Full Tilt Red Pros Dropped From Site

Prior to Black Friday on April 14, 2011, Full Tilt Poker had over 200  sponsored pros ranging from core members to over 160 simply labelled ‘Full Tilt Pros.’ Since re-launching for real money on November 6th, the poker room’s new tally is currently limited to a much downsized line-up called ‘The Professionals’ consisting of Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan and Viktor Blom.
One might expect this number to grow over the coming months, but one group of players that won’t be making a comeback are the former Full Tilt Red Pro players, who received an e-mail this week informing them that they would not be retained as sponsored players. In addition, Full Tilt’s new owner The Rational Group, which is also PokerStars’ parent company, made it clear that it would not honour previous contractual agreements made by Full Tilt’s previous owners, explaining:
“Other than the non-US player balances, The Rational Group did not assume any liabilities of the previous Full Tilt Poker companies and therefore previous contractual agreements that Full Tilt Poker may have had including with FTP Red Pros were excluded. As such, The Rational Group is not liable and will not pay for any amounts which may have been due to you under your agreement with any former Full Tilt Poker company.”
Despite no longer being employed by the site, in a minor concession former “Red Pros” have been told that they still had the option of retaining the screen names and custom avatars they had at the time Full Tilt went offline, if they so chose.
Since relaunching, Full Tilt Poker has reclaimed its 2nd spot behind PokerStars, albeit with diminished numbers. Meanwhile, while the rest of the world has now been reunited with their frozen funds and continue to play at the poker room, US players are still in limbo and have been told that getting to the point of repayment would be a long way off.