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Poker News Digest 7/1/2009 7/3/2009
By Dan
Published: Friday, July 03, 2009
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- The Microgaming Poker Network has launched its new Survivor tournaments, offering players an interesting new style of tourney. Survivor tournaments are of a fixed duration, with players not only eliminated if they lose all of their chips, but also if they are amongst the shortest chip stacks at the end of pre-determined time periods. The poker software will keep players informed about how many players will be eliminated at the end of the round, what the cutoff stack size will be, and how much time is left in the elimination round. The software client will also display "Safe," "Warning," or "Danger" icons depending on how close a player is to elimination. The Microgaming Poker Network, which includes such rooms as Gnuf Poker, Unibet Poker, and Ladbrokes Poker, is the ninth most popular network for cash game traffic, according to PokerScout.com.
- In an interview with eGaming Review, Peter Marcus, CEO of William Hill Online, criticized rakeback in the online poker industry. He said that operators on the same network need to rein in rakeback and get it under control, as it is cannibalizing business. For example, one poker room on a network may decide to offer rakeback and in addition to grabbing players from rooms on competing networks, it also steals players from rooms on its own network, as these players get all the benefits they are used to, plus rakeback. Marcus believes that using rakeback to attract players is lazy and that it won't work in the long run, as rooms will keep undercutting each other. He feels that "
brand marketing, giving great customer service and rewarding customer loyalty" are the ways to grow a business. More commentary can be found in eGaming Review's August edition.
- PokerStars has added two players to Team PokerStars Pro, one from the "old school" and one from the "new school." The senior player is he of the upside-down sunglasses and poker table serenades, "The Flying Dutchman," Marcel Luske. Luske was named top European poker player in both 2001 and 2003 and while he has never won a WSOP bracelet or WPT title, he does have over $3 million in career tournament winnings. Jason Mercier, on the other hand, has found success very quickly. The 22-year old Floridian is barely old enough to play legally in U.S. casinos, but he is already only half a million dollars behind Luske is live tournament earnings. In 2008, he made the final table at EPT Barcelona and then followed that up with a win in the High Roller event at the European Poker Championships. Then, this summer he won his first WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event.
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