It’s no secret that I feel the poker food chain has grown unbalanced in recent years (Evidence 1 and Evidence 2), and it’s safe to say that the online poker world is finally catching on to this problem and making the necessary changes. The latest poker site that has decided to move away from a focus on high-volume, high-stakes players, is Party Poker. Just a few months ago the site did away with all of its high-stakes tables, capping stakes at $5/$10 for No Limit and Pot Limit games, and $30/$60 for Limit games, and now the site has made the decision to do away with the top tier of its VIP Program, Palladium Elite, in an effort to further “optimize the Poker Ecology” as they call it.

The announcement recently appeared on the Party Poker website, with a spokesman saying, “We believe the change will allow us to manage our poker room more effectively and ultimately allow for fairer distribution of bonuses across the network.” While the recent decisions seem to be bad in the short-term, Party Poker is expecting them to pay off in the long-term, as new and casual players find the Party Poker tables more appealing.

The Palladium Elite level will be eliminated on March 31, 2013, at which time all players who have attained this top level in the VIP Program will be dropped to Palladium status –Party Poker is advising all of its Palladium Elite players to exchange their Party Poker Points before March 31 where they can get a better return.

The change will affect only a few of the highest volume players at the site, basically eliminating the 50% rakeback tier, with rakeback now capped at 30% for Palladium status players. Make no mistake about it, by eliminating this level Party Poker will likely lose a few players, but the players it will lose will be the mass multi-tablers, which is precisely what they seem to want. The decision to eliminate Palladium Elite will not be a factor when new and casual players are looking to join an online poker room, considering Palladium Elite status was reserved for the very best, and highest raking players only.

Gone are the days where online poker rooms competed for the top players by offering high-end promotions and massive rakeback deals to the highest volume players. Instead, the current trend has been for sites to once again aggressively market to new and potential customers, while at the same time limiting the number of sharks that are swimming in their waters. This move isn’t limited to Party Poker either:

* We have seen Bodog make all of their tables anonymous, virtually eliminating data-mining and other tools winning players are using.

* iPoker has split its network into two separate tiers, offering exclusive tables.

* Several rooms have tinkered with beginner tables, available only to new players.

* Promotions have moved way from simply rakeback, and have also been “flatter” offering rewards to players of all skill levels and volume.

* Full Tilt Poker came back online without affiliates, and with a very “poor” VIP Program for high-stakes, high-volume players.

Tags: Decisions, Ecology, Elite Level, Elite Players, Food Chain, Games, High Volume, Mistake, Online Poker, Palladium, Party Poker, Poker Room, Poker Tables, Poker World, Pot Limit, rakeback, Spokesman, Vip Program

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2013 at 9:40 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Party Poker eliminates Palladium Elite VIP tier”

1. Shane says:

   January 14, 2013 at 10:22 am

   All this actually makes it worse for the casual player. The pros that use to stick to $25/$50 and $50/$100, are now going to be playing at the smaller tables. The casual player is going to get cleaned out. This is crazy. This is as bad as the government trying to hold your hand. If someone wants to wager 50K its their business.