Online Poker: Less Sharks, More Fish
Microgaming Online Poker, most noted for its rather large number of professional players, has become the latest room to implement a "Less Sharks, More Fish" policy.
What's that?
According to RecentPoker.com, the policy is "designed to encourage online poker sites on the network to bring in more "fish" (less experienced and therefore more likely to lose than win) players to ensure that the balance between deposits and withdrawals moves closer to the former".
It is a controversial move, but a necessary one, argue some industry observers following an abnormally high number of online poker skins going out of business this past year.
Boss Media's International Poker Network, Playtech's iPoker network and the Bodog network each have implemented the new policy.
From RecentPoker.com:
Poker News, commenting on the move, reports that beginning January 5th, MPN will move from the contributed method of rake calculation, in which the operators' rake is calculated by splitting pots between the total number of players, to the weighted method, whereby rake per room is generated proportionally according to the amount that individual players contribute to each pot.
Last week, Gambling911.com featured a controversial article questioning whether high stake winning poker players such as Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius should be permitted to play on certain networks.
This is the question that was being asked by Bill Rini of Bill's Poker Blog.
The two poker pros are "sharks" and "net withdrawers".
Rini writes:
"They (Ivey and Antonius) are bad for the site and should clearly be banned if you listen to iPoker who gave Blonde Poker three months notice to find a new network because they had too many winning players."
A reader commented on a pretty obvious dilemma when considering such a ban.
"How do you ban players who actually own the site? They aren't playing on Full Tilt (Poker) just cause they like it. Not sure bout Antonius but definitely Ivey is a major owner."
Chrisopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
