As you already might have noticed, Full Tilt made several changes earlier this week in the poker client to make the game lobbies easier to navigate, i.e. to make it easier for new players to find active tables, but also, of course, to generate bigger revenues. These are the games that have or will be removed from the poker client:
• Adrenaline Rush games (from the end of April)
• Cap and Deep Stack Heads-Up No Limit Hold'em games
• Cap, Deep Stack and Deep Stack with Ante 6-Max No Limit Hold'em games
• Shallow Stack Full Ring No Limit Hold'em games
• Pot Limit Hold'em Heads-Up and 6-Max games
• Full Ring Fixed Limit Hold'em games
• Deep Stack Pot Limit Omaha Heads-Up games
• Cap, Deep Stack and Deep Stack with Antes Pot Limit Omaha 6-Max games
• Deep Stack with Antes 6-Card Pot Limit Omaha Heads-Up games
• New to the Game tables for certain games (such as No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 6-Max)
• Irish Poker
• HORSE, HA and 7-Game
• $2/$4 Rush Poker Ring Games will become $2.50/$5 Rush Poker Ring Games
• $0.25/$0.50 and $1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Rush Poker games will be removed - but, we're adding $2.50/$5 Pot Limit Omaha Rush Poker games, so Pot Limit Omaha will be available at every second stake level
• 6 Card Omaha, 8-Game, and 10-Game 6-Max tables will change to 5-Max
• Stud Hi, Stud Hi-Low and Razz 8-handed games will all become 5-Max
In addition, many high-stakes games have been removed as well, including no-limit and pot-limit games where the highest stakes now are $250/$500.
Ever since the drastic change to ring games on Tuesday, poker players from all over the globe have discussed the matter on different forums. The feedback on FT's major changes has been met with some skepticism to say the least.
"Today Full Tilt have made some drastic changes to their offering of games at the higher stakes, or there has been a bug in their most recent software update. The highest stake big-bet game is now $250/$500, all ante big-bet games have being removed. The SECOND highest stake big-bet game is now $25/$50, thus removing $50/$100, $75/$150, $100/$200, $200/$400, $300/$600, and $400/$800.
The limit games have been more seriously affected as there has been a lot of action at the $2,000/$4,000 tables. Their highest offering is now $1,000/$2,000, with the second highest being $50/$100, removing $500/$1,000, $300/$600, $200/$400, and $100/$200.
These changes seem to be pretty absurd to me, I would say it's more likely its a bug, however, is there anyone from FTP/PokerStars that can comment on this?" AnFiieLd" posted on twoplustwo poker forum.
Another player, "ChuckBass", later added, "I am one of the most active regulars in the 6c games. Over time, I've been playing it has been pretty apparent that the majority of players don't like playing short handed.Tables run fine [five or six] handed, but as soon as we get down to four or less they break quickly the majority of the time. Now it only takes one person sitting out to start the domino effect. We've seen this already today, there were five full tables of 2.5/5 running and five minutes later just one, each breaking almost immediately after the first sat out. As I've been typing this, the last remaining full table broke one minute after one player sat out."
Full Tilt manager Shyam Markus told PokerNews that this was not a mistake nor that the changes were expected to be welcomed by everyone.
"Yes, I can confirm it's not a bug. Lots of changes were implemented today, and for sure many won't be popular. We did talk to a good number of players about this change," he told PokerNews. "I agree there is some danger here of disrupting a game that was doing quite well (easily the third biggest game we spread after NLH and PLO). The change was mostly to address the feedback that the games could play quite tight because of how strong your hand had to be to win. We're going to give it a try, and if it looks to hurt more than it helps, we'll definitely reevaluate the decision. So give it a shot, and let us know how it plays (and whether or not tables break too quickly/often)."
source: pokernews
