Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

Full Tilt Poker gets my bravo for their recent actions. I’ve kinda been all over poker sites for the last 2 years. I spent a year at Cake Poker and before that have played Stars, Paradise and Party. Full Tilt has gone from a cartoony site to a true industry leader.

Its incredible to think that just 2 weeks ago there were an average 4 shortstackers per table on Full Tilt mid-stakes full ring tables. Literally over night the games went from ok/bad to amazing. Full Tilt hasn’t gotten enough praise for this risky move in my opinion. They literally closed the door on hundreds (if not thousands) of players who put in very good volume and said they weren’t interested in their business. This is a pretty damn tough thing to do in any aspect of life especially business. Turning off a known fixture for promise of a better situation. I was thinking today while playing that I have completely forgotten about shortstackers ever playing in my games and that’s pretty F-ing awesome.

The shortstackers were claiming that fish liked to buyin for the table minimum and that if they raised the minimum they would scare the fish away… couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve played with more deep stacked fish than ever in the past 2 weeks. Its just funny to think with all the threats and possible things that could go wrong, it would appear by just listening to their bread and butter customers Full tilt has knocked one out of the park. I think this is going to be a very good sign for things to come with the site. They have already added more new features to help make their software smoother since D-Day (doom day for the shortstackers). I was talking to another regular on FTP today and we were talking about FTP doing the little things.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but FTP has been adding little features constantly since i’ve moved back over from cake poker. I really think its software is better than stars now. If FTP ends up creating a system to reward their regulars on top of rakeback, i think stars is done for in the cash game department.

All that praise said, I think there is probably some serious caution that FTP will need to exercise in the future. They are turning into a genie in a bottle recently. They essentially do what is asked of them and that’s really something amazing. But with this there is going to be ideas that just plan don’t work. They are going to sink money into an idea that sounds good on paper but doesn’t work. I hope that the powers to be realize that failure on some level is going to happen and to not be stubborn. Just let those ideas that didn’t work go, and move onto the next awesome feature that looks good on paper.

Notice I haven’t mentioned Rush poker yet. I think this is an amazing idea by them, but i don’t think its going to ever really pan out. I give it probably another 3 months before the only games running of it are 50nl and below. I don’t see any interest staying maintained. If rush poker does end up not being as big a hit as thought, I hope FTP has the guts to admit it didn’t work and not try to force it down the players throats.

I look forward to things to come in the future from FTP. I have a feeling that if online poker ever gets completely “legalized” that FTP will be there first making crazy innovations. I, for one, am pretty happy with FTP being the leader of the industry and of innovation in the industry.