approve:
1.an internal control system
2.gambling equipment
3.the licensee’s capitalisation status"

Isn't it understandable HF relied on the AGCC?

DOJ tells Pstars to give them $700+ and take these tainted assets off our hands, and we'll let you off on the charges against your company.

Done deal, we will never know what part of the $700+ was for the assets.

IMO, DF was just setting the basics of how FT was SUPPOSED to be run before she gets into the way it was actually run. And who was running it as it was looted and run into the ground.

I'm usually a nit about grammar and spelling, but am cutting slack this time because of DF's family or whatever hassle as the time to publish came close.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

More like "I gave Howard Lederer the opportunity to clarify his statements in an interview and he backed out. Thus I will be presenting the facts as I know them to be without his input or clarification."

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Don't go down that road replying to trolls. Any criticism of DF gets met with harassment. Back in January I got accused of being a troll, a shill and either accused of being hdemet or implied I was like him, I forget which. Once you start replying to trolls it's easy for your argument to deteriorate. Had I known yolo was previously banned I would have ignored his ad hominems and avoided my temp ban earlier today.

After the reference to hdemet was made I went back to read some of what he had written and it in hindsight it was some of the most insightful information posted in those threads. As far as I could tell his problem was replying to the trolls personal attacks.

You don't come across as a douche - just under-informed about the FTP situation.

Yeah, you have seen audited statements, but they weren't for all of FTP. They were for Pocket Kings. FTP was an organization comprising a number of companies incorporated in several different countries. Player money was deposited with the licenced companies: Filco, Vantage, and Orinic. These were incorporated in Alderney, and were not owned by Pocket Kings. Therefore Pocket Kings' financial statements didn't show anything about player cash on hand. Alderney doesn't require independent audits of their companies, not even ones licenced to provide gambling and to hold player money. I wonder why not? (Not really.) The AGCC relied primarily on unaudited monthly cash-vs.-deposits reports obtained directly from the licensees. Until they require independent varification of financial reports and segregation of player funds, they should not be treated seriously as a regulator. I am glad to see that Stars has moved FTP's licence to the IoM.

The whole convoluted structure of the FTP group was created when Howard was President and one of only two managing members of the beneficial owner: Tiltware LLC. His claims of ignorance about how Pocket Kings was structured and run do not sound credible to me. He and Ray were responsible for setting it up, putting ownership of sub-parts in Ray's name and having Ray as the Key Individual certificate-holder.

That is correct.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

QFT

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Just becuse 40% of the fine they first asked for was for FT does not make 40% of the fine for FT. You can't get blood of a stone, and FT didn't have the money to pay a fine, or the players so they just gave up all there assets.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Any word on the next installment??

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

HL tells the story of this near the end of the 2+2 pokercast.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I have never been banned from any forum, reacting to critics/conspiracy theories is useful in this case as it help prevent people to fall for HL version of the story.

Everyone's got a few sides to this story, by reading andys interview and listening to Howard's interviews I think there's got to be some truth in what Howard is saying

I don't think we will ever know what went on, who knew who didn't know

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

I absolutely agree, there is definitely some truth and info to gather from this interview, but HL has been pretty good in this PR exercise and we can see on this thread that he managed to fool many posters.

More specifically:
-Pretending that according to the operating agreement he had no more responsibility than the other owner.
-Pretending that the absence of audit/control was just a natural course of action.
-Pretending that what took place was a deal where, thanks to his and rays work, the company was sold to pokerstars which should let him and the board of the hook for the dividends they received and every **** they did.
-Pretending that he did not know anything and did his best to get the player paid back (while never showing any intent to give back any of the dividend, that's hilarious).

Truth is, this story is pretty complex and many posters are not familiar at all with the way business are run (which is pretty much the opposite of the average 2p2er opinion), that's why it is important to clarify a lot of misconception.

What he admitted and is not debated is that from april the 15th to june the 29th, this guy (and other) made the decision to misrepresent to us the security of our funds to convince us to keep depositing money that they could not pay back. This is the part of ftp existence that the DOJ refered to as a ponzi scheme.

This guy properly and consciously ****ed us, those who saved us were the DOJ (yeah 2p2, those who you have been blaming all along), we cant let him get away pretending that he was the good guy, just victim of some other's mistakes.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

The most tilting thing about the current situation by far is the soap opera nature in which these pieces are being released.

First, with Pokernews and their daily drips of interviews which served no purpose other than to frustrate. Just release it all, this isn't a TV show.

Diamond seems to have jumped onto that bandwagon with this drip feeding nonsense for her expose series.

If you've got something to say, just put it out there.

You've obviously gotten everything written and ready to go Miss Flush so why the purposeful serialization by releasing them in parts throughout the week?

Just post them all and give the community what they deserve instead of further tilting them by forcing everyone into waiting for what you suggest will be the truth.

Everyone wants the truth, just give it to them instead of this boke inducing attempt at following Pokernews' lead of further pissing off already pissed off players.

The attempt to build tension for the next part is at best, self service and at worst - downright ignorant to the players you claim to be fighting for.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Thanks, I'll listen to it later.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

As an alternate method of assessing the value of the asset:

At some point $10m per month of distributions was deemed to be a decent run rate, and HL suggested that 60% of the business was international. As a first pass guess then, you can put a figure of annual profitability of the international business alone as ~$70m p.a. (60% of $120m).

IIRC HL suggested that revenues had risen dramatically since the $10m per month rate was instituted, suggesting perhaps that the company should be more profitable than that. OTOH, if it were, then you would have expected that the company would have been able to cover the phantom deposits and DOJ seizures. If you wanted to try to estimate how much extra the company could have been making, then you could try to find out total seizures plus phantom deposits less missing player funds. If this figure is very large, then it could materially increase the guess of FTP profitability.

Network effects mean that profitability of 60% of the firm is probably not 60% of the full figure. Finally I'd be very surprised if the player endorsements/patch deals/appearance fees system wasn't really profit distribution by another means, and thus there would be reasonable scope to improve profitability in the right hands.

What multiple you put on the revenue stream depends on your view of the stability/growth/future legal status of the industry and something to do with the competitive situation - in particular the firm is probably worth materially more to pokerstars than it is to any one else

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Before I made my post I tried to actually find a corporate structure so I could look at what owned what and where it was incorporated. I say this because ultimately there is a point at which whichever auditor signed on the reporting pack for group consolidation has to take responsibility for the fact that they didn't do a full audit.....

Without being sarcastic I would personally love to see the ownership structure of the companies if that is actually known/ available anywhere?

No part 2 yet? Wonder if HL's lawyer got to her...

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

Does anyone know H.L explanation of how Eric Seidel could be owed 4.5 million in distributions without it raising huge "red flags". That seems like 2 years worth of distributions...

Like if you can't afford to pay there must be something wrong? Eric Seidel seems like a really smart and really honest guy, why did he not ever make a fuzz to anyone? And I assume he must have asked, what was he told??? was he lied to....

Just to be 100% clear. I think there is like zero chance Eric Seidel did anything wrong.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

It wasn't that they couldn't afford to pay, Seidel chose not to receive them, perhaps for tax reasons, maybe just didn't want the wife going on a spending spree, maybe he wanted to buy up more shares of the company from the 'cash broke' crowd, there are a lot of possible reasons for not receiving distributions if you don't need the money.

Re: Diamond Flush Article: The Distortion of Truth from the Lederer Files
 

It sounds good except that the distribution rate appear to have been set absolutely randomly... they distributed 450m$ in dividend and ended up with a 350m$ hole... So you cant base anything on this figure.

**Part 2 From Diamond Flush**
 

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/10...files-part-ii/

Very short, Nothing new. But it is out and available to read.

Re: **Part 2 From Diamond Flush**
 

Been checking all morning. Thanks for the update/ link.

I have a take on DF that will probably get me bashed a little bit on here. I listened to both of 2+2's interviews with her (the first back in April and the most recent). Both times I was sorely disappointed in her abilities as an investigative journalist. I would need to go back and listen to both interviews to remember specifically what she said, but I found myself thinking that most of what she said was obvious and she would give her opinion a lot, as if it were fact. I guess I did not value her contribution to this issue as much as most of you do.

I also found her comments laughable about HL backing out of her "promised interview". She goes on and on as if HL destroyed her career by backing out of this interview. I have no doubt that HL probably agreed to do an interview with DF; however, these things happen. If DF was reputable journalist, she would understand this and not lash out with such venom when HL canceled on her. My opinion is that she came across as a somewhat crazy woman, which I also felt a few times listening to her interviews.

I am disturbed with the FT issue as much as anyone and believe HL knows more than what he has let on. However, I am not convinced DF was the most qualified person in trying to unravel the truths and lies. I believe she loves the fame that has come from all of this and is trying to milk it, trying to leverage off the emotions of those that have been impacted significantly from FT and its owners/management.

Re: **Part 2 From Diamond Flush**
 

I'll tie part 2 in and discuss later.

Re: **Part 2 From Diamond Flush**
 

even tho she says multiple times that the importance of certain things will be discussed later i just fail to see a lot of new facts in her articles so far. I know it will be a series of articles but until now its basically just a summary of what Howard said in the pokernews interview...

Re: **Part 2 From Diamond Flush**
 

The very first article specifically addressed this problem and said to please withhold judgement until you've seen all seven parts. If you didn't like part 1 or 2, I would highly recommend NOT reading parts 3-6 until all seven parts are out.