Just a few weeks ago, a few changes were added to Full Tilt Poker with the Managing Director of the poker room, Dominic Mansour, stating that a new VIP program was on its way. Regular players of Full Tilt or any online poker room, want to be able to take advantage of a VIP or some type of rewards scheme. This way, rewards can be earned during game play with tournaments or cash games. The new Full Tilt VIP rewards program is titled the Players Club and will take part alongside the existing Edge Rewards program. The Edge Program was redesigned but will offer most of the same so players can earn great rewards. With the Players Club, rewards will be provided based on a new game at Full Tilt Poker called The deal. The new game is fast paced and will have prizes up for grabs. These prizes will include cash, tickets and a progressive jackpot. The progressive starts at $100,000, so players already have a nice prize to try and win with the new program. Basically, this new portion of the rewards program will allow players to enjoy online game play at Full Tilt per usual. Along the way, The Deal can be played and players will have a shot at the jackpot each time they play. Enrollment is automatically done as players are members of the site, in regards to the Players Club. Players can also opt for the Edge Rewards program if they so choose. The Edge Program will now offer three tiers: the Edge, Edge Plus and Edge Prime. Players will be able to earn cashback as based on the number of player points they have earned at the tables. The status tier of this program can be earned on a 30 day or 100 day rolling average based on player points. Full Tilt has decided to display a new icon on certain game variants and stake levels in the hopes that players will try these particular games. The Edge program will show cashback of as much as 200% for points earned at the special tables. The Deal details have not yet been released by Full Tilt but are expected to be released soon. From the details gathered at forums and news pieces, it seems as though the game is a mix of earning points to qualify for a random prize drawing, with a lottery style of prize distribution. Mansour commented on the changes at Full Tilt by stating:
Such changes included in the month of July were a new player lobby. The new lobby removed the option to select specific gaming tables and also removed heads up games and high stake level games. The rake was increased at certain stake levels which included the microstakes.
The changes will be of benefit to recreational players and high volume players who want to stick with Full Tilt Poker. However, there were many players who spoke out on these changes, claiming they were not ideal for their game play. Any player who wanted to have the upper hand will not any more as they will not know which players they are seated with until they get to the table. It will be interesting to see if this new concept by Full Tilt will help the company or hurt their player traffic numbers.