Blair Hinkle, The Happiest Of Former Full Tilt Poker Players

Over the past few days, claims administrator Garden City Group has busily been repaying a total of $76 million to 30,000 former Full Tilt Poker players, amongst whom Blair Hinkle was fortunate to receive a cool million dollars.
It was on February 20th, 2011, that Hinkle finished runner-up at the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) $640 buy-in main event for $1,162,949, with his portion of the three way deal representing the biggest prize in Full Tilt history. Just a few weeks later, however, and Black Friday would strike, freezing up his funds on the site and it would then take another three years before Hinkle would once again be reunited with his money.
During the time in which he was estranged from his account Hinkle says he was forced to postpone a number of projects which were dependent on him receiving his Full Tilt funds. Fortunately, last August Hinkle took down the $5,300 Seminole Hard Rock Championship Event for $1,745,245, relieving his immediate monetary pressures, and as the WSOP bracelet winner explains:
“For the longest time the money was supposed to be for a house and the engagement ring, and other things like that..  I had been depending so much on the Full Tilt money. I had told myself not to, but at the same time you have it in the back of your head.. It’s a huge relief now. The Hard Rock helped a ton, because it was like getting the money early..It is going to be nice to not think about “what ifs” anymore.”
Meanwhile, another player who will feel equally as jubilant as Hinkle is Daniel “Jungleman” Cates, who was rumored to have had even more money locked up on Full Tilt since the site went offline in 2011. After receiving his money on a day the poker community has dubbed “Green Friday,” Cates tweeted:
“I must be dreaming. I got the wire for my FT balance.”
Congratulations to Blair Hinkle, Dan Cates and all the other US players who finally received their frozen funds.