After recently celebrating their fifth anniversary, Full Tilt Poker could have sat back for a bit on its laurels and waited for its next FTOPS schedule to begin in less than a week (August 5th, to be exact). Being one of the more aggressive online poker rooms, however, Full Tilt has charged ahead with changes and is offering a bonus program that is open to nearly every player on the site.
The changes that Full Tilt Poker has made to the site itself are sizeable, as it takes a couple of minutes to download the upgrade and install it. Once the changes have been made, there is a new login screen – featuring Team Full Tilt member Patrik Antonius – that leads players to their first decision: what “view” the players want to use to see the Lobby.
Basic View is just what it says, a beginner’s guide to playing on Full Tilt that walks players through pretty much every aspect of play on the site. The Classic View is the version that Full Tilt has used for several years and most players would recognize easily. The real change, however, is in the new Standard View, which is in a Beta mode and warns players that “…you may experience some technical issues.”
The Standard View is where the new bells and whistles are at on Full Tilt Poker. Once there, all of the current Full Tilt promotions are presented on one side of the lobby and offers an easy way to learn more about them. You can also customize the Lobby to display your favorite poker disciplines and available games without having to search through the entirety of the Lobby listings. Finally, you can set up what is called a “Lobby Widget”, which offers on-demand information regarding your account, favorite games and Full Tilt Points balance without having to return to the full Lobby.
Along with these changes, Full Tilt Poker is now offering something that is becoming more prevalent in the online poker industry. In some live tournaments, the competitors will make deals at the final table (normally by chip count) to ensure a better portion of the final table payday than what the actual payouts would be. Full Tilt now offers the ability for its players to make these types of deals, something that many had asked for on the site.
To introduce the changes and encourage its players to try them out, Full Tilt Poker is offering the “Biggest Bonus Ever”, a bonus program to pretty much everyone who has ever played on the site. For players who have earned at least one Full Tilt Poker point by July 28th, a bonus of $100 can be earned through play on the site.
To get started with earning that bonus into your Full Tilt Poker account, players need to go to the “My Promotions” box under the Cashier button. By clicking on the link “Biggest Bonus Ever”, players will be directed to a website where they can learn more about the program and sign up to attack the bonus.
The bonus is being offered between now and August 16th and players have 30 days from the initial acceptance of the bonus challenge to be able to earn as much of the $100 as possible. For ring game play, players earn one Full Tilt Point for each dollar raked from the pot in hands where they are dealt cards. Players can earn partial Full Tilt Points if less than one dollar is raked, with a maximum of three points earned per hand. For tournament and Sit & Go play, players earn seven Full Tilt Points for each dollar in tournament fees paid. There is no cap to the number of points a player can earn per tournament.
With the “Biggest Bonus Ever” and the FTOPS XIII coming in a week, Full Tilt Poker will be a very busy site over the next few weeks.