From May 1st to 15th on the virtual felts of Cake Poker, look for special Door Crasher tournaments. These low buy-in events won’t be announced until just a few minutes before they begin, meaning that players will literally be crashing down the door to register.
Buy-ins will range from one Gold Chip to $30 in cold hard cash. The tournaments will take place between 12:00pm and 2:00pm ET and again between 9:00pm and 11:00pm ET daily during the 15-day period. No indication has been given as to whether one Door Crasher tournament will play out during each time period or if multiple ones will take place. What is certain, however, is that players will have just 10 minutes’ notice to register.
Seating in each tournament is limited, adding to the drama. Poker News Daily Guest Columnist and Cake Poker Card Room Manager Lee Jones was looking forward to seeing the Door Crasher tournaments run on the USA-friendly site: “We’re tossing these tournaments up and only announcing them 10 minutes before they start. It is literally first come, first served. It may be a 10-seat sit and go with a Gold Chip as a prize or the tournament may have a significant cash prize. You have to be there when they happen to find out.”
Like other online poker sites, Cake Poker is in the midst of sending its players to the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Text found on Cake Poker’s website boasts, “This year, we’ve made our WSOP prize packages more flexible than ever. Stay where you want, play in what you want, and even – wear what you want. Our WSOP prize packages come with no strings attached – whatsoever.” Cash is placed in Cake Poker players’ accounts to be used however winners would like.
The online poker site is doling out $2,500 and $12,500 WSOP packages. The latter can be used to enter the $10,000 Main Event, for example, or a pair of $5,000 buy-in tournaments. Cake Poker gives away $12,500 WSOP packages in $374 buy-in tournaments held on Sundays at 4:00pm ET. Satellites to the $374 event start at $3.30 and run daily.
A five-step system is in place to qualify players for the $2,500 package. The first step comes with a $1.10 price tag. The final step is a $507 buy-in tournament that awards a $2,500 WSOP prize package to first place and $440 in cash to second.
Last year, Cake Poker hosted a posh party at the Palms featuring generous portions of the site’s namesake dessert and an open bar. Plus, Jones was on-hand to greet Cake Poker players and a bevy of media turned out. This author even lost his cell phone in a cab on the way there. Players are purportedly not obligated to don Cake Poker gear even if they won their way into the WSOP through the popular site.
According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, the Cake Poker Network is the 10th largest worldwide and sports a seven-day running average of 1,320 real money ring game players. On April 15th, the player bases of Players Only and Sportsbook.com jettisoned the family of sites in favor of the Merge Gaming Network. Consequently, the Cake Poker Network’s cash game traffic has dipped by about 10% since that date.
Over the course of the last 30 days, however, its cash game traffic has dropped by 28%. In addition to Cake Poker, the network features DoylesRoom, Power Poker, and Phil Laak’s Unabomber Poker, which was launched in January.
Visit Cake Poker for more information on the Door Crasher tournaments.
