Full Tilt Ends Sponsorship with Jonathan Little

On Tuesday, March 4th, Full Tilt Poker made the announcement that Jonathan Little would no longer be a  member of the Full Tilt team of players, and his online account was closed. After only four months of sponsorship by the site, the online player known as “FieryJustice” was dismissed on the basis that he allowed others to play on his account.
The following statement was released on the Full Tilt Poker forum:

"Despite having a great year on the WPT, Jonathan Little is no longer affiliated with Full Tilt Poker. He violated the terms and conditions of Full Tilt Poker by allowing other players to play his account. While we encourage our pros to play as much as they can, we do not allow them to share their account with any other players.
When a player on Full Tilt Poker plays against and chats with a red pro on the site, it is imperative that they be able to trust that it is really the advertised pro playing the account. Given that Mr. Little violated that trust, we have decided to sever his ties to the site and close his account.
Full Tilt Poker values the trust of its players and will deal with any violation of that trust swiftly. We apologize to any of our players who may have been misled during the past few months by Mr. Little’s actions.”
It seems that Little was on record as having played 1,227 sit-n-go’s during the first week of March. While this would be difficult under normal circumstances, the pro was spending time playing at the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship during that week as well. Full Tilt deduced that he allowed other people to use his account to play.
Whether Little let others play his account for the sake of friendship or the 100% rakeback and additional $35 hourly rate he received for playing on the site, or even to achieve a solid position on the tournament leader board, is unknown. Little has yet to speak about the dismissal of his Full Tilt Poker agreement.
The pro seemed to be on the road to a lucrative career as a live and online pro with nearly $2.5 million in live tournament winnings and numerous online accomplishments. However, his demeanor in the poker community has been questioned on a number of occasions. His boastful words after his fifth place finish at the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure received some backlash from the community, though he appeared to have learned a lesson. But the 24-year old also wrote a blog about Chris Ferguson engaging in “100% classless celebration” at the recent NBC Heads-Up event.
While some of Little’s actions can be attributed to his age and inexperience, his recent sponsorship deal with Full Tilt should have put him on notice that his behavior, especially with regard to fellow Full Tilt pros, should be kept in check. In the end, breaking the rules of the site itself was the end of the deal.