partypoker: King of the Hill feature for HU tables

Heads-Up is perhaps the most affected format by the online poker crisis in recent years. Today it is a challenge to find a poker room that offers HU tables. partypoker is one of the few top networks that still have heads-up games and recently announced that a "King of the Hill" feature would be added for players.

Heads-Up cash games traffic

HU cash games at partypoker are far from popular. According to our latest reviews, the total number of tables in the peak time barely exceeds 20 for NLH and 10 for PLO, across all stakes.

In Omaha, the action focuses on PLO25–PLO50, and Hold'em features 3-5 tables in NL100–NL200–NL500.

But, we remind again that partypoker is one of the few sites that still have HU tables in its lobby. As usual, many tables at the same stake are occupied by the same player, but still.

It's no secret that this is what regular players do, sit and wait for amateur players at HU tables. If another strong player arrives at the table, they simply will not play. This is a common practice and one of the main reasons for the ruin of HU.

Limit the number of tables: solving the HU problem

For example, PokerStars solved this problem by switching all HU tables to fast-fold poker format. partypoker decided to implement the "King of the Hill" feature.

The poker site shared a press release with some basic information and anticipated that more changes would come in the future:

"This is one of many changes we are planning to make to our cash game offering in the coming months."

The essence of "King of the Hill" is very simple:

In partypoker, HU cash games, it will be allowed to wait for an opponent at a single table per stake.

In theory, this rule should prevent regular players from sitting in multiple tables waiting for amateurs, there will be fewer active tables, and the lobby will be more attractive to poker fans.

The launch of "King of the Hill" will surely achieve its goal by "cleaning" the HU lobby, and won't affect the overall traffic. This can lead to an increase of amateur players at the tables.

Once the King of the Hill feature is implemented in partypoker, we will be able to see how effective this measure is for the poker ecosystem.

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