A few days later, Taylor Caby (one of the founding members of Cardrunners) posted a “solution” to the issues that many users were bringing up.  In this “solution,” Cardrunners members would be allowed to have more than one account (their regular account which would be in red lettering as with all other sponsored FTP pros) and another account used to make videos at lower stakes.   This would seem to solve the “red pro” factor affecting the play during the instructional videos; however, this would also seem to be in blatant violation of the “one account per player/one player per account” rule that Full Tilt had so recently claimed they would be making concerted efforts to crack-down on (leading to the dismissal of John Little).

In addition to the previously mentioned rules conflicts, many ethical grey areas began to arise. Players began expressing concern that not only would they be playing their normal low-stakes games against someone concealing their identity behind a new screenname, but this player was possibly one of the best No-Limit players in the world! Even if everyone at a player’s table was in fact just a normal player, more paranoid players will constantly be wondering if the player taking every pot from them is in fact some world-class cash game pro.

Secondly, on the heels of the Absolute Scandal, “superusers,” secret accounts, inside jobs, and any other rhetoric you want to attach to the AP cheating scheme – imagine your casual weekend low-limit, recreational player who has a passing understanding of what went on at Absolute going to the mailbox and opening a letter telling him that a secret undercover employee of Full Tilt poker (who, by the way, is also one of the best players in the world) was the guy who took him for four buy-ins last week. It’s going to be hard for Average Joe not to immediately make the leap to: “I was playing a superuser!?!? “ To quote Shane Schleger, a consummate voice of reason who seems to have an almost superhuman knack for always being on the right side of these issues:

“It really seems that FTP is taking the "learn, chat and play with the pros" angle to a strange and very unnatural place with this Cardrunners deal, and, frankly, the first part of your [referring to a post by an FTP representative] post just reads to me like, "We sold our souls to Cardrunners, sorry." I don't even understand what's in it for FTP, when you guys can just quietly collect rake and not freak people out with emails about undercover players.

Full Tilt and Cardrunners both have demonstrated time and time again that they truly want to do the best thing for their customers, so this situation was surely a difficult one, and aside from totally nixing the deal altogether, there wasn’t an apparent solution that would make all parties satisfied. 

FTP, however, continued to demonstrate they are at the top of the online poker world in both integrity and innovation by accomplishing the almost impossible task of placating the naysayers while still putting in place a very beneficial business deal. The final solution (which seems to be accepted as fair by even the most “haterish” of internet forum crowds) was posted by an FTP representative on March 21st and is as follows:

The next big software update (still over a month away) will include a backend feature that allows us to create "Educational" ("EDU") tables. When a player sits down at the table, they will see a popup explaining that at any time they could be playing against an instructor and might be recorded for the purposes of educational videos. They will need to accept these terms before sitting and playing. These tables will be marked in the lobby with the "EDU" tag in the table name.

Instructors (with the express consent of Full Tilt) will be able to request a screen name and red status change for the duration of a video. This change of status and "temporary screen name" will only last for the duration of their educational session, and immediately after the session the instructor's account will be changed back to the "true" screen name and status. The modification of account name and status can only be done by our security department, and instructor play will be carefully monitored during the session.
When using a name other than their normal "red" name, they will only be allowed to play at these new Educational tables.

All players at the Educational tables who participate in a session with the instructor (whether or not the video is eventually used) will receive a bonus. The bonus will scale based on the stakes they are playing, and be offered to any player who plays at least one hand during the session. The amounts are still being finalized, and will be detailed from the popup in the screen when a player sits down. Examples might look something like a $50 bonus at $1/$2 and a $250 bonus at $5/$10. This will be the only form of compensation given to players at these tables.

There will not be Educational tables at limits higher than $5/$10 NL.
We feel that the above will enable instructional content to be recorded in a realistic playing environment, and offer players the choice to participate in these educational videos.

The solution seems to have solved most of the big issues that both FTP and Cardrunners customers had with the original deal. There are still isolated complainers on the forums, but Full Tilt could give everyone in the world a free $100 and some of these guys would find a way to whine about it. Overall, I think both companies handled the situation amazingly. They realized their humongous gaff, they listened to informed debate by the people that pay their salaries, and they compromised to a solution that seems to have made most of their clientele content.