I would assume the outbreak would mean more voluime for online poker platforms. Has there been a recent spike in participation in CC freerolls?
There has been a spike and though I am not sure the causes are clear, I can offer some input..
Since I joined the CC Free Roll Club, November 2019, I have kept a spread sheet detailing each of my cashes (so no claim this is a perfect daily average). However, it has made for some interesting reading. Just months ago the average weekday participation per my records in the CC FR on
pokerstars waivered between a low of
145 to around
195. By December this grew to around
170 to
200, then shortly thereafter climbed solidly in the
200 to
210 range.
This became increasingly relevant to members when the Free Roll paid places were shrunk down from 45 to 36 places. Moderator Debi specified this was a unilateral decision by PokerStars and CC could provide no input/feedback until April, I believe. It came with a boost in starting chips to 3,000 which all agreed was a
plus. However the downside was extending the time of the tourneys to conclude. My observation being the touneys bottlenecked prior to the bubble as members grasped it was more difficult to make it to the money - on average it's added at least 30 minutes of slow 'bubble play'.
Yesterday and the day before I believe the number of participants in the Free Roll pole vaulted to around
240. Any one or two days can be looked at as outliers but that is a staggering increase- but also a staggering increase within months regardless.
It would be interesting to see the analytics. New members? Older members returning to the Free Roll fold?