In May, partypoker launched its “Casual Cash Games,” designed for, you guessed it, the recreational player. While the internet poker world is great for grinders who want to maximize the number of hands they play per hour, not everyone wants to multi-table. The Casual Cash Games are made for these people.
On Friday, partypoker announced that it has expanded its Casual Cash Games, adding 10/20 No-Limit Hold’em tables to the mix.
Casual Cash Game tables are exactly the same as any other cash game table except that anyone playing on one of them is only allowed to play on one table at a time. Once a player sits down at a Casual Cash Game table, he is restricted from playing in any other ring games until he leaves his seat. Similarly, anyone playing at any other ring game will not be able to sit at a Casual Cash Game table until they leave all other games. The restrictions are only in place for cash games; players can still participate in tournaments and Casual Cash Games simultaneously.
For a number of years, online poker operators have been trying to find a balance between hardcore grinders who provide heavy volume and recreational players who mainly play for fun. The pros and serious amateurs generate a lot of rake, but are also often winning players and therefore remove money from the poker economy via cash outs. The recreational (or casual) players don’t provide the volume, but as they are generally losing players, they are the ones that inject money into the economy, reloading after they drain their accounts.
The problem that poker rooms run into is that good players (grinders) don’t just beat the casual players; they seek them out. Casual players might play for fun, but they aren’t stupid. They eventually can see they are being picked on and just leave. That’s not good for anybody.
Thus, partypoker invented the Casual Cash Game. Sure, the hardcore pros could play on them, but they won’t usually want to, as they can’t play on any other tables at the same time. And up until now, the stakes have been too low for most to care.
In a post on Two Plus Two, a partypoker representative wrote:
The CCG tables we introduced back in the spring have exceeded our expectations. But we remain very sensitive to the fact that it is vital that we strike the right balance between Casual Cash Games and standard cash games. We will continue to vigilantly monitor and adjust the offering accordingly.
One novelty that we will now incorporate is a reintroduced 10/20 NL table in CCG format. We believe the live and online poker community is full of mid/high stakes players who would enjoy playing 10/20 NL against other players who also only play in that one cash game on our site.
We recognize CCGs are not to everyone’s liking here on 2+2 but we can’t exactly ignore data and the popularity of CCGs so far.
