PokerListings France recently sat down with John Juanda to speak about his poker career as well as Full Tilt Poker. The poker pro has been in the limelight as of late for his poker play as well as FTP. Juanda was mentioned in the Lederer Files interview by Howard Lederer and was not pictured nicely. Juanda has fought back against any allegations against his character and in the PokerListings interview, Juanda commented that Lederer should have taken more blame.
During the interview with PokerListings, Juanda was asked if he had anything to say about the latest developments in the FTP case as well as the video interview with Lederer. Juanda responded:
“You have to understand that Howard did that interview for his own reasons, so obviously he was going to say things that make him look good. I thought he should have taken more blame instead of pointing fingers at everyone else.
He was the top guy at Full Tilt. At one point he was Ray Bitar’s boss. I don’t think Howard’s a bad guy.” Ray Bitar had to report to him and, even after that, he was still on the board of directors. A lot of the people involved in the company tried to warn him about Ray Bitar from the beginning but he wouldn’t listen. He trusted Ray Bitar too much.
I don’t think Howard’s a bad guy, but he trusted the wrong person and maybe he should have listened a little bit when people told him he should look over Ray Bitar’s shoulder for example. So yeah, that’s more or less my take on the situation.”
Juanda was then asked if he was angry about it and he commented that he is definitely angry. Juanda stated that the whole thing cost him a lot of embarrassment as well as everyone who was involved with FTP. Juanda went on to state:
“For the last 15 months, I don’t know where Howard was but he didn’t show his face anywhere. We’re the ones who’ve had to face people every day. He never had people coming up to him asking for their money. People came to us, to me, to Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen. They came to us and asked us where their money was. So yeah, I guess he didn’t think about that. I thought it was nice of him to apologize to the players, but I think he owes a lot of people an apology too.
A lot of people involved in Full Tilt, a lot of them lost their job, and others were in complete uncertainty for 15 months, not knowing if they’d still have a job.
I don’t think he even realized that.”
Juanda stated that Lederer should have taken more blame and apologized more instead of basically blaming everyone else instead. Juanda was then asked if he would be part of the new FTP and he stated that it is not up to him. He loves the company and was involved from the beginning and he loved every minute of it. Juanda stated that he has a lot of nice memories from FTP and he met some of his best friends there and he misses that part of the site but he believes the site is in good hands now.
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