Home / Poker News August 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Sweeping iPoker Changes
The Poker Grapevine – Sweeping iPoker Changes
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Thu, 2012-08-23 07:41
The iPoker network has always been one focused on performance and whenever needed, drastic, often painful changes were made at the top to keep things competitive. Owned by Playtech, the iPoker network is preparing to implement another set of sweeping changes come September, which will essentially turn the network into a two-tier system, possibly called iPoker 2 and iPoker. On September 1,
Titan Poker will apparently be joined with CelebPoker to create the top tier of the above said system. What are the advantages of the new setup? Poker rooms which perform better will make it to the second tier and they will share a more generous player base. Those stuck on the lower tier will only have access to a restricted player pool, thus small rooms will no longer be able to take advantage of the liquidity carried by the more solid iPoker operators. Those in the top tier will have to fulfill certain requirements to stay there. For instance, they will have to have at least 6k active players and they will have to bring at least 850 new real money players into the fold each month. Sites that fail to fulfill these requirements will drop down to the second tier.
The iPoker network plays host to a whole bunch of popular skins, among them
William Hill, Bet365 and Paddy Power. Exactly which tier these rooms will belong to remains to be seen. One thing is quite certain though: there will be rooms that will be broken by the new iPoker measure.
In other news: the GPI’s Player of the Year list has a new leader in Dan Smith. Smith has recently won the EPT’s Barcelona Super High Roller event, an accomplishment which nudged him up the leader board three whole spots, landing him smack on top of the pile.
Marvin Rettenmaier, who led the list last week, is currently second, followed by David Baker in 3rd.
