Full Tilt Poker made some drastic changes Tuesday, eliminating a slew of games from its roster in order to make the game lobbies more manageable. This is the biggest culling in the online poker industry since the UIGEA was passed in 2006.
Here are the games that Full Tilt Poker has purged, as listed on the poker room’s website:
• Adrenaline Rush games (from the end of April)
• Cap and Deep Stack Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em games
• Cap, Deep Stack and Deep Stack with Ante 6-Max No Limit Hold’em games
• Shallow Stack Full Ring No Limit Hold’em games
• Pot Limit Hold’em Heads-Up and 6-Max games
• Full Ring Fixed Limit Hold’em games
• Deep Stack Pot Limit Omaha Heads-Up games
• Cap, Deep Stack and Deep Stack with Antes Pot Limit Omaha 6-Max games
• Deep Stack with Antes 6-Card Pot Limit Omaha Heads-Up games
• New to the Game tables for certain games (such as No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 6-Max)
• Irish Poker
• HORSE, HA and 7-Game
But wait, there’s more!
• $2/$4 Rush Poker Ring Games will become $2.50/$5 Rush Poker Ring Games
• $0.25/$0.50 and $1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Rush Poker games will be removed – but, we’re adding $2.50/$5 Pot Limit Omaha Rush Poker games, so Pot Limit Omaha will be available at every second stake level
• 6 Card Omaha, 8-Game, and 10-Game 6-Max tables will change to 5-Max
• Stud Hi, Stud Hi-Low and Razz 8-handed games will all become 5-Max
Jackpot Sit-and-Go’s at the $5 and $50 levels will also have their fees increased.
Essentially, it appears that Full Tilt Poker is trying to simplify its offerings, possibly to make the search for a game less daunting to recreational players. Seasoned pros and serious amateurs know exactly where they want to go, but with the sheer variety of games spread, even under the hold’em banner alone, can be very overwhelming to those just looking for a basic game of poker.
It is a bit surprising that Adrenaline Rush Poker is gone, as it seemed fairly popular, but it was really just a dumb “flip4rollz” type of game that offered little in terms of quality poker. It was a No-Limit Hold’em Cap game, but with the twist that no calling was allowed. Raise or fold only. So, in the pre-flop betting round, either one player forces everyone else to fold, or multiple players raise, raise, raise until the cap is hit, effectively putting them all-in for the duration of the hand. Thus, there was never any betting post-flop; all the community cards were dealt at once. Tables were also four-handed and, of course, it was a Rush Poker game, so it was an action junkie’s dream.
Most of the nosebleed stakes games are gone, too. In “big bet” games, that is, No-Limit and Pot-Limit games, the highest stakes are now just $250/$500 with a significant drop down to $25/$50 for the next highest stakes tables. Limit games had topped out at $2,000/$4,000, but that has now been slashed in half, with the next highest stakes at just $50/$100.
