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Exclusive: Michele Clayborne, Former Consulting Head of PR for Full Tilt Poker, Releases Statement

Former consulting head of public relations for Full Tilt Poker, Michele Clayborne issued a statement to PokerNews over the weekend.

Since Black Friday, many speculated that Clayborne was posting under the name "FTPDoug" on the TwoPlusTwo Forums. In the months following Black Friday, the posts on TwoPlusTwo from "FTPDoug" were intended to provide the affected player base with updates on the status of the site and the repayment of funds.

The true identity of "FTPDoug" was revealed last week following the announcement of the PokerStars' acquisition of Full Tilt Poker's assets.

Below you'll find Clayborne's statement in full regarding the events since Black Friday and FTPDoug:

I read with pleasure the recent statement on Pokernews.com from Shyam Marcus, Poker Room Manager at Full Tilt Poker. Although, I am not an online poker player, the PokerStars/FTP acquisition hopefully brings an end to this unfortunate period in online gaming and will restore both faith in the sport and the return of all funds to FTP players.

As the former Consulting Head of PR for FTP with over 15 years of global experience in public relations, the revelation of the true identity of FTPDoug was long over due. Until this announcement, I too was not aware of this person’s identity, although I asked for clarification on numerous occasions due to the fact that some unreliable and misleading poker press deemed FTPDoug to be me with 100 percent certainty — now known to be 100 percent false. Nor, was I ever notified of any posting prior, or asked to review them. I saw them for the first time when the public did.

For further clarification, I was also not informed about any of the intricate details of the financial inner workings of the FTP organization, nor should I have been. I was not an employee of the company, nor is investor relations, finances or accounting, my area of expertise.

I am and will always be loyal to my PR clients. Therefore, I never commented on this tragic matter publicly, even though I was the target of several untrue and malicious postings that were damaging to my reputation. As a professional, I would never intentionally mislead the public. Any PR statements I have ever released were under my own name (not FTPDoug or any other pseudonym) and all information for my press releases were both provided and expressly approved by FTP.

During complicated, crisis situations such as the one with FTP, it is unfortunate that there are unreliable poker news sites and bloggers that disseminate self-serving, inaccurate and misleading information to poker playing public — further clouding an already tense situation. You deserve better. Thank you to Pokernews.com and TwoPlusTwo for posting the truth.

I look forward with great optimism for a speedy resolution for all of the players and fruitful partnership between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

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Comments

  • Percival Percival

    Flint, you're missing the point entirely. The point was that aside from tournament results and player profiles, POKERnews (PN) only ever posts PR statements that consumers, consistently mistake for being news headlines. PN rarely (if ever), has done any investigative journalism. So the PR statement from a PR representative is just plain asinine.

    It also makes me feel that, with every passing day, POKERnews moves further away from growing poker, and closer to embracing more of what caused Poker to cripple in the first place.

  • flintsword flintsword

    Percival, given the legalese of the statement, I would guess that PokerNews was required to publish the PR Guy's statement or did it in good faith to addressed perceived loss of reputation by the PR guy.

  • flintsword flintsword

    You cannot blame a PR consultant for correcting bad press, but quite frankly, it could have been much better done. A truly world-class PR expert that did work for FTP as a consultant should approach his vindication with a sense of humour, if not a ghost-writer, and get an article in BLUFF Magazine for example, who is always open to a good pitch, good story, or poker angle not involving hand histories. Even this PokerNews comment is more legal than public relations, reads dry as a bone, and lacks the savvy you would expect from a PR guy.

    OK, so you are innocent. People were not exactly dragging FTPDoug to the guillotine although a few were probably thinking it. In PR there is a general saying that all news is good. You were involved, albeit indirectly by your own admission, in one of the biggest business management scandals of the decade. You should be able to dine on that for years if not spin business out of it.

    Prior to the Black Friday collapse of FullTiltPoker, the poker PR for FTP was great, and if you were part of that, kudos. No rational poker player would blame a PR consultant for the management mess that was FTP.

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