On Tuesday, Full Tilt announced on its blog and via an email to its players that it has introduced radical changes to its ring games. The announcement boldly promised “big changes at Full Tilt to improve the playing experience by making the game more accessible and exciting.”

The most major change ring game players will witness at Full Tilt is that seating will no longer be determined by the player, but by the software itself. Players will be able to select the game and stakes they wish to play and automatically be seated at a table. If more than one table becomes short-handed, the software will merge them.

The blog points out that this is like a live card room and eliminates table selection that some players have used extensively to their advantage.

Another big change is that the site will no longer include heads-up ring game tables. Full Tilt is protecting its “weaker” players, who were subject to experienced players targeting them.

Another major change is the elimination of all high-stakes games, plus also all Stud, Draw, and Mixed Game variants. While this will only directly affect a handful of players, many who enjoyed watching these games will have to now do so on another site.

Thus far, player reaction has been mixed. TwoPlusTwo poster “mybe” believed these changes were positive, posting, “I really like the changes you have made to your ring games. Of course, bum-hunters and seat-scripters will come out and complain, but I believe this will have a good effect on the games, and I like that I don’t have to worry about table selection anymore.”

TwoPlusTwo poster “deathorglory0” was not a fan of removing of heads-up games, believing that other methods should have been tested: “There were plenty other suggestions to improve the HU lobby. To just remove HU without trying out any of these suggestions is inexcusable.”

Full Tilt Poker Room Manager Shyam Markus replied, “Like I said, it wasn’t a decision we reached lightly. All of the suggestions were discussed. Lots of ideas that weren’t suggested were discussed. We had a full specification all written up for the direction we wanted to take HU. The problem was that nothing changed the fact that the more new players play HU, the less likely they are to continue playing. If we wanted to be serious about trying to fix a broken poker economy, we had to find all of the biggest issues and either really solve them or remove them.”

He added, “For HU, we came to the conclusion that we couldn’t actually solve the underlying issue, so we removed it. For sure it’s not going to be a super popular decision, and it’s absolutely possible we’ve made a mistake, but for now it’s the decision we feel has the best chance of helping turn around some of the biggest problems we face and return to growing the site.”

What do you think of these changes? Let us know by commenting below!

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