Online News: Natural8 Fish Buffet reboot; 888poker’s new tournament schedule and more…

In this column we deliver you the latest and most interesting online poker industry news from across the world and all platforms.

Natural8 Fish Buffet reboot

The Fish Buffet Rewards program has received an upgrade. All fixed cashback levels are now called Platinum. Whale and Shark levels have been changed. From now on there is only one Shark level and that’s “Platinum Shark”. This level offers 55% cashback and it must be achieved in a maximum of a year by collecting 3 million Fish Buffet Points (FP) after reaching the previous level.

The “Platinum Whale” Level (previously “Black Whale”) is now also annual. Players can achieve it by gaining 1,500,000 FP after reaching the previous level.

Other changes for all levels are:

• Lower points requirements (it was 250k or 750k, now it is 120k FP).
• The time frame for each level is now 30 days instead of 60.
• The prizes on the prize wheel are reduced to $120 — $1,200.
• More fractional cashback steps
• Players receive cashback according to the average cashback % of their current rank

These changes are very interesting for regs as those will see more frequent spins on the wheel with an increased average cashback. For more information on the current Fish Buffet Rewards program check out the Natural8 website.

CalvinAyre.com shuts down

The gaming news site Calvin Ayre.com ceased operations. It was founded in 2009 by billionaire Calvin Ayre and was a go-to platform for news all around gaming, gambling and, of course, poker.

The main reason for the closure is that Ayre’s focus has changed away from the gambling world and to the cryptocurrency universe. In 2017 Ayre acquired Coingeek.com, a cryptocurrency news site, and he is now putting his focus on this.

Ayre says: “I used to do an annual predictions piece for the site, and as far back as 2011 I was predicting a sea change in online payments through the rise of Bitcoin. It’s taken longer than I originally projected, in part because Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision for Bitcoin got hijacked by individuals too wedded to the status quo and their own self-interest.”

Luckily for the poker and gambling world there are many other news outlets for you to get your information, like you’re doing right now here on Somuchpoker.com.

Germany ends play money offering

Germany is going through a big amount of changes when it comes to online gambling and online poker. There has been a whirlwind of debatable changes for players and operators and now a new change has taken German players by surprise.

A statement on the PokerStars website (German language) reads: “We are constantly monitoring how the regulatory framework is developing in the markets in which we operate. Based on this, the decision was made to suspend the play money offer for the German market.”

PokerStars has stopped offering play money games for German players. Play money has still been widely used in home games for groups of friends to play amongst each other or for poker streamers to offer their communities some fun on the side while they’re watching their streams.

Why this change has been made can only be speculated. Maybe the rise of poker clubs and the connected real money conversions off-site have been a topic the German government started looking into. PokerStars is the biggest poker site and will do their best to comply with any rules that come or even might come up.

The play money chips will for now remain in players’ accounts until the situation has been cleared up. This gives hope to the German players that this decision might not be permanent.

Everybody is now waiting for the deadline in April when all German states have to have agreed to the new gambling law that is set to be in place on 1st July this year.

More changes to PokerStars game offering

A blessing and at the same time a big issue for the poker giant PokerStars has always been the wealth of offerings in the poker lobby. This always brought all players to the site as they knew that whatever they wanted to play they could find it here.

However, the massive amount of games available caused more and more problems for the operator and players. Not only is it difficult for many to find their favourite games or just browse to find news ones, but “cannibalisation” has always been a problem as well.

Despite PokerStars having the most players there is always the need to decide on what games you want to offer in order to have them all run as well.

10-handed tables were completely removed last month, and now Stars cut full ring CAP No Limit Hold’em cash games, heads up formats and niche SNG tournaments.

It is good to see the optimization of the offerings, but as always many niche players cry out and demand everything return to the way it was before. Many mixed game players have had this experience in the past. And once again it remains to be said that it’s always good to have alternatives and learn and study games beyond your expertise.

888poker’s new tournament schedule

888poker has been on the sidelines quite a bit during the Covid-related poker boom, but they are now more and more incorporating interesting changes in order to pique the interest of the global poker community.

“Made To Play” is the motto and the ever popular tournaments have now been on the table for a thorough revamp. If you were an 888 player and got used to tourneys such as BIG Fish, Dragon, Monsoon or the Mega Deep, you will need to know that their time is up.

The main changes can be summarized like this:

• Fewer re-entries
• More payouts
• Better options for recreational players
• More tournaments in the evening during prime-time hours
• Higher guarantees each weekend

To learn more about the new schedule with tourneys like “The Big Shot”, “The Classic”, “The Dash” or “The Voyage”, go to the 888poker website.

In order to celebrate these changes there is a big Giveaway happening on the site, giving away tickets and seats for these new tournaments. The Giveaway is still running until 2nd April.

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