Full Tilt Poker史上的七大时刻

　　对Full Tilt Poker来说，2011年是非常动荡的一年，它曾今是世界上第二大的在线扑克网站，但如今风光不再。Full Tilt Poker遭受了一个历史性创伤，它失去了它在美国的客户群，随后被撤销营业执照，现在它已被出售给法国投资者。

　　很难相信这一切都发生在不到半年的时间，很难相信，Full Tilt Poker仅仅成立了七年。Full Tilt Poker有很多值得我们关注的历史时刻，下面，我将按时间排序列出Full Tilt Poker史上的几大时刻。

　　一、 Full Tilt Poker成立

　　互联网扑克前景是广阔的。在2004年夏天，Full Tilt Poker开业。与Party Poker ， PokerStars 一起以互联网扑克为主要业务。这几个扑克室在当时是非常成功的。很多职业玩家开始自己的网上棋牌室。而Full Tilt Poker有自己特别的战略，它聚集了一批著名的扑克高手来一起赞助自己的网站。这完全是一个新的战略。

　　二、 UIGEA传递

　　虽然非法互联网赌博执行法案对整个在线扑克行业产生了巨大的负面影响，但它实际上对Full Tilt Poker来讲是一个天赐良机。Party Poker和其他公开交易的在线扑克室从美国市场撤出，只留下了扑克之星和Full Tilt Poker填补空白。Full Tilt Poker蓄势待发，几乎在一夜之间成为第二个最大的在线扑克室。

　　三、 曙光初至之时的挑战

　　Full Tilt Poker优点在于它很多著名的高手玩家。这并不奇怪，当时在互联网上，Full Tilt的游戏是最大的游戏。菲尔艾维，帕特里克安东尼和汉森是线上的常客。Full Tilt Poker为这些著名的玩家提供了一个3比1的赔率赌注。 Full Tilt Poker的这项举措，成功吸引了许多高手玩家。

　　四、拉什扑克

　　在2010年初，Full Tilt Poker宣布的一个新产品，拉什扑克。拉什扑克就像是互联网扑克的类固醇，它是一种高节奏的扑克游戏，玩家可以在同一时间内玩多手扑克游戏。拉什扑克游戏对Full Tilt Poker来说是一个巨大的成功，许多玩家蜂拥而至。

　　五、 Fertitta兄弟协议

　　在今年4月初，美国对在线扑克行业进行规范。许多在线扑克网站纷纷更改域名。而Full Tilt Poker的高层史蒂夫永利宣布了一项与PokerStars合作的协议，几天后，Fertitta与Full Tilt Poker也宣布了类似的合作伙伴关系。

　　六、黑色星期五

　　美国在线扑克玩家可能会永远记住2011年4月15日这个日子，当他们听到这个消息时，律政司对Full Tilt Poker提出诉讼，起诉Full Tilt Poker在暗地进行欺诈和洗钱业务。Full Tilt Poker几乎被迫立即关闭其在美国的业务，而Full Tilt Poker公司未来的发展一片阴霾。美国业务业务的关闭明显影响了它的资金周转。

　　七、吊销执照

　　在今年6月下旬，Full Tilt Poker陷入了前所未有的困境，Alderney赌博控制委员会暂停其经营执照，导致该网站在全世界范围内立即关闭所有业务。三个月后，海湾合作委员会决定吊销经营许可证。

　　译文：

　　Top-7 moments in Full Tilt Poker history

　　It’s been a pretty tumultuous year for Full Tilt Poker. Once the second-largest online poker site in the world, Full Tilt has suffered a historic fall from grace. It lost its U.S. customer base, saw its license first suspended and later revoked, and now it has been sold to French investors.

　　It’s hard to believe all this has happened in a period of less than six months. In fact, so much has happened to the company since it was founded that it’s hard to believe that the company opened for business just over seven years ago.

　　For this week’s top-10 list, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane and revisit the top-10 moments in Full Tilt Poker’s history, listed chronologically.

　　1. Full Tilt Poker opens for business

　　The Internet poker landscape was wide open in the summer of 2004 when Full Tilt Poker opened for business. Party Poker dominated the industry, with PokerStars being an up-and-coming player. Several poker rooms were very successful at the time, but have since gone out of business （remember PokerRoom.com）。 Plenty of professional players were starting online card rooms on their own, but Full Tilt’s strategy of gathering a group of well-known poker pros together to sponsor/own a site was a new strategy altogether.

　　2. UIGEA passes

　　While the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act had a huge negative impact on the online poker industry as a whole, it was actually a godsend for Full Tilt. Party Poker and a host of other publicly traded online poker rooms withdrew from the U.S. market, leaving a void for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to fill. Full Tilt, which had been gaining momentum, became the second-largest online poker room almost overnight.

　　3. Dwan Challenges

　　With so many famous high-stakes players in their stable of pros, it’s not surprising that the games on Full Tilt were the biggest games on the Internet. Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Gus Hansen were regulars at the upper limits. And some new names, particularly Tom “durrrr” Dwan, started to gain a great deal of attention for their success against the big-name pros. Dwan upped the ante by offering players 3-1 odds on a heads-up challenge, risking $1.5 million of his own money against his opponents’ $500,000. Dwan asserted that he could finish with a profit over the course of 50,000 hands. Antonius and Dan “jungleman” Cates took the challenge, and while neither was ever completed, the challenge attracted thousands of railbirds and got Full Tilt Poker lots of attention.

　　4. Rush Poker

　　In early 2010, Full Tilt announced a product that revolutionized ring games. Rush Poker was like Internet poker on steroids. The high-paced game gave players the opportunity to sit down at a new table with new opponents every time they were out of a hand, so there was no wait time between hands. Players averaged roughly 300 hands an hour, about five or six times as many as they would at a typical single table online. Rush Poker was a huge hit, and ring game players flocked to it.

　　5. Fertitta brothers agreement

　　In early April of this year, it looked like Full Tilt Poker （and PokerStars as well） were about to go mainstream in the U.S. Just days after Steve Wynn announced an agreement to partner with PokerStars should the U.S. regulate the online poker industry, Fertitta Interactive announced a similar partnership with Full Tilt Poker. The relationship, however, was short lived, as new developments were on the horizon.

　　6. Black Friday

　　Online poker players in the U.S. will likely always remember where they were on April 15, 2011, when they heard the news that the Department of Justice had unsealed indictments charging the owners of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker of bank fraud and money laundering. Full Tilt was forced to shut down its U.S. operations almost immediately, and while the future of the company seemed to be bright outside the U.S., the impact of the seizure of funds and the shutdown of U.S. operations made serious flaws in the business apparent in the following months.

　　7. License suspended

　　In late June of this year, after Full Tilt started to have difficulties honoring cashouts to players outside of the U.S., the Alderney Gambling Control Commission suspended their license, causing an immediate shutdown of the site for all customers worldwide. Three months later, the AGCC decided to revoke the license entirely.