Breaking News: Clonie Gowen sues Full Tilt and their Pros
November 20, 2008She has always looked a little pissed off to me. Apparently she had good reason to be.
On Nov 14, 2008, a suit was referred up from lower courts to the Nevada district court. Clonie (Cycalona) Gowen is suing Full Tilt Poker, Tiltware LLC, Pocket Kings Ltd., Kolyma Corporation, A.V.V., Raymond J. Bitar, Howard Lederer, Andrew Bloch, Phillip Ivey, Christopher Ferguson, John Juanda, Phillip Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Michael Matusow, Allen Cunningham, Gus Hansen and Patrick Antonious. The nature of the suit is: Breach of Contract, Breach of Fiduciary Duties, Breach of Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing, Unjust Enrichment and Fraud/Intentional Misrepresentation. Info from Justia.com – complaint available here.
Perhaps this suit clears up some of the controversy we saw this spring at WSOP 2008. Clonie played several days without a Full Tilt patch early on. Later in the series, she was seen with Full Tilt Poker patch in place, and the rumors died out. One could speculate that she was in the midst of negotiations with FTP and the various entities associated with it. It turns out, as documented in the complaint, that all the other FTP pros received payouts from the company but Clonie did not receive a distribution. Howard Lederer apparently offered her $250,000 to go away. Now she is reportedly demanding $40 million from the defendants or 1% of the net worth of the company as she was contracted as an original member of Full Tilt Poker. There is no doubt that the Pros have contributed in a big way to FTP’s brand. I would want my $40 million too. The cool part about this contract is that it was not a written contract and was made when all the original investors and Team Full Tilt gathered in Phil Ivey’s Golden Nugget suite.
Comedy develops as a result of this lawsuit… On two plus two, some newly created account posted a question about the financial structure between Kolyma, Tiltware, etc… seemed informed, but looking for more information. Funniest post was one of the replies…”Hi Clonie”. LOL. Negreanu has weighed in as well, with this quote:
“She has gone absolutely ding bat crazy and is making things up. There is just no freaking way they’d offer her 1%, no freaking way. This feels more like crazy ex-girlfriend extortion than anything else. I really hope she doesn’t get away with this, luckily I don’t think she will. What an idiot.“
…as does Drama. The posts on two plus two that started this whole meme have all been linked to the same IP address – prompting many to intuit that they came from someone with a vested interest in popularizing this lawsuit…hm? Clonie?
Why would Full Tilt do this? maybe they are trying to make room for all the new pros they’ve been adding. I see they have removed her from the list of pros. Maybe it is her crap play, or mishaps in the past. On the other hand, FTP blogger and pro Michael Craig just wrote an entire series of posts devoted to Clonie, and there is a lot going for her that still begs the question – why would Full Tilt do this?
Does tiltware have a case? Dunno but rumors are that some FTP pros were not impressed with her skills and had to work pretty hard to keep her above water. She also had that fiasco where she plagiarized from an online forum for one of her “Tips from the Pros”. Here is the response from Tiltware:
Tiltware, LLC, has been made aware of the recent filing of a meritless lawsuit by a former Full Tilt Poker endorser — Ms. Cycalona Gowen. All claims have no merit and there are many inaccuracies improperly and unlawfully asserted by Ms. Gowen within her frivolous complaint. Tiltware LLC expects that this lawsuit will be dealt with accordingly by a competent court in due course.
Also…apparently there was no written contract. Not an absolute, but I imagine next time Clonie signs a potentially $40 million dollar deal, she’ll get it in writing. It may be hard to get a Nevada court to rule against and Irish company on an oral contract made 4 years ago…and even harder to enforce. BJ Nemeth has a good writeup here.
Conclusion. I don’t know who the scumbag is here – but someone is a scumbag. I am going to avoid Full Tilt until they clear the air on this one. Find me at Stars…rumors are that Clonie and Tara Reid are lovers and now play together at Pokerstars…
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Seems like Clonie is getting screwed, exploited, and used by the Poker World just like Brandi Rose / Naami did. Beautiful girl in a dirty ol’ man’s world. Glad she filed suit against them. Will pray that she wins. You Go Girl! Speak your truth, but next time protect yourself get everything in writing and/or on tape recording. You’ll save yourself an enormous hassel in the future. And finally remember most people in Poker and in the gambling world in general are crooked to the core. Trust No One but yourself! And remember a Poker Face always lies, one way or another. Best of Luck!
Makes you have absolutely no respect at all for Full Tilt Poker and for any of the “PROs” over there. “PRO” better said “Professional Rip Off” Fraud charges would do nicely. Very nicely here. Don’t they put people away for a long time for fraud charges? Lock up a few of these crooks and then there are a few less to exploit young naive women who are just trying to make it in the world like everyone else. Crap like this gives Professional Poker Players with honest skills a bad rep. Honor your contract verbal / written / or otherwise!