PokerStars Moving Against “Predatory” Online Poker Environment

Online poker rooms have long known that the majority of their revenues come from recreational players known as “fish” in online poker circles. Of course, with that in mind, the fact that regulars at the site single out such “fish” and relieve them of their bankrolls in the blink of an eye isn’t exactly something that fits in well with the long-term business plans of an online poker operation. Several solutions have been tried to address this dilemma (like the introduction of anonymous tables by various online poker operators) but the biggest of the industry, PokerStars, haven’t really done anything thus far in regards to such “predatory” behavior.

That is about to change though. From January 1, the site will do away with its traditional high stakes cash game tables (and that includes all the $50/$100 NL Holdem/ PL Omaha tables), and it will replace them with Zoom Poker tables.

Zoom Poker is the fast-folding poker variant inspired by Full Tilt Poker’s Rush Poker and pushed by PokerStars under a different name.

Zoom Poker doesn’t allow for player tracking, and even if one of the sharks manages to get a read on one or more of his opponents, he won’t be able to exploit his reads, because by the nature of the game, table makeup changes quite radically from one hand to another.

Of course, in the beginning, the high stakes Zoom Poker tables shall go through a trial period, during which a select player-pool will evaluate its impact.

According to PokerStars’ ring game manager, Nick Williamson, the site has developed a special Zoom Poker version, with the very intent of one day using it for its high stakes tables. The time to put the plan into practice is apparently now. According to Williamson, the move is an attempt to weed out various uncomfortable distractions, letting the players focus solely on playing poker.

What this basically means is that table selection – once regarded a valuable online poker skill- will lose its importance completely. Taking notes on various opponents won’t make a whole lot of difference either under the new rules.

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