While he has emerged relatively unscathed from the aftershock of “Black Friday,” Full Tilt Poker’s Gus Hansen seems to want to thrust himself into the middle of the fracas.
On Wednesday, Hansen’s Twitter account lit up with a vague announcement that stated, “Never underestimate stupid people in large groups – explanation will follow!” This came after a lengthy silence after the relaunch of Full Tilt Poker, which he was a part of with “Team Full Tilt” before it went dark and after its rebirth under the auspices of PokerStars. The next statements were the ones that have ignited a firestorm over several social outlets.
“If the ‘We hate Howard Lederer‘ group would hate on banks and insurance companies, I would have some sympathy- as it is- get a fu**ing grip,” Hansen wrote over Twitter following his earlier cryptic statement. “Do people hate Howard Lederer because of evidence of foul play or because Daniel Negreanu and Jason Mercier tells everybody to hate him?”
Of course, Hansen is referring to the former Full Tilt Poker board member Howard Lederer, who recently settled his civil suit with the U. S. Department of Justice without admitting any wrongdoing during his tenure with the company. After trying to rehabilitate his stature with the poker community through several interviews, Lederer stepped back into high stakes games in the Aria and the Bellagio. This was met with a great deal of outrage throughout the poker world as many believe he is still responsible for what happened on the old Full Tilt.
Within minutes of Hansen’s Tweet, the Two Plus Two message board exploded with what, at this point, has become a 100+ post thread. Poster ‘JamesD816’ commented, “Do people defend Howard because they are his friends and he made them rich or because they believe he behaved ethically?” Poster ‘luckoffical’ added, “I wasn’t really expecting Gus tο defend Howard,” while ‘pokerproplaya08’ stated, “I don’t agree with Gus…I understand why people hate on Howard.”
Looking at another aspect, poster ‘fml95’ opined, “I don’t get why high profile individuals, who are often paid to represent a business, put out pointless -ev things such as this. What good could possibly come out of tweeting something like this? I just don’t get it.” Poster “Sect7G’ sided with ‘fml95’ in saying, “He (Hansen) and nobody have anything to gain by tweeting this.”
The actions by Hansen over Twitter might not be what The Powers That Be over the new Full Tilt are looking for right now. After signing on as one of “The Professionals” (along with Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan), Hansen commented in a press release, “I’m very excited to represent the industry’s most authentic poker brand. Full Tilt Poker has the best games, most innovative software and the strongest poker community; to me this feels like coming home.”
With the signings of Hansen, Blom and Dwan, resumption of high stakes online poker was supposed to make a rebirth. Since it has come online in November, however, Hansen has been on a downswing at the new Full Tilt Poker tables. Within days of the opening of the “new” Full Tilt Poker, Hansen lost an alleged $2 million on the tables to opponents.
At this point, it isn’t known what potential impact Hansen’s comments over Twitter may have on Full Tilt Poker’s player numbers. After its Phoenix-like rise in early November that put it back in its number two position in the industry, Full Tilt Poker has seen its cash game players (the standard in the industry) decline steadily, according to PokerScout.com.
After peaking at over 15,000 players following the relaunch, the numbers have dropped down to 7861 on Christmas Day. The most recent data from PokerScout puts PartyPoker in the second place slot over Full Tilt and Hansen’s comments don’t seem to be helping draw players back to the site.
