Full Tilt Immediately Rises to 2nd Largest Room, then Loses Over 40% of Traffic

WEC

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Full Tilt Poker Traffic Continues Decline

Full Tilt Poker reopened on November 6th and players celebrated. Most players outside the U.S. had access to their money after waiting nearly 1.5 years. The poker room immediately exploded to become the second largest online poker room overnight. PokerScout reports that Full Tilt Poker peaked at 15,326 cash game players on just its second day. The poker room has lost over 40% of its traffic in just over two weeks. The site is losing its cash game traffic at a rate of 20% per week. At this rate, Full Tilt will not be the #2 poker room within a month. While this decline may not continue, it is certainly a cause for concern for Full Tilt Poker management......
 
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dan abnormal

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WOW thats a lot, maybe folks were looking at FT thru rose colored glasses, as a thread I asked a few weeks back, whats the deal ROW, why the drop. I just personally think, even for ROW'ers this site represents a horrible period in online poker (after a wonderful period in online poker) and some folks might just realize with pokerstars or not, this site just has bad karma written all over it

I read so many threads about how americans are the easy money (or something like that) so I never understood how merge, revolution even bovada wouldnt have more traffic.
 
big_rob420

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no matter what online poker for americans will never be the same so with full tilts return it will not have americans full trust or encouragement to play at their tables. most will think that the government will get greedy and do it all over again.
 
Debi

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no matter what online poker for americans will never be the same so with full tilts return it will not have americans full trust or encouragement to play at their tables. most will think that the government will get greedy and do it all over again.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Americans can't play at FT. :)
 
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rhombus

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It was always going to jump at the start for people to withdraw, but surprising it is falling at such a rate considering pokerstars owns it and the mid year and deal me in $200 bonuses they offered
 
Debi

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Their marketing has sucked and they don't want to recognize their dependence on affiliates. They need them whether they like it or not.

Also lots of players who used to play on FT are now comfortable at and prefer PS.

I am not surprised at all.
 
Extreme Fishing

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I have been on a horrible downswing since it came back, cooler after cooler. Maybe I am not the only one lol!
 
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BluffYou123

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I've been doing pretty well there, ~ $500 up. Was planning on moving most of my play over but if it keeps dropping off I'll have to go back to PS.
 
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What's to blame for the downturn??
 
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credsfan03

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Pokerstars spent a lot of money to buy full tilt poker. With the amount of traffic Full Tilt is getting it is going to take a lot of time for them to get any proffit out of it. I think Pokerstars made a huge mistake getting Full Tilt.
 
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I don't understand why they would lose traffic, if they still offer the wide array of cash games and tournaments of all types of poker they formerly did.
 
OzExorcist

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I don't understand why they would lose traffic, if they still offer the wide array of cash games and tournaments of all types of poker they formerly did.

I can only speak from personal experience, but for me a big part of it is that the new Edge system sucks - it's nowhere NEAR as good an incentive to play as Ironman + rakeback used to be.
 
WEC

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I don't understand why they would lose traffic, if they still offer the wide array of cash games and tournaments of all types of poker they formerly did.

  • PokerStars allows players to transfer money between Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. Many players played a few hands or played a week or two taking advantage of the freerolls. Some of these promotions are over now and some players have no motivation to continue playing at Full Tilt. Many players cleared the reload bonus offered at launch quickly and decided to move on to their VIP deals at other online poker rooms. Other players busted quickly and decided not to redeposit.
  • Rush Poker no Longer Unique
  • Rakeback and Affiliates Dropped - many players did not hear the news and assumed that they would still get rakeback on their play. These players were understandably upset when they went back to play at Full Tilt and did not get paid rakeback. Many of these players felt ripped off and cashed out or did not reload when they busted.
 
SYWTWAF

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the new Edge system sucks - it's nowhere NEAR as good an incentive to play as Ironman + rakeback used to be.
Yeah, I haven't bothered looking into the details since I can't play there at the moment, but I've heard that the new reward system blows. There seems to be little incentive for people to return if they have a better deal elsewhere, especially if they've managed to settle into a different room during FTP's downtime.

It's a pity, though. I recently logged into my FTP account for the first time in ages, and was reminded of just how much nicer and prettier the software is than pretty much anything else that's out there.
 
Poker Orifice

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I think a big part of the high numbers at first were a combination of the site opening up & players getting access to their funds but also > The DEAL ME IN freerolls with $250,000 infused into the site. (there were THOUSANDS of players in those freerolls, I think even as high as 8,000 towards the end).
Surely many of them were also playing on other tables at the same time, AND, tons of micro donks winning a few bucks from the DealMeIn freerolls & then donking it off in micro games shortly after.
For this reason alone, it makes perfect sense to me that half the player volume from the first week would be gone after 2wks.

I'm sure that come the new year, the numbers will gradually increase on FTP.
Small sample size but guys I chat with here in small town I live in, are all now playing on FTP.... every single one of them! (I'm the only that one who is rarely playing on there).

As far as advertising goes, right now in my area, Fulltilt commercials on TV outnumber all other sites at least 5 to 1 if not more. ('others' being partypoker, 888Poker & Pokerstars).
 
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I agree with PO.

I saw 7-10k+ and even more in the $10k deal me in freerolls on the weekend..

Evidently, these players made the player pool huge to start with and will often drift.

Still though, there are 20-25k on avg at the room, which is ample enough for people not to worry.
 
Colbefc

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I agree with Oz, the reason FT has lost so much traffic is before it closed I was getting 30% rakeback and now all I get is the Edge which sucks.
I now play at my 2 fav sites, Inter Poker for PLO where I get 30% rakeback, and 888 poker for PLO where I dont get rakeback but there are lots of promos and even more little fishes, the players are so bad that even I can win there. :D:D
 
mrmonkey

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A couple things stick out to me about this:

1) As PO and others have said, the numbers at re-launch were always going to be staggering given the promotions and people with bankrolls on the site. The big grinders probably blew through their bonuses pretty quickly, and having done so are probably back at Stars with their better rakeback deals.

2) The current player pool at FTP is largely skewed towards regs at the moment. After the initial open the players started to realize it was probably +ev to play elsewhere and wait for the player pool to normalize a bit before coming back to FTP.

3) It will take some time for new blood to register at Full Tilt, but given that I still prefer the FTP software (highly) even after a year of playing at other sites means that they still have a lot going for them and that with the right marketing in place they are probably going to be doing very well in the coming months. That a site could take a year of absence, with a sordid history, and still be the #2 (or #3) site immediately upon relaunch is really not something that I'd be worried about.
 
Debi

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2) The current player pool at FTP is largely skewed towards regs at the moment. After the initial open the players started to realize it was probably +ev to play elsewhere and wait for the player pool to normalize a bit before coming back to FTP.

It is going to take the player pool a very long time to normalize if they keep affiliates locked out - that is where a lot of the fish come from. Huge mistake on their part.
 
Logan2

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Also lots of players who used to play on FT are now comfortable at and prefer PS.

I am not surprised at all.
This.

Why to get back to FTP when there is no rakeback, Reward System is Stars-ish and player pool is not what you look., to change back you need a incentive, bonus and promos for relunch could help but after that no point to stay.
 
Colbefc

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Basically I dont care if FT is owned by PS I just do not trust them. I lost the few dollars I had on FT and I am not going to take a chance and deposit there.
I just cant understand why PS would buy FT and relaunch it, thereby possibly losing a lot of their clients. It just doesnt make sense to me?
 
mrmonkey

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It is going to take the player pool a very long time to normalize if they keep affiliates locked out - that is where a lot of the fish come from. Huge mistake on their part.

I was wondering what the status was of things like the old freerolls we used to have here. It's really a shame for the old affiliates that lost all their revenue from previous signups, and I wonder if the decision to burn those bridges is going to cost them in the future with respect to affiliate loyalty when they do decide to relaunch their affiliate system. I guess they figured the extra revenue they will gain from the old player base outweighs the possibility that any old affiliates would decide *not* to offer FTP links in the future, and from a purely profit-driven perspective it would seem to make a lot of sense to take the opportunity to wipe the slate clean.

I can't see them keeping new affiliates locked out for much longer though -- I imagine they will be initiating a new affiliate system pretty soon as the benefits in doing so are enormous. They probably just wanted to ease into it because of the massive influx of activity because of the cold relaunch.
 
mrmonkey

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Basically I dont care if FT is owned by PS I just do not trust them. I lost the few dollars I had on FT and I am not going to take a chance and deposit there.
I just cant understand why PS would buy FT and relaunch it, thereby possibly losing a lot of their clients. It just doesnt make sense to me?

PS/Rational Group will not lose any clients. They are still collecting rake from players that decide to switch from PS to FTP. They can only gain and diversify their player pool from the acquisition, as FTP can cater to a market that PS couldn't or didn't.

Imagine if Google bought Apple tomorrow. They would almost certainly not kill off the iphone, because while it is no longer the majority market leader in the smartphone industry it is a very strong #2 and has a very loyal following and unique philosophy/branding. By incorporating the iPhone into their lineup, they would cater to a completely different market sector than the folks who love their Android phones, and thereby would have the best of both worlds and could continue to develop two different product lines that cater to completely different tastes... effectively allowing them basically double their revenues.
 
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RamdeeBen

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Basically I dont care if FT is owned by PS I just do not trust them. I lost the few dollars I had on FT and I am not going to take a chance and deposit there.
I just cant understand why PS would buy FT and relaunch it, thereby possibly losing a lot of their clients. It just doesnt make sense to me?

I understand what your saying to some degree, however it makes no sense on the other part either..

If FTP ever goes down, pokerstars is going down with them, so effectively having money on stars is just as "risky" as you say, as having money on FTP.
 
Debi

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I understand what your saying to some degree, however it makes no sense on the other part either..

If FTP ever goes down, pokerstars is going down with them, so effectively having money on stars is just as "risky" as you say, as having money on FTP.

Exactly - if you don't trust FT you don't trust PS because they are the same. And if you don't trust PS you shouldn't trust any online site or play online at all - because they are without a doubt the most trustworthy.
 
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