The unresolved debt of $16.5 million is not something the Group is willing to take on, Tapie says, especially since the overall financial situation at Full Tilt is "worse than expected."

Still, Tapie says they have reached out to all of the pros and some have even signed repayment contracts already. Some have yet to respond.

Tapie also specifically said Full Tilt players will only be refunded if GBT completes the takeover, which will require "the bulk" of that money returned.

If it isn't repaid, Tapie says it is true it could block the deal.

Said Tapie, roughly translated:

"The poker community, and particularly that made up of former Full Tilt players waiting to recover their funds, deserves to know the reality of the behaviour of some major poker figures who say they are ‘sorry for the situation of Full Tilt players and want to do everything they can to help them get their funds back, blaming the old management, but also refrain from saying how much they have borrowed from Full Tilt, and lost, playing on the site.

"However these losses represent some of the funds owed to the players who are waiting to be reimbursed. When you are a poker player, a great player at that, recognised and admired, the basic rule, it seems to me, is to honour your gambling debts.

"Fortunately, among the 19 players we have attempted to contact, some have immediately called back and worked with us on a repayment plan to clear their debts, and we are already finalising contracts to that effect."

Read the rest of Tapie's comments at iGamingFrance.

In particular, outstanding debts to the company from former pros including Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow and David Benyamine could be problematic.

Said Dayanim:

"GBT doesn't want to acquire assets which will need to be litigated over later. In total, the sum owed to the company is between $10 and $20 million.

"Several of the players who owe money and have not yet expressed a willingness to pay their debts include Phil Ivey, Layne Flack, David Benyamine, and Erik Lindgren. Barry Greenstein, Mike Matusow, and others owe a smaller but still significant amount."If the money doesn't come in, it creates a serious obstacle to completion of the deal.

"This isn't the only issue with the takeover, and the deal won't end on any one issue - but this is a substantial item."

A signed agreement is in place between GBT and the US Department of Justice to purchase the assets of the former Full Tilt for $80 million, although the working through of several necessary conditions has taken more time than expected.

As recently as this past week however, Groupe Director Laurent Tapie has said he expects the deal to be completed by the end of February.

Day 4 was not a good one for Ivey as the former Full Tilt pro was bleeding chips.

Ivey had the misfortune of losing set over set to Karim Jomeen and never really seemed to fully recover.

He eventually finished with 699,000 chips, which puts him in last place. On the plus side the iconic pro still has 34 big blinds to work with so he could still make a late charge to the final table.

It was the opposite for Yann Dion, who crushes online poker as yadio. Dion caught fire in the last level of play and shot up to 2.6 million in chips.

Mohamad Kowssarie, who used to play online as Fast_Freddie and TerrorOfSweden, also had an exceptional day. The Swede won several massive pots and built a stack of 2.2 million chips.

As far as interestingly storylines Lee Nelson would certainly be up there. The 2006 Aussie Millions winner finished with 1.6 million chips and will have shot at becoming the first repeat champ.

Also still in play is recent WSOP bracelet winner Dan Idema who built a stack of 1.8 million.

To say play has been swingy at the 2012 Aussie Millions would be an understatement.

Matt Turk, who won a tournament-leading 2.6 million-chip pot against Jason Koon to end Day 3, was one of the final eliminations on Day 4.

Turk was bleeding chips all day and eventually shipped his last 570,000 chips with pocket tens and got called down by Yann Dion who had pocket kings.

Day 5 begins tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. It's unclear how many eliminations will be needed to set the final table as the usual number of players at the final table seven but in years past they’ve stopped at eight to accommodate star players such as Patrik Antonius and Barny Boatman.

Here’s a complete look at the chip counts at the end of play:

Yann Dionn – 2,670,000 Bjorn Li – 2,471,000 Mohamad Kowssarie – 2,300,000 Karim Jomeen – 2,063,000 Dan Idema – 1,840,000 Lee Nelson – 1,651,000 Patrick Healy – 1,565,000 Janis Lesinkskis – 1,501,000 Kenneth Wong – 1,498,000 Oliver Speidel – 809,000 Mile Krstanoski – 755,000 Phil Ivey – 699,000

The West Virginian had over one million chips midway though Day 3 of the 2012 Aussie Millions and was looking dangerous in almost every hand he played.

Despite some close calls over the years, Koon has never won a major live tournament and while he was reluctant to say he was due he did mention he was ready to win in terms of ability, preparation and mindset.

“I do have the ability to dominate this tournament and I’m looking forward to playing the best that I can and going as deep as I can,” he said.

It’s been a life-changing 12 months for Koon who saw his ability to play online poker in the USA disappear with Black Friday. He also had a substantial amount of money stuck on Full Tilt Poker.

“It was a big hit financially and in terms of lifestyle,” he said. “I was back home in West Virginia hanging out with some friends and making a pretty great living grinding four or five days a week.”

Like many online pros Koon opted to move to poker player haven Vancouver, Canada, so that he could continue to ply his trade online.

At first the adjustment of moving from the USA was difficult but Koon eventually got into the rhythm of it.

“Vancouver’s a beautiful city and I lived in Coal Harbor and Yaletown, which are both nice areas,” he said.

Despite his good experiences in Vancouver, Koon is once again on the move and plans on living in Cyprus with Chris Moorman for the next while.

“I’ve been bouncing all over the place and it’s been a lot of fun,” he said.

Earlier this year Koon Tweeted that 2012 would be his year and so far he’s lived up to his promise.

At the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Koon made the final table of the $25,000 High Rollers event and ended up finishing in fourth place to take down $271,950.

The final table was no walk in the park with pros Jonathan Duahamel, Isaac Haxton and Randy Lew all competing for first place.

“I was first in chips heading into the final table I was obviously not completely satisfied with fourth but getting fourth in one of the toughest tournaments in the world is never a bad thing,” he said.

Right now Koon is firmly set on making a deep run in the 2012 Aussie Millions. He had nothing but good things to say about the signature Australian event.

“The value is good and the structure is great,” he said. “This is a fantastic tournament.”

Those bank accounts were understood to be Ferguson's personal accounts it claims.

Ferguson withdrew or moved $45 million of the money through various means, the report says, including transfers to other personal accounts, payments to his lawyer Ian Imrich, loans to other FTP shareholders and the purchasing of more FTP shares.

According to Subject: Poker, $14.3 million of the $60 million was not withdrawn and instead was used with Ferguson’s approval to cover Full Tilt’s post-Black Friday expenses.

As for how the accounts could affect the impending deal, Subject: Poker sources say Ferguson and Imrich have been trying to recoup this $14.3 million and have threatened legal action to see an accounting of the money and reclaim any money “spent improperly.”

This may or may not even be possible though, Subject: Poker says.

The report also claims early versions of Full Tilt’s agreement with the Bernard Tapie Group included giving the equivalent in shares to Ferguson but that changed when the DOJ stipulated Full Tilt’s board of directors could not be involved in the new company.

No sources have been officially named and neither Imrich or Ferguson were reached for comment.

Read the full report here.

Formerly a pro at Full Tilt Poker, Weisner is primarily a tournament player, specializing in heads-up Sit-and-Go’s.  According to the tournament tracking site SharkScope.com, she ranked near the top of the leader boards in terms of total profit in several categories in 2010:

Any game with stakes $301-$1,000 – 11th
Any game with any stakes – 20th
Any game on Full Tilt Poker – 17th
Heads-Up Hold’em with stakes $301-$1,000 – 9th
Heads-Up Hold’em with any stakes – 14th

Despite being slowed down online by Black Friday, Melanie Weisner still ranked 8th in short-handed super turbo Sit-and-Go’s with $301-$1,000 stakes.  At one point, she actually held the number one ranking for heads-up Sit-and-Go’s, across any site, period.

According to PocketFives.com, which tracks multi-table tournaments (MTTs), Weisner, who has played under the screen name “Callisto 5” on PokerStars, ranks 2,356th for MTTs worldwide.  She reached as high as 607th back in August of 2010.  Her largest cash according to the site was just over $50,000 for a 3rd place finish in the PokerStars $530 Sunday $500K guaranteed tournament on August 1st, 2010.

While her live tournament resume isn’t nearly as expansive as her online one, she has been ramping up her brick-and-mortar game as of late.  This past fall, she had a successful run in Europe, starting with a 3rd place finish in the £1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) London stop (£15,300/$ 23,914), followed by a 4th place finish in the £5,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em event at the same tour stop (£20,000/$31,260).  A week and a half later, Weisner placed 33rd in the $10,000 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event (€27,500/$36,736).  She has two live wins under her belt, both in Ladies Events.  The first was at EPT Prague in 2009, while the second came at the EPT Grand Final in 2010.

All told, Melanie Weisner has won $388,002 on the live tournament circuit.  She currently ranks 74th on Epic Poker’s Global Poker Index.

“Melanie is a perfect fit for Lock. Passionate, relentless in her dedication to the game and incredibly intelligent,” said Lock Poker’s CEO Jennifer Larson in a press release. “Players like Melanie give us the true insight into the product and player experience that we need to become the best. Partnering with our players is the true path to greatness.”

The 25-year old Houston native said, “I am thrilled to join a team of world-class players and talented peers such as Chris Moorman, Matt Stout and Leo Margets.  I feel very honoured to be a part of this exciting and growing brand, and look forward to representing Lock around the world.”

In 2010 Phil Ivey and RaiseOnce were both active on Full Tilt and PokerStars respectively and they both disconnected and reconnected at the same time.

The RaiseOnce account also seems to follow Ivey’s general style of play – i.e. playing a minimal amount of tables and quitting as soon as he starts losing.

Furthermore the account is located in Mexico and Ivey is known to own a house in Cabo.

You can read more about the many reasons why railbirds believe RaiseOnce is Phil Ivey in this thread on TwoPlusTwo poker forum.

On Friday RaiseOnce first sat at $400/$800 8-game and $1,000/$2,000 H.O.R.S.E. with no takers before Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond finally took him on at $200/$400 PLO.

Galfond stacked RaiseOnce for over $200k in a short session but would go on to play another 3,000 hands this weekend and ended up finishing with $160k in profit.

Although all the buzz was on RaiseOnce this weekend there were some big winners on PokerStars as mTw-DaviN took down $219k. AltiFC (+$92k), tiltjezz (+$73k) and 1II|1II|1iI| (+$63k).

1II|1II|1iI| has been on one heck of a heater lately and has won over $1 million in the last three weeks alone.

RaiseOnce was indeed the biggest loser on PokerStars over the weekend but EireAbu (-$209k), Lrslzk (-$84k), Long90110 (-$84k) and PimpyLimpy (-$55k) all lost big.

Keep in mind that Long90110 was heavily rumored to be Tom Dwan so that means its possible that two former Full Tilt superstars were active on PokerStars over the weekend.

For more information be sure to check our online poker stats section. In the meantime you can check out the biggest hand from the massive RaiseOnce and MrSweets28 session below.