Full Tilt Poker rolls out 3 new poker games in latest software update

Full Tilt Poker was likely looking for a reason to change the subject after their poker pros Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, and Viktor Blom, known as “The Professionals”, thoroughly trounced by Team PokerStars Pro members Daniel Negreanu, Isaac Haxton, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. So, with Full Tilt Poker needing a little distraction they announced a software update this week, adding a few new poker formats to the site.

Always an innovator, it appears that Full Tilt Poker will continue to push the online poker envelope after seeing their latest software update –remember, Full Tilt Poker was behind the creation of Fast/Fold Poker (Rush Poker) as well as multi-entry tournaments.

The new software upgrade was unveiled on Tuesday, and features two brand new poker formats for players to choose from, Irish Poker and 5-Card Stud, as well as “Elevator” tournaments, all of which I’ll detail below:

 Irish Poker

I’ve never heard of this one before, but apparently Irish Poker is played a lot like Holdem, and is quite similar to Crazy Pineapple: Each player receives four cards pre-flop and must discard two of those cards after the flop is dealt. The game seems to be a good fit for PLO/NLHE players, with starting hands playing a lot more like PLO, with the exception that wrap draws will have to be broken-up on the flop –So playing big pairs/two-pair hands and big suited cards would be my first thought.

Full Tilt Poker is the first online poker room to offer the format.

5-Card-Stud

One of the older forms of poker, the addition of 5-Card Stud poker will likely be more of a gimmick than something players have been lobbying for. 5-Card Stud is highly skillful, which is what has led to its downfall as bad players simply have no chance of winning and lose money extremely fast.

Full Tilt Poker isn’t the first poker room to spread 5-Card Stud games, and from past experience I expect the tables to short-handed and sparsely populated most of the time –if the table is full with a waitlist yiou can bet your bottom dollar that a fish is sitting.

Elevator Tournaments

Full Tilt Poker’s Elevator tournaments are an interesting concept, bringing a higher skill factor to the game. Basically, in the early stages of the tournament, when the stacks are deeper, the blinds increase at a faster rate (akin to a turbo event), and as the tournament progresses so do the blind levels, keeping the tournament’s stack-to-blind ratio higher.