12 Facts & BJ's Analysis of Clonie's Full Tilt Lawsuit

[BJ Nemeth]

Originally Posted by Andrew Feldman

I have off the record information about this case and with that in mind, I can't imagine she'll get a penny out of this lawsuit.

You clearly have an advantage over me in this respect (no surprise ), as I haven't talked to anybody involved with this case, and have no inside information other than what's written in the lawsuit.

But for Clonie to get nothing at this point, it seems she'd have to be guilty of breach of contract. Which would, of course, require a contract.

Originally Posted by Andrew Feldman

I also don't understand what took her so long. If everyone was getting checks back in 2007, except for Clonie, that should've been a major wake up call at that time. Not a year later. I know that if everyone at my job got their paycheck today and I didn't get one, I'm sure I would have an answer of "why not" ASAP.

That was her major wake-up call. Apparently, that's when Clonie really stepped up her efforts (in writing) to get her compensation cleared up. She asked for a written contract at the beginning (April 2004), but was denied, supposedly because none of the shareholders/team members wanted hard evidence of being part owners of an online poker site -- just in case.

I'm sure Clonie didn't wait long after those 2007 payments to first start talking to lawyers, and they were probably the ones who advised her to switch her correspondence to the company to written form.

The thing that confuses me is the other side of the "Why now?" question. Those with inside information (Andrew Feldman, Daniel Negreanu, etc.) act like Clonie has had this coming for a long time. Certainly, rumors of her departure from Team Full Tilt have been swirling around since before this past summer's WSOP.

Okay, if we assume those people are right, then why did Full Tilt wait until November 2008 to kick Clonie off the team? If she was as horrible as insiders are implying, why not drop her a year earlier when she denied Lederer's $250,000 payment?

Instead, she continued to fulfill her apparent duties as a member of Team Full Tilt until they released her this month. The fact that she continued representing the site publicly while arguing for her compensation privately generally looks good in the eyes of a court. (If she took her complaint public before being kicked off the team, it would have made her look pretty bad.)

Originally Posted by Andrew Feldman

On another note, you said, "2. Clonie Gowen's skill as a poker player or her tournament results. "

There is a lot more involving that information than you think.

This implies that her contract had some minimum standards as a player that she failed to meet. But again, that requires a contract.

Her poker abilities may be the reason she wasn't liked by the other Team members, or the reason why she was dropped from the Team. But unless it was part of her contract, I don't see how it's relevant to the case.

[BJ Nemeth]

Originally Posted by 99 Problems

I think she is WAY to naive to let things go this long with no compensation OR she's lying.... to not be compensated AT ALL for this long, come on....it just makes it sound even more like a play to get Howards' alleged 250k offer bumped much higher.

A lot of people take deferred compensation for a stake in a startup company. In fact, that's what the other members of Team Full Tilt did -- they weren't compensated for nearly three years (2004-2007). The fact that Clonie received nothing until Lederer's offer of $250,000 actually lends a bit of credence to her case, in my mind.

Why do you think Lederer offered her $250,000? I see four possibilities.

1. Full Tilt felt Clonie deserved nothing, but Lederer offered her $250,000 out of the goodness of his heart.

2. It was Full Tilt's understanding that Clonie's deal called for a single $250,000 payment after three and a half years. (Or something close to that effect.)

3. It was Full Tilt's understanding that they were free to determine Clonie's value to the company at their will, and they determined it was worth $250,000.

4. Full Tilt felt that while Clonie technically may have been owed more than $250,000, they didn't feel she deserved it. With unclear laws around online gaming in the United States and no written contract, they thought they could pay her off and she'd accept it with little recourse. (Or, she'd sue, but Full Tilt felt they would either win the case or cleanly settle out of court.)

Items #1 and #3 make no sense at all -- Why would Clonie agree to a deal with a startup company for zero compensation, or allow her employer to determine her compensation however they'd like at a future date? Item #2 is certainly possible, if her deal was in the neighborhood of $75,000 a year, but that seems unlikely to me.

Once again, let me remind everyone that there could certainly be details in this case that aren't public. Perhaps Full Tilt has been paying Clonie a monthly stipend or they have compensated her in other ways that she hasn't mentioned in the lawsuit. But if they have compensated her, that should be easy to prove in court.

[Andrew Feldman]

Originally Posted by BJ Nemeth

You clearly have an advantage over me in this respect (no surprise ), as I haven't talked to anybody involved with this case, and have no inside information other than what's written in the lawsuit.

Debateable.

Originally Posted by BJ Nemeth

But for Clonie to get nothing at this point, it seems she'd have to be guilty of breach of contract. Which would, of course, require a contract.

That's a very good point. Since there was no contract, she's not obligated to get anything given the recent release, but I think we're all passing through the part where her buy-ins were most likely paid over the last three years as she "promoted" the site. She has received compensation, just not in the form she currently would like.

Originally Posted by BJ Nemeth

The thing that confuses me is the other side of the "Why now?" question. Those with inside information (Andrew Feldman, Daniel Negreanu, etc.) act like Clonie has had this coming for a long time. Certainly, rumors of her departure from Team Full Tilt have been swirling around since before this past summer's WSOP.

Okay, if we assume those people are right, then why did Full Tilt wait until November 2008 to kick Clonie off the team? If she was as horrible as insiders are implying, why not drop her a year earlier when she denied Lederer's $250,000 payment?

I'm not acting like I knew this was coming because honestly, I had no idea, but I think the wheels were in motion for this to happen a lot earlier than the WSOP -- I'm guessing much earlier this year given the fact that her recent results would've been reason enough to keep her around on the team. I'm not sure when the official release date was, but I'm guessing that before she was "officially" gone, she was off the team.

Is there another catalyst for her release? I guess that's a possibility, but I have no idea what it would be.

The other major question to ask ourselves throughout his process is that since the representation of the players for this site has been basically non-contractual, what prevents the site in acting any way they'd want?

[Andrew Feldman]

Just to add to the fire, check out this link:http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/google-...n=query_google

It searches FT for her name and returns that her page title was: Team Full Tilt, like Andy Bloch, not Full Tilt Pros, like Josh Arieh.

[JessterCPA]

Not to get all CPA geeky on you guys here, but how about this for a scenario?

Instead of a 1% ownership, what was actually negotiated was a 1% of 1% (not uncommon for a large corporation). This may have been mis-interpreted by Clonie as a straight 1%, and the lack of written contract makes this more plausible.

Instead of a Net Value of $4 billion, it was $2.5 billion (again, not unreasonable using management estimates). Management of a privately held corp usually like to knock down values to the general public for multiple reasons.

$2,500,000,000*1%*1% = $250,000

Thanks

Jesse

[FirstDonk]

Originally Posted by JessterCPA

Not to get all CPA geeky on you guys here, but how about this for a scenario?

Instead of a 1% ownership, what was actually negotiated was a 1% of 1% (not uncommon for a large corporation). This may have been mis-interpreted by Clonie as a straight 1%, and the lack of written contract makes this more plausible.

Instead of a Net Value of $4 billion, it was $2.5 billion (again, not unreasonable using management estimates). Management of a privately held corp usually like to knock down values to the general public for multiple reasons.

$2,500,000,000*1%*1% = $250,000

Thanks

Jesse

Very interesting interpretation. I like the CPAgeekage whether it's right or not it seems plausable. I like to know what the over/under is on the resolve of this case. Any1?

[teetdogs]

I have one question, people are saying that full tilt was probably paying her tournament entry fees but Gavin is a full tilt pro and they are not paying his entry fees as far as I can tell from what I have heard he is staked by Eric Lindgren. So why would they pay Clonies and not Gavins?

[BJ Nemeth]

Originally Posted by Andrew Feldman

It searches FT for her name and returns that her page title was: Team Full Tilt, like Andy Bloch, not Full Tilt Pros, like Josh Arieh.

I don't think there's any doubt that Clonie was a full-fledged member of Team Full Tilt in terms of the public presentation. The amount of evidence to that fact is insurmountable -- Full Tilt's own press releases, their own commercials, archives of their own website, etc.

The private aspects of what it means to be a member of Team Full Tilt are, of course, still private.

Originally Posted by JessterCPA

Not to get all CPA geeky on you guys here, but how about this for a scenario?

Instead of a 1% ownership, what was actually negotiated was a 1% of 1% (not uncommon for a large corporation). This may have been mis-interpreted by Clonie as a straight 1%, and the lack of written contract makes this more plausible.

While that's possible, I find it unlikely, as that's an extremely small percentage to accept from a startup company with an unknown future. As your math illustrates, if the company became enormously successful, and grew to be worth $1 billion (a huge amount), her share would only be worth a grand total of $100,000 (and that's not per year). That's peanuts, and she'd have been much better off accepting an annual salary based on her appearances in their commercials and other marketing materials.

While people might doubt Clonie's value to a poker site in the current market, back in 2004, she was a rare commodity as an attractive and famous female poker player. She took a risk on them as a company, and they took a risk by investing in her future as a marketable poker personality.

The other big hole in this theory is that she wasn't paid when the other shareholders were. If Full Tilt felt she was legally a 1% of 1% shareholder, then why wouldn't they distribute any money to her when they paid everyone else?

[99 Problems]

Originally Posted by teetdogs

I have one question, people are saying that full tilt was probably paying her tournament entry fees but Gavin is a full tilt pro and they are not paying his entry fees as far as I can tell from what I have heard he is staked by Eric Lindgren. So why would they pay Clonies and not Gavins?

Clownie = TEAM Full Tilt (aka the original players, most of which (except Clownie) are part owners)

Gavin= Full Tilt PRO

[FirstDonk]

Originally Posted by teetdogs

I have one question, people are saying that full tilt was probably paying her tournament entry fees but Gavin is a full tilt pro and they are not paying his entry fees as far as I can tell from what I have heard he is staked by Eric Lindgren. So why would they pay Clonies and not Gavins?

He used to be staked by Eric, I'm pretty sure he isn't anymore, like 99.5%. Gavin would have to provide insight into if they pay for his tournament entries or not, but since he barreled through the WSOP half ****faced the whole time I don't know if they would have wanted to sponsor him for the WSOP unless WSOP is a code word for AA meeting.