On Friday, partypoker announced that it will release a software update on February 24th which will “see a number of significant improvements to the playing experience.” In the same blog post, the online poker also revealed that it will launch the new Power Series on March 5th. Let’s take a closer look at each.
The software update appears to largely cosmetic, though cosmetic can be good if it makes it easier to see what’s going on at the virtual tables. In the partypoker blog post, the following changes were listed:
• Re-introduction of the oval shaped table alongside the existing table design
• New and improved player plates with larger fonts, improving players’ multi-tabling experience
• Improved display of player notes
• A brand new time-bank indicator
• A number of smaller enhancements, improving the look and feel of the tables
So, nothing earth-shattering, but if things on the table are easier to see and read, especially for multi-tablers, these changes should be positive.
As for the Power Series, we will have to wait and see, as the new schedule won’t be revealed until March. Partypoker says the new schedule will have “increased guarantees, an improved mix of game types and optimised structures.”
And since this is online poker, there will be leader boards. The weekly Power Series leader boards will start March 5th and will be divided into low, medium, and high buy-in levels in order to give as many players as possible a chance to earn rewards. The top ten players each week on the high leader board will receive a $5,300 seat to the Millions Online tournament later this year. Those who finish in the top ten more than once will receive $5,300 in tournament dollars.
The top twenty players on each leader board will receive prizes. The medium and low winners won’t get Millions Online seats, but rather tournament ticket prizes valued at $22 to $530.
Partypoker says the leader boards will pay out $60,000 per week in prizes, though it was not exactly clear in the blog post if that means $60,000 per leader board or $60,000 total across all three leader boards. It is likely the latter, as the ten $5,300 buy-in awards would leave $7,000 in prizes for the remaining 50 winners. That works out to an average of $140 per person, which seems reasonable, considering many of the prizes on the low and medium leader boards will probably be in the $22 range or slightly higher. $60,000 split among twenty people on a low buy-in leader board would be a bit much.
In the first month, the leader board prizes will be doubled in total value, as will the number of winners.
On the blog, partypoker Managing Director Tom Waters said:
We know that our players were expecting our 2018 Leaderboard promotion to start immediately after Powerfest, however we want the players to benefit from the enhanced playing experience on the new tables when working towards the leaderboard prizes. Therefore we have decided to delay the Leaderboard promotion until Monday 5th March to coincide with the launch of the new MTT schedule. We wanted to ensure that the players do not miss out on any value and therefore we have doubled the Leaderboard giveaway for the first month.
