Home / Poker News September 2011 / The Poker Grapevine – Team Pokerstars Pro Cuts Players
The Poker Grapevine – Team Pokerstars Pro Cuts Players
Posted by: Randy Williams - Fri, 2011-09-09 09:18
PokerStars may have been the online poker room which best weathered the Black Friday storm, but apparently it too has been forced to make certain cuts. The team PokerStars pro list at their site is a rather up-to-date way to check who’s currently on the team and who’s not. According to sources, who apparently spend time checking and re-checking the pros list at the PokerStars site, 3 players have gone missing over the last few days: Tom McEvoy, Bill Chen and Dennis Phillips. Given the fact that there have been no comments from PokerStars or from any of the 3 concerned players, the possibility that it’s a computer glitch we’re seeing is still there.
In other news: general online poker traffic continued to fall over the past week, although the downward trend has decidedly slowed down: last week there were 0.6% fewer players taking to the online tables than during the previous week. The traffic drop can be explained in a variety of ways, but one thing is certain: come fall, we’ll see at least one of the reasons cited by the optimists disappear.
PokerStars are still firmly ruling the online poker roost, but their traffic numbers have yet again fallen: compared to the same week of last year, they lost 2.4% of their players.
The Merge Network, the unexpected beneficiary of the Black Friday events, but which has since stopped accepting US traffic as well, fell outside the top 10. A 5% traffic decrease was responsible for the spectacular drop. The Merge Network’s departure from the top 10 marks the second time in poker history when there were no US-facing poker rooms in the top 10.
Still, if one counts the entire year, the Merge Network has seen a 62% traffic increase.
Bodog Poker (which grew by 55%),
888poker (a massive 124%) and the iPoker network were the other gainers. On a year-over-year basis, online poker traffic has seen a 26% decline.
