Full Tilt Poker is the second largest online poker site in the world and gained more market share in 2009 than any other room according to PokerScout.com. It has a free downloadable Mac OS X client that allows you to play for real money in cash games, tournaments, and sit and gos. Full Tilt Poker also has a 100% deposit bonus up to $600 for all new players who make a real money deposit.
For weeks, right here at MacPoker.com, we’ve been reporting on upcoming changes for Full Tilt Poker. Yesterday, they became complete with a major update that addresses two major issues. First, the buy-in structure of the entire cash game section has been redone to address the issue of short-stackers (players who buy in only for 20 big blinds). Secondly, a new poker game called Rush Poker has been implemented that offers up fast and furious poker.
One of the main problems that Full Tilt Poker had that would prevent regulars from fleeing other sites to join in on the fun was short-stackers. These players buy in for the minimum 20 big blinds and play a pretty straightforward push-or-fold strategy that would cripple the full ring games if more than a few showed up at the table. Many of these short-stackers would coincidentally come from the same country with identical stacks, fueling the belief that they were actually international multi-accounters.
With the floodgates open at the TwoPlusTwo forums, regulars at the low- and mid-stakes promised that if Full Tilt Poker didn’t clean up the tables, they would jump over to PokerStars to start on a SuperNova run. The benefits of SuperNova account for a lot more percentage in rakeback than the traditional 27% given by Full Tilt Poker. Amid the pressure from their regulars and after much internal debate, the buy-in structure to all regular tables has been changed. The new buy-in structure is as follows:
Shallow Tables: min buy-in 20 big blinds, max buy-in 40 big blinds
Standard Tables: min buy-in 35 big blinds, max buy-in 100 big blinds
Deep Stack Tables: min buy-in 75 big blinds, max buy-in 200 big blinds
The latest game introduced by Full Tilt Poker is called Rush Poker, which is being hailed as the world’s fastest poker game. This follows previous attempts at new games such as Matrix Tournaments, which fizzled after a short stay in the spotlight. This time around, Rush Poker deals with the cash game players.
Unlike a regular ring game, when you are in a Rush Game, you join a large player pool and face a different table of opponents every hand. When you fold, you are immediately taken to a new table for the start of a new hand. The Rush Poker games currently span only the following buy-in structures: $0.05-$0.10, $0.10-$0.25, $0.25-$0.50, and $0.50-$1. The games are available for full ring and six-max, with plans to open it up to Omaha games in the future.
Full Tilt Poker regular “zachvac” chimed in when asked about Rush Poker: “The rush tables are great: quick hands, no waiting for tables to fill, and just the kind of action-packed poker that will attract recreational players. My only hope is that they’re still running in a week or so and they’re not only running because of the novelty factor.”
Players can expect a ton of hands to be played at just one of these Rush Tables, but players are welcome to open up multiple ones if they want. It’s estimated that a player can get in three to five times the number of hands at one Rush Table as opposed to regular Ring Games. Like zachvac said, whether the game sticks at Full Tilt Poker or becomes next week’s novelty act that’s soon to die remains to be seen.
One last minor update to Full Tilt Poker that flew under the radar of many was a change to the bet slider. You now have more control over the slider with additional options. Players can choose to increase or decrease a bet size by the amount of the small blind using either the mouse click action or the mouse wheel. In addition, a player can opt to invert the mouse wheel for increasing or decreasing bets. To change your bet slider option, click on “Options” at the top right corner of any Full Tilt Poker table and then select the “Slider” tab.
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