- Unspecified “categorization” will split up the player base across the Revolution Gaming Network.
- Segregation is in addition to Lock’s $1/2+ split from two weeks ago.
The Revolution Gaming Network will implement a new system, dubbed “Fair Play Technology,” that will categorize poker players based on skill level and prevent some players from playing against others players, representatives announced today.
The details on how players will be segregated have not yet been divulged. According to one representative, the new system will go into effect from next week.
The announcement comes the same day that PartyPoker confirmed they were “testing” a new system that hides certain tables from the lobby in order to protect “new,” “inexperienced,” or, as some evidence suggests, losing poker players.
Intertops, a well-regarded US-facing online sportsbook that operates a poker room on Revolution, were first to publicly report that a new feature will “... categorize players, which will mean that all players will not be able to share the same tables.”
“We do not yet know exactly how the categorisation will be done, but we wanted to give our players a heads up before it is in place,” the representative added.
Lock Poker later confirmed the new policy, and “fully supports this move by the network.” It committed to ending its new segregation policy that split all $1/2 games at Lock away from the rest of the network following the implementation of the new system.
“[What] I want to highlight now to dispel an incorrect assumption is that this will just separate the fish recreational players from the professional players, this is not true,” Shane Bridges, a Lock Poker PR representative, wrote on poker forum 2+2.
“This plan still allows the overlapping of player types to ensure the liquidity remains strong at all levels and the natural flow of funds through the poker ecology still occurs.”
Lock plans to release education information to explain the new system over the next two weeks.
Lock Poker acquired and rebranded the network in May 2012. Following the relaunch in June, the network become the largest US-facing online poker network. Other prominent brands include Cake Poker and Juicy Stakes, which took on Cake’s US players back in September.
However, the network has suffered significant setbacks since launch. It has been besieged recently by complaints of exceptionally slow cashout times, stretching to months even for non-US players.
In February, Lock Poker implemented an unannounced segregation policy—all poker tables at $1/2 and higher were separated from the rest of the poker network.