Cake Poker recently changed their full ring tables from 10 seats to 9 seats.  This makes Cake Poker’s full ring tables conform with what has become industry standard.  While this may not seem like a big deal it actually is.  There are multiple reasons for Cake Poker to do this, all of them benefit Cake Poker, their skins and affiliates.

What I feel like is the biggest reason for doing this is because a full ring player will now generate 11% more rake.  This is because Cake Poker uses the dealt rakeback method.  When there was $1 raked from a pot at a 10 seat table the rake would be 10 cents per player, now it is 11.1 cents per player.  Those extra pennies add up fast in the pockets of Cake Poker, their network partners and the affiliates of both.

Another reason is that there will be more tables to select from.  By forcing the 10th player off the table now the player will be forced to be on a waitlist.  While the player waits for a seat they may sit in another game and when their seat becomes available at their first table choice they may now play two games instead of one or three games instead of two etc.  This helps keep other games that may have been in danger of breaking alive and makes a player generate more rake if they are presented with more games or are forced to play a game they may not have otherwise played and they stayed with it.

Think of it like this, if there were 90 full ring players before there would have been 9 tables running, now there will be 10.  This is more rake for everyone, more rakeback for players and more tables to select from.

This also forces nits to loosen up some.  Now that the blinds are coming around faster players will need to play more aggressively and play more hands.  This also increases rake as the games will be a bit looser and makes Cake Poker more attractive to players as the games will be softer than they were before.

The only drawback that I can see is that games may break faster.  If several players sit out or leave at the same time the game becomes unplayable to tighter players that may lack the skills to play shorthanded or to players that simply do not enjoy shorthanded games.

This was the first major change under new poker room manager Lee Jones.  Lee Jones was manager of Poker Stars when their growth exploded.  I am confident he will help fuel a massive growth spurt for Cake Poker and their skins.  His forum presence and likable personality draws players and is a form of free advertising even before his poker room management expertise kicks in.  Expect serious growth at Cake Poker in the near future.

PAS publishers can promote several Cake Poker skins on their site.  PAS offers Cake Poker, Red Star Poker, PlayersOnly and recently we added Power Poker.  Cake Poker, PlayersOnly and Power Poker are U.S. friendly and Power Poker is EU licensed as well.  Players receive 33% rakeback when they sign up through your PAS site for any of these poker rooms.