When PokerStars acquired Full Tilt Poker in 2012, many assumed that the player pools of both sites would be combined to form one massive online poker room. That didn’t happen. Instead, the two sites remained separate, with players able to continue playing on the very popular Full Tilt software.
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To the delight of the poker community, PokerStars swooped in and made FTP players whole after Black Friday, cashing out millions of dollars of previously frozen funds. Even so, traffic at the site never really picked up, and when company officials recently implemented drastic measures meant to prolong the life of casual players, traffic dropped even further.

In February, Amaya, parent company of the two sites, announced that Full Tilt would finally integrate its player pool with the PokerStars ecosystem. While the company initially did not provide a date for the merger, the company announced Friday that the move will be made later this month.

“Full Tilt players will join the PokerStars platform and liquidity on May 17, as the two player pools will be combined to form one market leading poker experience,” said Full Tilt communications official Michael Josem.

“In the coming days, Full Tilt players will be emailed direct and personal information on how this will affect them specifically, which depends on a variety of factors including their jurisdiction and the status of their PokerStars account (if any),” he continued.

While the FTP platform will also be scrapped, its brand identity will remain unchanged. Players can choose whether they would like to connect through the Full Tilt or PokerStars software directly.

Those who have accounts on both sites will have those accounts consolidated into one. Players who choose to play on Full Tilt will have the added benefit of choosing their own custom avatar.

“In many cases, Full Tilt players who already hold a PokerStars account will not need to update any information or transfer their account assets (loyalty points, cash balances etc) which will be transferred automatically to their PokerStars account and they can simply log in to their PokerStars account and enjoy all the great benefits on offer, including even more game choices and bigger tournaments,” said Josem.

While the move will increase liquidity and tournament prize pools, company execs cited other advantages of merging the two rooms. In February, Rafi Ashkenazi, chief executive of Rational Group, explained that the elimination of the Full Tilt software would allow his developers to fully focus on the PokerStars platform.

“We will be able to innovate more quickly and enter newly-regulating existing markets swiftly,” Ashkenazi said.

In August, Full Tilt dealt a blow to professional players by taking measures meant to reduce the advantages those grinders hold over amateur players. To disrupt the practice of bumhunting, for example, players were no longer allowed to choose their own seats and were automatically placed at the table with the next seat available.

Furthermore, the site removed all heads up tables, along with many of the high stakes tables. As a result, the site lost about 20% of its traffic in the days after the changes were implemented. PokerStars currently sits atop the list of online poker site traffic rankings, while Full Tilt occupies the 14th place, according to PokerScout.