FullTilt makes drastic changes to their poker room

Recently we informed you that FullTilt made big plans: poker room not only informed about huge incoming changes without giving details, where they said they would focus more on recreational players rather then professionals, but they also signed first "Players ambassador" to have a better contact with said players. The first information was that the poker room is going to increase rake in August, however that still didn't happen. Though, few days ago, FullTilt made another very controversial and dramatic changes.

The short list of changes is just shocking:
- there are no longer individual tables in the lobby, so you can't choose which table you sit at. You choose the stakes and game.
- all heads-up games were removed from the poker room
- Stud/Draw/Mixed Games are no longer available
- Nosebleed Stake are also gone

The full reasoning and explanation of changes available below, posted by FullTilt Poker Room Manager, Shyam Markus:
"Hi all,

Our first round of big changes is out today, and I wanted to give some additional details about those changes that might not be fully covered in the just posted blog entry from Dominic.

Today's changes are all about ring games. Specifically, how players find and join ring game tables has been totally revamped. You will no longer see individual ring game tables in the lobby, but rather it will now look more like Rush where you see a table name in the lobby, but each name represents potentially lots of individual tables. When you join that game and buy in, we find a table for you.

The good news for everyone is that it should now be a much cleaner looking lobby, and it should be easier for players less experienced with the lobby to find and join games.

The bad news for some (but good news for most) is that there is no longer table and seat selection in ring games.



The main idea here was to take as much of the "work" out of starting tables and keeping them running as possible. In detail:

We start tables as soon as enough people that can't currently be seated (either because there are no running tables, or all running tables are full) have bought into the game and are waiting to start playing. This generally means that nobody will have to start a table heads-up. Most games will only start running when we have 3 or 4 players. It's worth noting that there isn't any kind of segregation going on. All players have a fair chance of sitting with any other player(s).
If you don't like your table, you can request to be moved. There's a new checkbox on the table called (suprisingly enough) "Request Move." When you check it, your interest in moving will be noted, and as soon as there's an available seat to move you to, you'll get moved. This means it may not happen immediately (or at all, when there are no other tables running).
As people come and go and tables start getting short handed, we will actively merge tables together when possible to keep as many players playing at full tables as we can. This should keep games going longer, and be more fun for the majority of players who don't like playing short handed.

There are some pretty obvious ways people will try to "game" this new system (read: continue to try to table select). We have a few ways we prevent this:

There is a table max of 6 per game (just like each Rush stake has a max of 4).
Every time you enter a specific ring game, a 30 minute timer gets created and starts ticking down. You can only have so many active timers per game, and when you hit that max you can't enter that ring game again until one of those timers clears. This will prevent players from joining and leaving their tables over and over again hoping to table select.
There is very little ratholing possible. There is now a 2 hour rathole timer, and it works across the entire game/stake level. So if you buy-in for 40BB (the new minimum at regular tables, up from 35BB) and double up, then leave the table, if you try to buy back into that game/stake level, you'll be required to buy in for 80BB, even if you wouldn't be sitting at the same table.

Other changes you'll see today -

Heads-Up:

There were three main problems with heads-up for us -

The lobby was very intimidating and confusing for new players, with a whole bunch of single players sitting around now playing each other. This could have been solved with the above ring game changes.
Table selection (or, really, bumhunting) is worse at HU than any other form of poker. This was at best half-solved with the above ring game changes. The new behaviour would have been: join game, get matched up with a player you don't want to play, leave, repeatx7, go do something else for 30 minutes. Every once in a while a good player would hit the jackpot and find a weak enough player they're willing to play. So not much changes here unfortunately (other than making it a bit more annoying to try to find the weaker players).
Our data shows that the more a new player in their first month plays heads-up, the less likely they are to return in their second month. Dramatically so. This would not have been fixed with the ring game changes above.

So the decision was made to simply remove HU ring games from our offering. This decision wasn't made lightly. After all, we do make a decent amount of revenue off of this game type (these changes definitely can't be classified as a "money grab"). We simply believe heads-up ring games are a very negative game to offer for the overall poker economy on Full Tilt. I'm sure it can work somewhere, in some form, and maybe someday we'll come up with a way to do that. For now, though, it's gone.

Stud/Draw/Mixed Games:

This needs less of an explanation, but these have also been removed. Simply put, we didn't have enough players still interested in these games (especially after the note about nosebleeds below) to continue to offer them as ring games. We'll still spread them as occasional tournaments, and I hope to be able to bring more fun non-hold'em games back in the future, but for now it's more important that we have a clean and simple offering of the games that actually run.

Nosebleed Stakes:

Also gone. They had their own set of issues, but mostly these games simply didn't fit with what we were trying to do anymore. And with the new system not allowing you to watch individual tables, the spectator factor was gone as well.

What's next:

As Dominic mentioned in his first post linked above, the entire rewards program will be changing. There are a fair number of ideas in this rewards change that (as far as I know) haven't been tried before. Lots more info to come on this.

We'll also be giving SNGs the same treatment as ring games at some point, hopefully this year. Once that happens (or maybe even at the same time), we'll be able to revamp the lobby itself, making finding and joining a game even more user friendly.

And, of course, more!

Sorry for yet another tl;dr post, but there was a lot to get through.

Leave your feedback on any of this stuff here in this thread, and we'll be sure to read, discuss, and provide answers to questions when possible. "

°_°

Curious to see how this works out. I like the changes and if it is good for casuals it should eventually make its way back to pros.

so instead of waitlisting a table you want to play at, you need to join and leave 20x?

The change is positive, to be honest what professional poker players really do is being there to entertain the people who want to play. Table selection and recreational hunting will just inevitably destroy the game at a very quick pace.

I for one really like these changes, provides for a much more casino-like environment. You walk in, get assigned a table, play a little while, and if you dont like it your ass can go back on the wait list.

you know what will destroy the game even quicker? negative winrates
+ Show Spoiler +

On August 03 2015 17:22 ggplz wrote: so instead of waitlisting a table you want to play at, you need to join and leave 20x?

you will probably get punished if you try that.


I love the idea, this will stop bumhunting and will get games running again

baal with 100%+ pro rb bitching about regs not wanting to play other regs

good comedy

On August 04 2015 00:28 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On August 03 2015 17:22 ggplz wrote: so instead of waitlisting a table you want to play at, you need to join and leave 20x? you will probably get punished if you try that.

Why would you be? all they did was limit selecting tables.. it's not like they banned table selection, they just made it very difficult to target specific tables Hopefully puts an end to those table selecting mass waitlisting scripts tho

I'm going to play devils advocate a bit here. This will definitely be good for recs, and it will get more games going. But the regs will have lower winrates, and some will have to move down stakes or go busto. Which will force people to get even better even faster then they already are to try and make up for lower winrate due to no table selecting? Which will make the games die/get so hard that you need to devote an insane amount of hours (even more then you already need to do) just to move up the stakes.

On August 04 2015 07:02 Trav94 wrote: I'm going to play devils advocate a bit here. This will definitely be good for recs, and it will get more games going. But the regs will have lower winrates, and some will have to move down stakes or go busto. Which will force people to get even better even faster then they already are to try and make up for lower winrate due to no table selecting? Which will make the games die/get so hard that you need to devote an insane amount of hours (even more then you already need to do) just to move up the stakes.

What might happen is that the hard working regs will become really really good, while the worse regs will quit or play lower stakes, and there will definitely be a balance where some regs will be weeded out in favor of stronger players

Pokerrooms think about profit, and short term: lowering the winrates will give them more rake, more money goes back and forth, ppl will have to play more hours to make the same amount of money. But many will quit, and there will be even less ppl playing, like on PS.fr - NL200 6max runs ocasionally

Also ppl that will stay will rape fish faster cause of their very high skill.

And that's the end of the argument, that fish should "be" for regs who "deserve them" cause they play better and spent more time on analyzing the game - very good regs will scare away fish even faster from tables.

On August 04 2015 10:23 MadeInPolanD wrote: very good regs will scare away fish even faster from tables.

Yea my thoughts exactly. This new system gives an incentive to get even better even faster.

On August 03 2015 21:48 dogmeat wrote: you know what will destroy the game even quicker? negative winrates + Show Spoiler + moron

Easy buddy. I get from your posts you think you are smarter and better than other people here.

You aren't.

Negative winrates are good for the game; they contribute liquid $ to all levels of the player pool. Sans rake someone has to win. These changes are fine if you can hang.

On August 04 2015 10:23 MadeInPolanD wrote: Pokerrooms think about profit, and short term: lowering the winrates will give them more rake, more money goes back and forth, ppl will have to play more hours to make the same amount of money. But many will quit, and there will be even less ppl playing, like on PS.fr - NL200 6max runs ocasionally Also ppl that will stay will rape fish faster cause of their very high skill. And that's the end of the argument, that fish should "be" for regs who "deserve them" cause they play better and spent more time on analyzing the game - very good regs will scare away fish even faster from tables.

You can still Bumhunt HU @ ongame network.

Awesome changes, now its fun to play again.

On August 04 2015 07:02 Trav94 wrote: I'm going to play devils advocate a bit here. This will definitely be good for recs, and it will get more games going. But the regs will have lower winrates, and some will have to move down stakes or go busto. Which will force people to get even better even faster then they already are to try and make up for lower winrate due to no table selecting? Which will make the games die/get so hard that you need to devote an insane amount of hours (even more then you already need to do) just to move up the stakes.

Na. There is an upper limit to how good people can be and how hard they are going to work. People that are playing poker right now are already trying as hard as they are going to as you are constantly incentivized to get better (move up, keep up, etc.) as it is. Just because some extreme bumhunters can no longer camp lobbies does not mean they are going to hit the books and revitalize their game. They are probably just going to cry and bitch like Dogmeat.

The worse you are the more these changes affect you and I feel that those most impacted will be the least able to do anything about it. If this causes some nits to bust or move down then great.

Cool changes. Not a fan of the 6 table max (at all, that 100% stops me from playing there) but I like the rest.

Ppl wondering about joining a table then leaving 20x to 'table select'. In the post he said as soon as you join a table, there's a half hour timer before you can join leave again. At least that's my understanding.

ah, missed that

Ya'll are looking into this too much. These changes will bring in more rec players, plain and simple. If you dont see that as a good thing I dont know what to tell you. If someone was only beating 5/10 bumhunting then yeah, they'll have to move down to their true skill level at 2/4 or whatever. Better players at lower stakes. But maybe their winrates will increase due to influx of fish, and also due to lack of direct competition from other regs who cant table select anymore. Shit you could end up at a table with 4 fish. I dont think thats even possible anymore in today's climate. And even if their winrates go down, their profits might go up since they can get in more volume with a larger player pool again.

All I can say is there is no way in fuckin hell I would play on Stars knowing every time someone sits on my left it's because I was profiled by some automated table software and that every move they make against me is the direct result of some deep HUD analysis, constantly fucking with my every decision. At least now I would know that even if some reg ends up on my left, it was just luck of the draw. Maybe he doesnt have a good sample on me, cant pick me apart so quickly, etc. Fish arent stupid, they know what sitting next to players mean. I see players at live games comment on who sits where all the time. They may not have the skillset to do anything about it, but they know if you sit next to them you're gunning for them, and they dont like that.

So much misconception on basic economics.

Definitely if you start taking away the skill aspect of the game you will lose your customers. Players and sites don't believe this is true (even though its basic economics), because historically there have been monopolistic controls in place in regards to regulations and payment processor restrictions. But that is past history.

The old model of tending towards casino poker will NOT work in the present day environment and we are about to see the empirical data in real time on this.

The prevailing myth that break even regs will leave and so a game that is great for recs and ultra pros is redic. The myth that bringing more recs in with casino skill-less poker will attract pros is equally as silly.

If you take away profitability in poker you will lose your customers. The only site that will be able to get away from this for some time is PS because of its brand. But already the top players are sic of the brand and its actions, and the pros and celebs that aren't publicly sick of these practices are being hush because of the massive cheating scandal.

Simply put, these changes will kill full tilt and they are probably meant to.

This mentality of myths only made sense when the game was growing and expanding rapidly.