sorry been a really busy day, had to wake up at 630 for the fox news interview, and then hopped on a flight outta vegas. have done a buncha interviews today and will continue to do more- but not planning on leaving this thread out. rj pmd me a buncha questions that people raised and i'll answer those now.

i wired them $$ i think twice in 2011, but i think i had heard of the check deposit issue. that said the amount of $$ ftp was dropping in revenue was staggering (and i had a rough guess on this but it was even more than i thought), and i figured a few million here or there in processor issues weren't a big deal. Don't remember ever seeing that thread.

theres a few things that caused the huge explosion in nosebleeds online, and while ftp pros having a ton of extra cash obviously didn't hurt (especially the bad ones), it wasn't the main reason. i don't really wanna extrapolate on these kinda things b/c I'm pretty private about my thoughts on the highstakes economy/fish etc- but I'm sure other highstakes players wouldn't mind answering this- maybe someone like jman or stinger will jump in n give ya a better answer

seems really silly of AGCC to pull ftp's license. they're trying to cover their own asses here since they shoulda been on the line for making sure the player $$ was there and never allowing this to happen. pulling the AGCC license is definitely not in the best interest of the players, and the chance of a deal getting done is plenty high enough for AGCC to give ftp more time.

again not to sanction or condone ftp's ridiculous actions- but the doj and agcc both fk'd up pretty bad also

What follows will be a series of posts that contain questions I pulled out of the unanswered questions yesterday, followed by durr's responses. These are direct cut and pastes from my PM, as I'm sure durr will confirm.

Q: Do you know if any other FTP pros have been or are going to be targeted by the DOJ? Have you been questioned by the DOJ? Will you testify if necessary?

Tom's A: haven't been contacted. i have a notoriously bad memory but if i think people are doing the right thing for the right reasons, i'll try to think extra hard and remember every event that i can- if i think they have the wrong reasons i might need to drink extra to cope, and that doesn't help my memory. hi doj

Q: When did you become aware that FTP was mismanaged? At what point were you aware of the SEVERITY of FTP's mismanagement?

Tom's A: sometime in late april, i could find the travel records i think it was 25th or 26th

Q: Do you know why other FTP pros have not been willing to answer questions?

Tom's A: some just don't know much, some don't know what to think, and many don't wanna open up a can of worms or be put in a tough spot even though they feel really bad and are really pissed at what happened.

if i had involvement in day to day- there would've never been multi-entry tournaments (or maybe 1-2/wk), there would've been a fix for the bum hunters (i've told ftp and stars both this and after much pressure ftp was finally about to implement it), and many other issues. that said the management did build the company to one with over a billion valuation (in my eyes- in optimistic people it might've been higher for longer) from basically nothing, so they clearly did many things right.

chris always seemed way less interested than seemed rational to me- but i guess that's just the way he wanted to live his life, or possibly the image he wanted to portray. howard was trying to limit his involvement in the last year or two, i dunno how effective he was at this but he seemed to be distancing himself a bunch.

Q: Do you know who the active shareholders/decision makers are, and if so, who are they?

Tom's A: the board was ray (ceo), howard, rafe, chris. the cfo should also be looked at obviously. the owners in general were super pissed and willing to do everything they could to get the players paid

Q: Do you think (or know) if anyone at FTP was aware that something big/bad was coming before Black Friday?

Tom's A: if they were i'd think there would've been options they'd have. i was on a uso tour with howard from apr 8-14th, and he's a nit so he's not good at hiding big bluffs... i'd be really surprised if he knew anything specific

Q: Do you know who was responsible for the decision to start floating/loaning players money?

Tom's A: no, i know that the person they had in place before rich mismanaged it a lot, and gave way too much $$ out to people they shouldn't have. rich seemed to do a pretty good job to me

Q: Were you aware of how much FTP paid out to pros? If so, were you bothered by this?

Tom's A: i was surprised to hear the total number, i woulda guessed it was 1/3 to 1/2... and i think it was a bit excessive.

Q: Do you know why the investor dropped out?

Tom's A: there were many different potential investors and varying reasons for them dropping out. some are still interested i don't know the degrees of that though. the investor that was the reason behind the la times interview was a huge focus of ftp for about 2months, and i think he simply didn't have the $$ that he claimed to have (i think he thought he could get the deal done and was just slightly off). not gonna go into anymore specifics, think this guy likes privacy, sry.

i thought the likelihood of players being paid was very high, and also i had 0 option to disclose any information about numbers or specifics unless it was to the southern district. if you look at all my replies in this thread and assume u didn't read the doj material (or have that as a background) u'd be really pissed that it seemed i was beating around the bush and ignoring the elephant in the room. doj fixed that issue for me. between the la times article and 2weeks ago i didn't want to spook the potential investor who seemed very serious (and kept thinking a decision was days away for 2months).

i don't think its fair to pick apart my wording like that. obviously i'm super pissed about everything ftp did, and super disgusted they don't have the player funds, i'm merely pointing out that doj and AGCC shouldn't get a free pass just because they were less bad.

my regular phone broke, so only my backup phone had twitter (i dunno the pw).

as far as them going to jail- a huge amount of citizens (who can vote) are going to lose $$ if ftp goes bust, a bit of extrapolation puts management in court and they have a hard case to fight if the players aren't paid.

My friend's cousin is a red pro and successful live player from California. He was told that he got info a week ahead of time and that he should cash out. I believe he got all his money out. I am not going to give names. I will ask my friend to get confirmation.

yes

i'd assume none (or at least the vast majority) of the pros knew that the depositor $$ wasn't safe/preferably held in escrow

i'll pay u 5k for proof of this (even if u need me to keep it private). this would be an enormous game changer.

Subject: Poker Interview with Tom Dwan: http://www.subjectpoker.com/2011/09/...ftp-interview/

i felt really sick about it but didn't talk to any friends about cashing out for the few weeks after i learned how bad a shape ftp was in. ive since explained to all them why and i think/hope everyone understands my reasoning. i just said something like 'really can't say anything sry'- although to people that knew me that mighta been a bit of a warning sign by itself.

lol i wish that was the 1st time i busted my ftp account. happened pretty regularly- there'd be no games for a while then all of the sudden a buncha 500-1ks would popup.

i tried many times. texted ray and howard a bunch, chris a few times. its completely ridiculous that they didn't talk to me (they had regularly before black friday- including about one very impt business deal)- i helped broker a deal before black friday between 2 of the potential investors in the group and ftp that was close to completing before black friday happened (but then irrelevant once it did), so it was extremely ridiculous and negligent that they didn't let me help fix the problem they were in. so ridiculous that they made me a part of the group's nda, yet didn't call or talk to me once until a few days after i left ireland (i probably called/ texted them 30+ times total- and for anyone that knows me- if i text twice something's up, b/c im a lazy fker).

i went because my friend asked me to. i didn't even know what the problem was until a bit after i showed up- he just told me i had to trust him and had to go. i talked with this group of potential investors many times a day

answered above

answered this already a bunch- had busted my account. everyone i staked i told i couldn't answer anything and i still have a bit of $$ on there from people i stake