BetOnline Poker has made some significant changes to its cash games and tournaments in order to make the site more welcoming for recreational players. The cash game changes in particular will contribute towards a better experience and increase the chances of cashing in the weekly leaderboard competition.
In an attempt to address this issue, BetOnline Poker introduced [geolink href=”https://www.usafriendlypokersites.com/new-year-sees-new-games-promotions-betonline-poker/”]fast-fold Boost Poker games[/geolink] at the start of the year. These have not been the great success the site hoped for because Boost Poker games do not qualify for the Bad Beat Jackpot. Now, the site is limiting the number of cash game tables players can access at one time to four, and reducing the time players have to act before their hand is folded.
Not only should the cash game changes improve the playing experience for recreational players with limited time on their hands, it will give some players an increased chance of cashing in the weekly $10,000 “Cash Race” leaderboard competition – although you will still have to spend a considerable amount of time at BetOnline Poker´s cash game tables if you intend winning one of the top prizes.
Revised Tournament Schedule with Increasing Guarantees
At first look, the revised tournament schedule is a vast improvement on the previous schedule. The number of tournaments has been increased, as have the guaranteed prize pools. BetOnline Poker has stated it will increase the prize pools every time a guarantee is beaten and not mentioned a cap, so it will be interesting to see what happens after this weekend´s monthly $100,000 guaranteed event.
Regular players will notice an increase in the number of Freezeout, Progressive Knock-Out and time-limited tournaments, and that the vast majority of tournaments are still played on full-ring tables with ten-minute levels and one hour of late registration. There has however been a significant change in the site´s most valuable tournaments – an extension of the late registration period to two hours.
Extending late registration periods is a tactic frequently used by online poker sites to encourage players to join a game when it is closer to the money and to ensure the guarantee is met. However, extended late registration periods usually have longer levels. Consequently, players at BetOnline Poker who leave it until the last minute to get involved will only have around five big blinds to spin up into a competitive chip stack – a likely advantage for any player who has been playing the tournament from the start.
Talking of the Monthly $100,000 Guaranteed Event
With this coming Sunday (May 27th) being the last Sunday of the month, BetOnline Poker is doubling the guarantee for its Sunday feature tournament from $50,000 to $100,000. As usual the tournament gets underway at 7:00pm (ET) and has a buy-in of just $109.00. Also as usual, the event is being supported by a wide range of satellites and a Steps program starting at Freeroll level.
Usually, the most popular satellites are those with an $11.00 buy-in that run around the clock every four hours. Earlier in the week, these satellites were fairly sparsely populated; but, as the target event draws closer, expect them to give away more than their two guaranteed seats. Additional hyper-turbo satellites with buy-ins of $16.50 are scheduled for Sunday at 2:00pm (ET) and 5:00pm (ET).
Certainly this is a good weekend to play at BetOnline Poker, and it will be interesting to see what impact the changes to the site´s cash games have on the speed of action and number of hands players can fit into a time-limited session. I expect the combination of a better online experience and more valuable tournaments will increase traffic to the site, which will in turn lead to more improvements being made and higher prize pools in BetOnline Poker´s guaranteed tournaments.
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