Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker is the world’s fourth biggest poker site, with up to 20,000 players online during the busiest hours. Full Tilt Poker used to have one of the biggest pro rosters, but cut down to only three players by 2013 and by the end of 2014 there was none left at all. The strategy for Full Tilt has changed from being poker only, to being casino and poker combined and with sports betting coming very soon. Full Tilt also changed their name to Full Tilt only, removing the “Poker” from the name. 


History

The pro team is well known for playing the highest stakes in the world, known as nosebleeds. For many years Full Tilt Poker was the home of all the nosebleeds action in the world, having regular games with the biggest names in online poker. Full Tilt Poker was the birthplace of Isildur1, who emerged out of nowhere and played everybody on the highest stakes possible. Isildur1’s identity was long hidden, but came out when Viktor Blom admitted he was the fearless player.

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Tiltware LLC opened full Tilt Poker in 2004 with the involvement of several prominent poker pros, such as Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Jennifer Harman. In 2012 the Rational Group, owner of PokerStars, bought Full Tilt Poker after it was seized and closed down by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the United States.

Since the launch Full Tilt Poker accepted all players, including Americans. Competing for the American market along with PartyPoker and PokerStars, Full Tilt followed in the footsteps of PokerStars and continued to accept American players when the American Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006. PartyPoker and other publicly listed companies stopped accepting American traffic, giving Full Tilt the chance to grow massively in a short period of time.

From 2006 until 2011, Full Tilt Poker competed with PokerStars of being the biggest poker site in the world. Sponsoring players, television ads and tournament sponsorship were some of the marketing tools used to compete with their biggest rival.

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On April 15th 2011 the DOJ shut down and seized the domains of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute and Ultimate Bet. Players visiting the Full Tilt Poker website could see that the domain had been seized by the DOJ with charges of violating the UIGEA, bank fraud and money laundering. The seizure of the domain was just the beginning of the struggles that hit Full Tilt.

Not long after the seizure it became apparent that Full Tilt Poker did not have the money to pay out the players, even though they always claimed to keep player funds separated from operational costs. During the DOJ investigation, it was discovered that Full Tilt Poker only had $60,000,000 out of an estimated $390,000,000 player bankrolls.

The accusations towards Full Tilt were very severe. Management had been running a “Ponzi Scheme,” paying out extraordinary high salaries to the owners, lending money to the sponsored pros and crediting $130,000,000 of “phantom” money that was used to play at the tables. In total Full Tilt was short around $350,000,000 and it didn’t look like the players were ever going to see their money again.

In the meantime PokerStars had already made a deal with the DOJ, and paid all its players back in full. PokerStars was eyeing the opportunity to take over their main competitor and made an agreement with the DOJ, removing all charges of offering illegal gambling to US citizens.

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In July 2012 PokerStars announced that they had purchased Full Tilt Poker, would pay back all non-American players back in full within 90 days, and that the DOJ had dropped all charges against them. This meant that PokerStars would take over their main competitor and would be able to apply for legal gambling licenses in USA. You can read more about that here.

On the sixth of November 2012 Full Tilt Poker officially reopened under the PokerStars management. All non-American players had their bankrolls in their accounts and were able to play or cash out the funds. US players had a chance to present remission requests in September 2013 for a chance to get their money back.

After reopening Full Tilt Poker, the traffic was not the same as it used to be. Even with the calculated loss of American players, Full Tilt was no longer the second biggest site in the world, but fourth biggest in overall traffic (The Ipoker network moved past Full Tilt in traffic, the same did 888 Poker).

Since the takeover by PokerStars, Full Tilt has had a stable player base of around 20,000 players during the busiest hours, and is still the favorite place of many poker players. 

In June of 2014, the ownership of Full Tilt changed hands again, as Amaya Gaming purchased the Rational Group for $4.9 billion, taking over Full Tilt and Pokerstars. The take over didn’t change anything for the plans of Full Tilt, which was to integrate casino and sports betting.

Casino games were integrated in the start of 2014, with more games being integrated along the year. Sports betting is looking to be integrated somehwere in 2015, meaning that the focus will no longer be on poker only. 

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Full Tilt Poker Software

Tiltware LLC originally provided full Tilt Poker’s software but Rational FT Enterprises Ltd took over when PokerStars purchased the software. Full Tilt Poker has some of the most popular software in the poker industry due to its clean look and fast game play.

Players have two different table theme options. The first option is an avatar based table theme, where players can choose the avatar they like and see their opponent’s avatars as well. The avatars are made to look funny and can express different emotions with a click of the mouse. The other table theme is the basic racetrack theme. The racetrack theme is a basic poker table theme, with no avatars or any other gimmicks. The theme is ideal for multi tabling and for people who don’t like avatars.

The lobby comes in two different views – Standard and Basic. In the standard view you can access all games via the filter settings in the top of the lobby and browse through the different games.

In the Basic view you will be guided towards a game that you would like to play, by choosing the options shown in the lobby. The basic view is perfect for players that don’t want to scroll through a huge lobby to find a table.

The software is downloadable for Pc and for Mac and comes in 23 different languages. The software runs smooth on every device and has a great graphic interface.

 

Full Tilt Poker Games

Full Tilt Poker is the place of nosebleed tables and good action. You can always find a good table to play or rail one of the pro’s playing nosebleeds.

Variants of Poker

Full Tilt Poker has one of the biggest varieties of different poker games online, with 17 different poker variants to play.

  • Texas Hold’em
  • Omaha / Omaha Hi/Lo
  • Stud / Stud Hi/Lo
  • Razz
  • 5 Card Stud
  • Irish Poker
  • Mixed Games / Horse / HA / 10-Game
  • 5 Card Draw
  • 2-7 Triple Draw / 2-7 Single Draw
  • A-5 Triple Draw
  • Badugi

You can always find a game that suits you or learn a new game, by playing in Full Tilt Poker.

Rush Poker

Full Tilt Poker was the inventor of the very popular fast-fold poker game. Launched in 2010, Rush Poker became an instant success in the online poker world. The fast paced game was the first of its kind in the online poker industry and is one of the best innovations towards the game there has ever been. Full Tilt started out by only offering Rush Poker as a cash game, but quickly started doing tournaments as well.

Rush Poker is quite simple – Every time a player folds his hand, he will be taken to a new table and immediately dealt a new hand. This increases the overall tempo of the game tremendously and creates a form of excitement that cannot be matched at normal tables.

Since the launch of Rush Poker, many other poker sites and networks have integrated their own version of the popular game in an attempt to recreate it and boost the traffic it provided for Full Tilt Poker in 2010.


Other Considerations

Tournaments

Full Tilt Poker has a great tournament schedule with lots of daily tournaments and guaranteed prizes. Full Tilt Poker invented the Multi Entry Tournaments, which are tournaments where you can register multiple times and play different tables in the same tournament. Eventually your chip stacks will be merged together and you will only play one table. These tournaments are unique to Full Tilt Poker and very popular.

Every year Full Tilt Poker hosts their own poker events such as the Micro Turbo Online Poker Series (MTOPS) and the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS). These events guarantee huge prize pools and attract a lot of players.

Live Events

Full Tilt Poker sponsors many live tournaments including the UK & Ireland Poker tour (UKIPT), Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP) and Montreal Poker Festival. The tournaments have big guaranteed prize pools and are handled professionally together with PokerStars.

Rake

Full Tilt Poker uses the contributed rake allocation system for all their games. So for every $0,2 you pay in rake, you will be awarded VIP points equal to $0,2.

Full Tilt Poker charges 5% rake on cash games and 5 – 10% rake on tournaments and sit ‘n’ goes.

Full Tilt is known to have the lowest Heads Up rake in the world with a maximum rake of $0,50.

You can find the complete rake scheme on Full Tilt Poker’s website.

Promotions

Full Tilt Poker used to offer a flat 27% rakeback deal to players applying for it. With PokerStars taking over, the flat rakeback on Full Tilt Poker has been removed and replaced with the Full Tilt Poker VIP system.

In the Full Tilt Poker VIP system, players earn points by playing poker. These points can be exchanged into tournament tickets, ring game tickets or be used in the Full Tilt Store.

To increase the value of the Full Tilt Points players have the option to play in “Happy Hours”, which double or triples the amount of points players earn while playing.

When players deposit, Full Tilt Poker has a generous deposit package including a 100% bonus, free tournament ticket and an entry to a $50,000 guaranteed freeroll.

You can read more about Full Tilt Pokers promotions and VIP system on their website.

Security and Fairness

To ensure fair gaming, Full Tilt Poker uses a Random Number Generator (RNG). The generator will ensure a random outcome of every single hand that is dealt as well as which community cards that will be shown. Full Tilt Poker’s RNG is approved by Gaming Laboratories International (GLI). GLI checks the algorithms used in the software, as well as checking for any anomalies there might be.