The WSOP 1K buy-in Tag Team No Limit Hold’em Tournament started on June 5th – 843 two-to-four player teams registered for the event giving it a $758,700 prize pool. There are many teams with heavy line-ups, such as the one consisting of Fedor Holz, Maria Ho, Reiner Kempe and Philipp Zikernik; or the one with the fresh $111,111 One Drop High Roller winner Doug Polk and Ryan Fee, but there is one duo in the field that stands out for many and for all the wrong reasons – the Full Tilt co-founders who had to settle a fraud case against them after their poker room got shut down, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson decided to team up for the event…
The US Department of Justice filed a criminal suit against the operators of the three biggest online poker companies, PokerStars, Full Tilt and Cereus back in 2011. According to the charges Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitart and Rafe Furst transferred $443,860,529 to themselves and other shareholders out of the funds players deposited on their sites between April 2007 and April 2011. This ultimately led to the infamous "Black Friday", where the biggest online poker rooms were shut down in America.
It took years for the Full Tilt players to receive their frozen funds – understandably Lederer and 2000 WSOP Main Event winner "Jesus" Ferguson became a common enemy for many in the online poker community. Although the two managed to settle the case and avoid jail time, they also stayed clear of poker rooms for a long time. Ferguson was the first to return to the WSOP last year, racking up some ITM finishes. This year Lederer also chose to grace the WSOP with his comeback, and for "maximum effect" they are going to play the same stack in the 1K Tag Team Tournament. This evidently ruffled some feathers, for example T.J. Jurkiewicz tweeted out "Chris ‘Judas’ Ferguson takes the seat to our direct right at the WSOP tag team".
Lederer and Ferguson also have Andy Bloch on their team and they managed to get through Day 1 after registering at level 7.
One thing is for sure, the other players don’t need a bounty to go after "Team Ferguson" especially hard.