Bizarre Clonie Gowan Story

Clonie Gowan, in case you aren't aware, is a professional poker player.  She was also -- up until about two months ago -- a member of "Team Full Tilt", a select group of about a dozen poker players affiliated with the poker website FullTiltPoker.net.

Something odd has happened.  I noticed recently that Clonie's image no longer is amoung the group of players that appear at the end of every "Full Tilt" television commercial.  A visit to the website shows that she has been airbrushed out of every photo and removed from every listing of players.  She's apparently been dispatched down the memory hole, with a degree of efficiency that would make a Bellagio chip-runner jealous.

Naturally, there's a lawsuit involved.  Clonie is suing Full Tilt's parent company (along with some of the owners individually) for $40 million.  She claims that when the website was founded, she was promised 2% ownership of the company.  Apparently there's nothing in writing to prove this.  But she says some weeks ago, Howard Lederer (the purported CEO) offered her $250,000 to walk away.  She thinks she deserves more; hence the lawsuit.

Now, I'm not a lawyer.  But I do know quite a bit about contract law, so I can make a couple of conclusions about this situation.

1. The fact that this alleged ownership interest lacked a written agreement isn't terribly relevant.  An oral contract is just as binding as a written one in most cases (there are plenty of exceptions.  Real estate transactions, for example.).  Having something in writing is helpful, of course, but not usually a requirement for an action to proceed.

2. On the other hand, in order for a contract to be binding, it must involve an activity that is legal.  In other words, if you hire Vinnie the Blade to knock off your ex-girlfriend, and he doesn't, you can't sue him in court for breach of contract, because the basis of the contract was not a legal activity.  Is running an online poker room legal in the United States?  It's not entirely clear whether it is or not.

Regardless, I'm sure that Full Tilt isn't eager to see this action make its way to a courtroom.  It would pretty much oblige them to open up their books and show a lot of details about where the money come from -- and goes -- that they'd just as soon keep private.

If Clonie is seeking $40 meg for 2% of the company, she's basically saying the firm as a whole is worth $2B.  That's difficult to accept, at least for me.  If you'd value the company at between one to one-and-a-half times annual revenue (pretty generous for these types of enterprises that are public), a back of the envelope guesstimate (by me) would give Full Tilt a value of maybe one-tenth or one-twentieth Clonie's number.

My prediction is that the two sides will settle for a low, seven-figure number that will remain secret; Clonie will fade away, and we'll never hear any more about the matter.

But the whole thing is bizarre.

I've always thought that Clonie Gowan was an odd fit for that organization.  Frankly, she's not that good of a poker player.  And her vocabulary includes the kind of words you'd only find at the dockyard ... or in the Illinois Governor's office.  She actually holds the record for the most bleeped player on the TV show "Poker After Dark".

Think about it:  Here are some of the other members of Team Full Tilt:

 * Former World champion Chris "Jesus" Ferguson

 * Eight-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel (8 bracelets!  Only three human beings have more.)

 * Jennifer Harman, perhaps the best female player in the world

 * Phil Ivey, widely considered poker's very best player overall

 * Erick Lindgren, who's been both WPT and WSOP "Player of the Year"

 * Widely respected cash game player Patrik Antonius

 * Etc. etc. etc.

And ... um ... Clonie Gowan?  I mean, how does she fit in with this group, after all?

Not to mention the fact that she basically confessed on an episode of "Poker After Dark" to having cheated in a game.  She said she noticed the deck they were playing with had too many Aces ... but she waited until the pot was pushed to her before she notified the floorman.

Believe it or not, there's a code of honor among poker players.  Handshake agreements fall under that code ... but so does respecting the integrity of the game that you're in.  Every player has the obligation to do what's best for poker at all times; Clonie didn't live up to that requirement.

That doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to be compensated for her work on behalf of Full Tilt.  But if she's that kind of player, it just might indicate why she's no longer part of their team.