Full Tilt makes radical cash game changes

Full Tilt has removed seat selection and all heads-up and high-stakes games from its cash game lobby in a move to rebalance its poker ecosystem and attract more casual players.

Managing director Dominic Mansour said the changes to seat selection would enable players to choose their game type and preferred stakes, and then be seated immediately.

“This new system will ensure that your success is determined by your talent at the table, not your skill in choosing opponents,” Mansour wrote in a blog post released this morning.

The MD also said the operator had removed all heads-up tables from its ring game offering because they were being “adversely impacted” by a small number of experienced players targeting “weaker” opponents, while new players found them “intimidating and confusing”.

“Unfortunately, these table selection changes didn’t fix this problem so in Heads Up we had no choice but to remove them altogether, as we know the more new players that play it, the less likely they are to return and keep playing,” Mansour wrote.

Mansour also said the operator had binned high-stakes, Stud and Mixed Game tables in a bid to “present a clean offering for all players” and considered the changes to be “key” to Full Tilt’s “ongoing commitment to provide a level playing field and attracting and retaining more casual players”.

“We also recognise that in the past, a proportion of players have used extensive table selection to their advantage and that those players might not like these changes. Their advantage over other players will now be negated and we don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he added.

Full Tilt announced it would introduced a raft of changes earlier this month which would also see the operator “reinvent” its rewards program and restructure its rake system with the updates due to be implemented in August.