Ultimate Poker Offering Expanded Sunday Tournament
Nevada’s first regulated online poker site is already looking to bigger and better things – or at least bigger and better tournaments. Ultimate Poker has announced that their signature Sunday tournament event will now max out at 400 entries.
During the tournament’s inaugural run last week, the field was limited to 200 players.
While tournament field sizes are always part of the casual conversation in the online poker community, the numbers for Ultimate Poker’s first major multi-table tournament were of special interest to a wide variety of players and members of the poker media, viewed as something of a guide to the general success – or lack thereof – the site had achieved in its first week online.
Prior to the start of the tournament, a number of people wondered if Ultimate would even be able to attract the maximum amount of players willing – and able, given that only individuals actually located in Nevada can play at Ultimate Poker – to put up the $100 ($91+$9) entry fee.
The naysayers were proven wrong well before the actual start of the tournament, as those who entered early were rewarded and those who waited until the last minute were shut out when the 200th player signed up for the tournament, closing registrations for all to follow.
Ultimate Poker is the first site to launch in the recently regulated Nevada online poker market. While available to the general public, Ultimate Poker is not “officially” operating per Nevada regulations. Technically, the site is engaged in a field trial intended to demonstrate to quality and feasibility of its software to regulators. This field trial lasts only a few weeks, after which Ultimate will have their final stamp of approval from Nevada gaming officials.
While this may seem like a fine distinction, it is one with a real impact on players. In order to facilitate the approval process, Ultimate Poker launched with a very spartan software client. Players have already widely remarked, largely in negative tones, about the lack of what have come to be the standard options and features expected of a modern online poker client – standards generally met or exceeded by international online poker sites that accept US players.
Will Ultimate Poker meet the new player maximum as easily as they met the last? The site has a good deal of momentum in both the online poker community and the mainstream media, and the Sunday tournament has become something of a focal point for overall interest in the site. Both of those factors speak to the reasonable chance Ultimate has of attracting a field of 400 players.
But at some point the law of numbers kicks in, and Nevada runs up against the realities presented by the state’s relatively small population count. Boosters point out that players from neighboring states – like Utah – can set up accounts and cross the border to play. And that doesn’t even take into account tourists from far-flung states like North Carolina, Maine or Oregon.
This weekend might not be the moment we see growth at Ultimate Poker slow, but at some weekend in the near-term both demographics and the entrance of competitors such as Caesars will put the brakes on field sizes for Ultimate’s newly-minted signature tournament event.
