Full Tilt co-creator and main programmer Perry Friedman DD at 55 from pancreatic cancer
I didn't know Perry Friedman. I only knew of him.
However, what I did know of him was that he was a nice, upbeat guy, and one of those really brilliant math/computer types. He was the tech guy among the original founders, and was the first hire at the company in 2003. He led the development of their excellent proprietary software. He was on the original board of Full Tilt, along with Howard Lederer, Ray Bitar, Chris Ferguson, and Phil Ivey.
When Full Tilt stole everyone's money and then couldn't pay players after 2011's Black Friday, I suddenly had a much more negative view of everyone major involved with Full Tilt, including Friedman.
I was happy to hear some years later that there were two loud objectors to Full Tilt's shady business practices. One of them was John Juanda, and the other was Perry Friedman. Both of them felt that CEO Ray Bitar -- the guy most responsible for the thefts from and mismanagement of Full Tilt -- was not qualified, and loudly stated so.
At the end of 2006, Friedman attempted to lead a vote to remove Bitar as CEO. The vote was not successful, and Friedman quit the board. He stated that Full Tilt had become too large and too complex for its current leadership to handle, that Bitar was incompetent, and that huge problems were coming down the road.
Boy, was he ever correct.
Rafe Furst took his seat on the board. Friedman was not on the board when the thefts started.
I'm not sure when Friedman got his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. That's got to be the worst thing you can possibly hear at the doctor's office. Pancreatic cancer is a death sentence. It kills quickly, does not respond well to chemo, and its cause is unknown. 25% of the people who get it are smokers, but the other 75% get it for seemingly no reason, including Friedman and Steve Jobs. 99% of people at stage 4 are dead within 5 years, most of them sooner than that.
Friedman was still actively playing poker. He had 6 cashes at the 2022 WSOP, and three at the 2021 WSOP. He cashed once in 2023 -- at the $1500 PLO8. I have to imagine he was in bad physical shape by then, and probably played fewer events. He won a $1500 O8 bracelet in 2002, just before the poker boom began.
RIP
