Three prominent poker rooms of the Merge Gaming Network—Black Chip Poker, RPM Poker and Hero Poker—have apparently withdrawn from the Poker Maximus III tournament series at the last minute, sparking concern among players.
Less than 24-hours before the series was slated to begin, an RPM representative posted on 2+2 that it would not participate in the series.
“We truly apologize for the inconvenience this may cause some players, and we hope to have more information available in the near future,” a representative under the title “RPMSeth” wrote.
Merge touted the event as “one of the most exciting online poker tournament series” that would run over 11 days with more than $1m guaranteed.
The series started Thursday and runs through December 9, with at least 3 events each day and buy-ins ranging from $11 to $530.
While there was no announcement from representatives at Hero Poker or Black Chip Poker, the sites’ lobbies did not feature any Poker Maximus events Wednesday and no reference to the tournament series could be found on either website.
However, Carbon Poker, the flagship skin, displayed a full list of tournaments, with satellites starting as low as $1.95 up to a $530 buy-in “high roller main event.”
Carbon, along with its sister sites Aced and PDC Poker, are considered the largest skins on Merge. Although specific data is not publicly available, RPM, Hero and Black Chip are considered top tier rooms, each with significant marketing efforts on various forums and poker communities.
Earlier this month, Merge halted player-to-player transfers, which coincided with the Carbon trio of skins switching to the new cashier. This improved deposit options for US players and will purportedly improve cashouts, although US players still face 6-8 weeks delay.
In September, the Merge Gaming CEO stepped down after 5 years on the job.
After the announcement from RPM, 2+2 poster “antneye” responded, “What you should apologize for is the poor communication. People want answers to what is going on and no one from RPM will speak.”
