- partypoker is introducing another move in its recreational player strategy with the launch of Casual Cash Game tables.
- The tables will only be open to players who want to play on a single table.
- The tables will go live on May 6 and be marked in the lobby with a smiley icon. The new games will initially be limited to the dot-com site.
partypoker is introducing another move in its recreational player strategy with the launch of Casual Cash Game tables.
The tables will only be open to players who want to play on a single table. When a player is sat at a Casual Cash Game table, he will not be able to open any others.
Similarly a player sat at one or more normal tables will not be able to join a Casual Cash Game table. Players may continue to multi-table tournaments while playing at a single Casual Cash Game table.
Recreational Focus
The new tables allow players who only want to play a single table to avoid sharing a table with multi-tabling regular players. Since most winning players multi-table, it can be assumed that the average skill level at the new tables will be lower than average.
Initially the tables will be available at a limited range of stakes, but partypoker plans to expand the stake levels “soon.” The tables will go live on May 6 and be marked in the lobby with a smiley icon. The new games will initially be limited to the dot-com site.
The new tables are reminiscent of an early experiment partypoker tried with tables set aside specifically for beginners. That attempt to protect new players from “sharks” suffered from liquidity problems.
partypoker also attempted a skill segregation policy—unannounced and subsequently exploited. The new Group Director of Poker, Jeffrey Haas, ended the policy almost immediately after taking up office.
Cash Game Sit Out Control Introduced
Simultaneously, partypoker will be making life a little harder for “table camping” multi-tablers. A new toggle button will appear when multi-tabling which can be switched to “On” or “Off.”
When switched on, it will automatically replicate a decision to sit out at all tables where the player is playing. When the player sits back in one table, he will be sat back in at all tables. Any player away for 27 hands will be automatically removed from all tables.
If the switch is set to the off position, a player can choose to sit out at individual tables, but if the player does not sit back in within 15 seconds, he will be removed from the table.
Repeated sitting in and out of a table will also result in forcible removal.
The change is designed to reduce the “bum hunting” activities of regular players, who sit in only when a weak player joins a table, and sit out when that player leaves—waiting until another weaker player joins.
Focusing attention on recreational players is expected to continue as a central feature of partypoker’s strategy—at least for the dot-com site. In New Jersey the need for liquidity has partypoker actively promoting itself to higher volume players.
