This week, a thread in Poker Discussion asked PocketFives.com members to pitch questions to Cake Poker Card Room Manager Lee Jones, an industry veteran. The USA-friendly room and flagship site of its own network has had a busy past three months, launching an all-new Gold Stacks rewards program and qualifying players for the Irish Poker Open in Dublin and other live tournaments around the world. Jones took time out of his day to address some of the most popular topics of interest. Visit Cake Poker for full details on the USA-facing site.PocketFives.com Member: What is the timeline for the new software?
Lee Jones: It’s going to be out sometime in late spring. I really can’t be more specific than that because I don’t want to promise a date and then miss it, but we’re putting a ton of resources into the new client and it’s got top priority. For what it’s worth, I’m playing on the new client daily.
PocketFives.com Member: Please fix the payout structures to pay only the top 10% of the field. A lot of the tournaments, especially the low- and mid-stakes ones, pay out as much as 25% of the field sometimes, which is absurd.
Lee Jones: I’m afraid you and I will have to agree to disagree about this. I have discussed this at length with our Minister of Tournament Arts (MOTA), who is a longtime online poker professional. We believe that paying fairly deep is healthy for the poker economy. The more we spread the money around, the more players stay in action. Many folks who encourage us to pay a smaller percentage of the field would actually be hurt by such a change. I’m not saying that you’re in that group, but overall, such a change would hurt the games and tournaments.
It is worth remembering Mike Caro’s famous comment about poker tournaments. He generally disapproved of poker tournaments for many years, saying, “When a guy wins $35,000 in a tournament [this was when a $35,000 win in a poker tournament was a huge deal], do you know what he does? He goes and buys a refrigerator. There’s nothing sadder than seeing perfectly good poker money used to buy a refrigerator.”
PocketFives.com Member: Fix your tables so when shrunk down to the minimum size, they are the same size as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker’s tables. Multi-tabling on the two major sites makes it almost impossible to throw in some Cake Poker tournaments for this exact reason: the tables just don't fit. This will bring more people to the site, as I can't imagine I'm the only one who avoids your site for only this reason.Lee Jones: Consider it done. The new client tables shrink to “industry-standard” size.
PocketFives.com Member: Mid-stakes freezouts from 3:00pm to 10:00pm for East Coast players. The schedule at this time is really weak; more $30 to $50 tournaments, please.
Lee Jones: Noted. I’ll pass that along to our MOTA. He spends a lot of time looking at the schedule and seeing how it can be improved. If this is something that we can support and will be successful, we’re happy to consider it.
PocketFives.com Member: Are there any plans to make the network move from ten-person tables to nine-person tables?
Lee Jones: We are definitely considering that. As you’re probably aware, the ring games are nine-seat now. We may make the switch to nine-seat (full ring) tournaments, but it’s not decided.
PocketFives.com Member: Will the hand history feature be redesigned more like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker’s because the one you currently use is slightly better than Bodog, a.k.a. it's terrible.
Lee Jones: I assume you’re talking about the instant hand replay feature (as opposed to the text hand history format). I agree that our current one is not spectacular, but it just hasn’t been our highest priority (bug-free robust software has been). We actually have a prototype for a very nice hand replayer that I hope to get into the software in the relatively near future, but priorities are important and this just can’t be the top one.
PocketFives.com Member: When can I play Cake Poker on my Macbook Pro?Lee Jones: In all honesty, I don’t expect us to have a native Mac client any time in the near future. I have yet to see any data that suggests that the Mac market (particularly those who don’t have a Windows emulator) is big enough. Note that you have to justify not only an entire port of the software, but also the ongoing maintenance thereof.
I hate leaving the entire Mac community out of the Cake party, but for the moment, we simply don’t have the people to do all of the projects that we want to do. If somebody could show me credible data that tells me we’re missing out on a big market, I’d be happy to make a case for the Mac with my bosses. In the meantime, I hope you’ll run a Windows emulator and come play at Cake.
PocketFives.com Member: I have a different Cake Poker Network partner account, but don’t play there anymore and want to join Cake. Can I still get rakeback?
Lee Jones: Please contact the affiliate with whom you have rakeback. They may be able to switch it over to Cake for you.
PocketFives.com Member: Are you thinking about running a tournament series like the FTOPS or WCOOP any time soon?
Lee Jones: We definitely want to do that, but feel that we need to get Stud and Mixed Games onto the site before we do. It’s one of the things that keeps Stud in front of us. Just as a standalone cash game, I don’t think there’s enough demand for Stud to get it up very high on the development priority queue, but if we combine that with being able to run a legitimate tournament series, it makes the argument for Stud much more compelling. For what it’s worth, both the MOTA and I are very eager to have Stud games, Mixed Games, and a full-fledged tournament series. We think it’d be an insane amount of fun for the players and us.
PocketFives.com Member: What cool things are you doing with the Gold Chips these days?Lee Jones: Glad you asked. Here’s a list:
• March Madness Turbo Gold Cards – This is the first time that a Turbo Gold Card promo has gone on for a whole month.
• St. Patrick’s Day Turbo Card Promo – Anybody who gets the ace of clubs Gold Card from March 10th to 17th gets $100. Just write to Cake customer support and they’ll credit your account.
PocketFives.com Member: What about the live event front?
Lee Jones: We’ve got Irish Poker Open qualifiers running through March 14th. Dublin is a wonderful town and when you bring a major tournament there with the accompanying insane side action, it’s hard to beat. It’s a great place to spend your Easter weekend. And after those qualifiers are over, we segue right into the WSOP satellites.
Thank you to everybody who sent in questions and thank you to PocketFives.com for giving me the opportunity to answer them here.
Check out the original thread in Poker Discussion.
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