At the moment everyone and his dog seems hell bent on separating their players from other players one way or another. Full Tilt have announced they will guarantee all tournaments and Daniel Negreanu has thrown down the gauntlet in a Full Tilt v PokerStars Challenge.
Revolution & Party Poker Separate Players by Ability
Earlier this week it seemed Lock Poker had moved all the higher stakes tables over to a Lock only corner of the Revolution network in some kind of reverse segregation keeping the sharks away from the fish. By the end of the week this had evolved into a network wide plan to segregate the less able / recreational players away from those more experienced regular winning and grinding players but by somehow not completely segregating them apparently.
Party were similarly vague about confirming a similar ad-hoc closed off table system being tested that players had noticed but it would seem after dropping high stakes games all together and with the impending Zynga invasion of impaired play money poker players – they have definitely got some discriminating table system in place.
It sounds like its not really much more than the current beginner tables solution that iPoker and 888poker have providing some clearly marked protected tables for newbies – but that does nothing for the long term losing player once they are out in the wild.
God only knows how they all plan square the circle of segregated systems, fair play and keeping the reg’s happy but I have long had a personal solution to all this problem of “bum-hunting” grinders searching out the fish heavy tables while avoiding any other sharks as much as possible … more of that in this coming weeks blog.
Hats off if Revolution if they have come up with the same idea as me (though I doubt it) because up until now everyone’s unsubtle solution has just been thinly veiled variations on keeping the lions in one pen and the gazelles in the other – not much of a solution.
At least Bovada / Bodog had the balls to nail their colours to the mast and just screw up everyone HUD’s and make everything completely anonymous at the tables (much like live tables then really).
Possibility of Italy & Spain Sharing Player Pool in 2013
Not quite the 3-way compact expected of France / Italy and Spain together but for both nations it represents a great opportunity to prop up player liquidity and for both benefit from a more sustainable environment. It would of course be even better if all the European countries could see their way to at least an EU wide player base – but it looks like everyone is determined to learn by their own experienced rather than listen to others previous experiences.
Zoom Tournaments to Launch in PokerStars Micro Millions Series
The long awaited tournament version of Zoom poker cash games is finally launching on PokerStars, choosing the micro millions series to run two rush style tournaments on 14th and 17th of March with $75,000 and $50,000 guaranteed respectively.
Negreanu Challenges the Full Tilt Crew
Interesting piece of (blatant) inter site rivalry (promotion) instigated by PokerStars poster boy Daniel Negreanu to challenge the (remaining) Full Tilt Pro’s into a heads-up challenge to see who has the best crew of pro players blah blah.
If anyone is so easily convinced this neat reawakening of the Hansen / Negreanu $575k Full House v Quads hand was sparked purely by Hansen & Negreanu without the enthusiastic nurturing of the FullPokerTiltStars.com (TM) PR machine then they should go get their head examined.
Not that I have a real problem with it but from now on in you must remember that everything tilty and star-like will be 110% conceived for maximum benefit of the Rational Posse.
Anyway back the juicy bit, the games are starting next Sunday 10th March and will be played between Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Isaac Haxton for Team PokerStars on one side and Team Full Tilt Poker will be Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan and Viktor Blom who are the only pro’s left on the FTP rosta.
Nevada, Then Delaware & Now New Jersey
OK so one becomes three as New Jersey joins Delaware and Nevada approving legalised / regulated online poker / gambling in their respective states. While the race to be the first to legalise online poker is over the race to actually get the lights on and the first hand dealt online is still very much a three horse race. Although given the amount of time Nevada have taken to not get there yet, either suggests they have a big head start or that New Jersey might be keener to pull their finger out their a**es and get those tables running before too long.
$1m+ Losses Online for Phil Ivey In February
Phil Ivey is down just over a million bucks in February playing on Full Tilt while Tom “Drrr” Dwan is up close to $2 million over the same period. While Party Poker couldn’t ditch the high stakes tables quick enough this year it seems Full Tilt is still the place to go for nose-bleed high stakes swinging – good luck to them I say.
None of that even comes close to the $1 BILLION won and pi**ed away by former San Diego Mayor while playing video poker using misappropriated charity money to fuel her habit … Geeze Louise get a hold of yourself woman.
Full Tilt to Offer Guaranteed Prize Pools on All Tournaments
That’s pretty much it really, Full Tilt Poker go out on a limb and guaranteed all of their tournaments with minimum guarantees which is not really that much of a limb to go out on – After all these years as the 2nd biggest poker room they should be fairly confident of setting both achievable and tempting guaranteed prize pools, OH that and having an average of around 3 weeks late registration times on most tournaments – they’re on pretty safe ground I think. Good PR though being able to boast at least $25 million in guaranteed tournament prize pools every month.
