According to site rep Shyam Markus, formerly known as FTPDoug, play money games will launch in the next several days on Full Tilt Poker. The site previously had a re-launch date of November 6, which could still be the time frame for real money tables to appear. Markus posted on Two Plus Two on Friday, “Next week, we’ll have an actual game to log into and play (play money) with… Should be an exciting week!”

Markus also updated the poker community on a bundle of changes at Full Tilt, which was once the second largest online poker site in the world until a financial freefall culminated in a sale to PokerStars in August. U.S. players are still awaiting word from the Department of Justice as to the future of their account balances. No timeline has been given for any such announcement.

When asked what people who have moved out of the U.S. since June 2011 should do to get re-verified, Markus responded, “You will have to write to support. You can do that now if you want to get a jump on things. Note that this will not change the procedure for going through the remission process with the DOJ if you had a real money U.S.-based account.” You’ll recall that Full Tilt’s gaming license was suspended in June 2011 and revoked three months later.

When the DOJ will announce the details of the remission process is unclear. Also uncertain is whether U.S. players will receive the entirety of their funds back or a percentage on the dollar.

Markus also addressed concerns about rakeback caps being lower on Full Tilt than PokerStars. He explained the difference by saying, “The highest volume grinders will get lower rewards on FTP than PokerStars. We don’t intend to compete for that particular group of players with our [Full Tilt’s] rewards program, which isn’t to say we don’t intend to compete for any of that group at all.” The new Full Tilt has a maximum rakeback of 25%, whereas PokerStars’ maximum rakeback exceeds 70%.

Fifteen characters will be available for anyone making a new screen name on Full Tilt. For existing players, real money tournament and ring game tickets have been carried over to the new Full Tilt even if they expired while the room was dormant. On the fate of pending deposit and reload bonuses, text found on Full Tilt’s FAQ explains, “Any bonuses that were not purchased and were still active when the site went offline on June 29, 2011 have since expired. If there was any cleared portion of the bonus that hadn’t been released yet, that cleared amount has been credited to the bonus holder’s account.”

Full Tilt will re-launch with its Deal Me In promotion, which includes freerolls, bonus packages, discount ring game and tournament tickets, and Happy Hour Week. It will then be just a few weeks until FTOPS XXI begins on December 2. The 21st FTOPS is the first since April 2011.

Full Tilt’s Sit and Go and MTT leaderboards were both paid out according to the standings on June 29, 2011; the freeroll for the latter will take place on November 11.

Finally, players who tried to withdraw in the days before the old Full Tilt went the way of the dodo will have their balances reinstated to their accounts. Full Tilt commented, “All outstanding withdrawals at the time the site went down remained unprocessed. We have accounted for every unprocessed transaction and all affected accounts have had the appropriate credit made to their balance.”

Stay tuned to PocketFives for the latest on the Full Tilt Poker reboot.

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