Full Tilt Witnesses a Decline in Cash Game Traffic Following Major Changes

The recent changes by the Full Tilt in its ring-game offerings have not received a positive result, with the site recording a major decline in its traffic. In a blog article written in July this year, Full Tilt managing director Dominic Mansour highlighted a number of changes to the site’s ring games designed to “bring the fun back to online poker” and “make the site more exciting”.

But cash game traffic at Full Tilt showed a significant decline by 20 per cent since it overhauled its system to eradicate “bum hunting” and create a healthier poker ecology.

Previously traffic tracking site PokerScout showed Full Tilt’s weekly average at 1,000 players, but today that figure has dipped to 800, the same figures achieved by PokerStars’ French-facing site and 100 players less than PokerStars’ Spain-only site.

In April this year, Full Tilt changed their lobby by removing a player’s ability to observe or select tables. They also removed heads-up, higher stake games and lower popularity games such as Stud, Draw and Mixed games. They also increased rake at certain tables including microstakes and cash games.

Mansour has long been an advocate for catering to recreational players as he felt the poker economy is broken due to the ratio of casual-to-professional players becoming unbalanced.

Under the old Full Tilt system it was possible for stronger, more skilled players to prey on the weaker players, which resulted in the latter going broke easily. This in turn leads to these recreational players not redepositing as they realize their chances of winning are slim. But under the new system players are randomly assigned their seats at the table which prevents this bum hunting, meaning weaker players’ bankrolls last longer and the chance of them continuing to play at the site increase.

So from the very onslaught the plan has always pretty clearly been to target high-level, more serious players with the PokerStars brand, and attempt to draw a more recreational crowd to Full Tilt.

“Firstly, heads-up games were being adversely impacted by the minority of experienced players who targeted ‘weaker’ opponents rather than take on all challengers. Secondly, new players who tried out the heads-up games found it intimidating and confusing,” Mansour wrote.

Full Tilt poker room manager Shyam Markus said the decision to remove the heads-up tables has been extensively debated within the team before it became operative. “It wasn’t a decision we reached lightly. All of the suggestions were discussed,” Markus explained.

Taking to the Full Tilt Blog, Mansour explained that the site would use the same system found in live poker rooms.

“When a player arrives at a live card room, they tell the poker room manager what game they want to play and the poker room manager will take them to a table with a free seat so that they can start playing straight away,” said Mansour. “As players join and leave the live card room, the poker room manager brings new people together to create new tables, and moves players from short-handed tables to ensure every player has the best possible experience.”

But it doesn’t seem to have worked out that positively, largely because recreational players have mostly disappeared from the online poker world, leaving only winners, aspiring winners, and disgruntled former winners who’ve been left behind as the game grows tougher.

Full Tilt perhaps had forseen this effect. “It’s not going to be a super popular decision, and it’s absolutely possible we’ve made a mistake,” Markus continued. “But for now it’s the decision we feel has the best chance of helping to turn around some of the biggest problems we face and return to growing the site.”

Full Tilt’s newly-appointed player ambassador Marc Kenndy, who too joined the discussion, however, welcomed the changes, hoping the new strategy will once again innovate the poker industry. “There are obviously going to be people who don’t like some or maybe even all of the changes, that is always going to be the case when you have a major shake-up,” Kennedy commented. “I think these are good changes and they are just one piece of the puzzle. There is some really cool stuff on the horizon.”

Obviously, some players who are directly impacted by the changes – people who’ve been grinding heads-up games on Full Tilt, for instance – are unhappy about them, but for the most part the reaction has been positive, both from players and the rest of the industry. Hopefully things will show a reverse of trends for Full Tilt in the days to come.