Full Tilt Poker, the second largest online poker site in the world, went live with a new software update Monday morning which makes improvements to parts of the software, tweaks tournament functionality, and adds two games to the poker lineup.
First the fun part: the games. For those who like the paradox of people who are old enough to have once enjoyed Five-Card Stud and also play online poker, Full Tilt now spreads the classic game. For our younger readers, Five-Card Stud plays very similarly to the more modern Seven-Card Stud, but instead of three down cards and four up cards, players are dealt one down card and four up cards. Thus, instead of the first two cards being dealt face-down, just one is, and there is no face-up card on the last street. The betting works the same.
The second game, Irish Poker, seems like something that should garner a good following, especially from action-loving players. Irish Poker is a wilder variant of Texas Hold’em in which each player is dealt four hole cards instead of two. After the flop, each player must discard two of the hole cards. The betting rounds proceed just like Hold’em and the winner is the player with the best five-card hand using any combination of the two remaining hole cards and five community cards.
Both of these games will be included in the upcoming FTOPS. Irish Poker will appropriately be on St. Patrick’s Day and will kick off FTOPS. Event #25 will be a Five-Card Stud tournament.
Speaking of tournaments, Full Tilt has added a new type of tournament called an “Escalator Tournament.” In an Escalator, the blind levels are very short at the start and lengthen as the tournament goes on. Thus, the beginning is very much like a turbo, but at the end, there is a lot of time at any given stop on the blind ladder.
For Sit-and-Go’s, not much has changed except for the addition of the Early Bird promo. In this promo, players who are amongst to sit at a Sit-and-Go table will receive double Full Tilt Points. For a 6-handed Sit-and-Go, the first two players qualify, for 8- and 9-man Sit-and-Go’s, the first three players qualify, and for 18-handed Sit-and-Go’s, the first six players will see their points doubled. Sit-and-Go’s that take place during Happy Hours or other time periods in which points are normally doubled will award triple points.
Other aspects of the software update include the ability to be immediately dealt into a hand when joining a tournament late, rather than having to wait for the big blind, the ability to “unclick” the “I’m Ready” button in Sit-and-Go’s, a revamped tournament lobby, and improvements to the “My Tournaments” and “Find Player” dialogs.
