Party Poker introduced "protected" tables on February 23, 2013. Basically, these tables were ones at lower and middle stakes, accessible to only newer and weaker players. If you were a longtime grinder/winner on Party, you could not see these tables, and therefore could not sit at them.

Party tried to hide the existence of these, presumably so grinders did not find ways around these tables being hidden (such as using their mom to create a new account and sit at these segregated tables).

Of course, nothing gets by the online poker community, so it was quickly discovered when they were rolled out.

And, shock upon shocks, indeed the new policy was abused by people working around it.

New head-of-poker Jeffrey Haas made a long post on 2+2, announcing the end of the segregated tables and promising to communicate more with 2+2 in the future.

Quote Originally Posted by Jeffrey Haas
Hi All,

I said we would be more open with you and promised to return by EOD today to address your recent points about protected tables! I am generally not going to be posting here in the future, but will ensure others in my team do so regularly. For fastest response to your concerns, please contact info@partypoker.com for support.

First, some important points:

1. We’re addressing questions raised in this community (and elsewhere) about the manner in which we have chosen to provide certain players with a tailored online poker playing experience that not everyone gets to share. For the time being, and for the sake of an open dialogue, we have to put other things aside. Not because they’re not worthy of being addressed (we get it, and will follow-up on everything in time) but because the dialogue will not be constructive if it derails. So this is fairly lengthy, and focused on one topic!

2. We, and we’re sure the same goes for our competition, are forever grateful for the vigilance with which some of you go about tracing questionable behavior on poker sites. That can never be a bad thing even if we’re often more informed than you think. Sometimes we’re limited by our own inadequate - it turns out - policies and rules (that can be very frustrating). Sometimes we just choose to deal with matters in a different manner. But nothing detracts from the the value of your dedication and the level of our gratitude.

3. This is not a discussion about whether you, Joe down the street, or anyone else should or should not be able to access this or that game. We reserve the right to offer poker games under any conditions our regulators permit and that’s really not open for discussion. However, you players should of course expect to be able to understand the conditions in place so you can make informed decisions about whether/not to play on our sites. In that regard we haven’t delivered acceptably in the past.

4. We take pride in being at the forefront of understanding how the ecology of an online poker room works, even though we clearly need to improve some parts of our operation. For this discussion to be useful it is vital that you, for example, consider the possibility that players and behavior you think create all the bottom-line value for us does not correlate with our view. You don’t have to agree with our view at all, of course, but it’s not much use if you’re not willing to consider that we might make decisions based on different criteria than you would had you run an online poker room. We also don’t only run a stand-alone online poker site, but have numerous other products connected to our player ecosystem – and there are a lot of inexperienced poker players from (for example) affiliated sportsbooks who casually try sitting at our poker tables and don’t always have great experiences.

5. We have no intention of being a grinder-hostile site. Based on our understanding of how the ecosystem works, we do believe that some traditional elements and features in online poker have been misguided for years to the absolute detriment of the game. Obviously we want to correct those. Somehow. And obviously that sucks if you're on the wrong end of the correction. But that doesn't mean we dislike grinders – we've just done a terrible job at communicating where we stand on that issue, among others. We should not forget that all grinders were once novices. Grinding is an integral part of the online poker playing experience and it is our aim and ambition to reinvigorate that experience. Not by looking backwards though, but by looking forward. Are we there yet? Not by miles.

6. As of 30 minutes ago, the limited tables that lie at the heart of this conflict will be removed. Not because the intention behind them has changed, but because the feature no longer serves a valid purpose if it is abused and manipulated. Before anyone shouts "well you’ve handed them a victory on a plate by removing these tables," you can expect us to produce something new to bring about a sensible and healthy balance in our poker ecology – and, for good measure, we’ll tell you the ‘what’, the ‘when’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ behind our thinking: with my arrival I can safely say that the 'run silent, run deep' approach has been scrapped for good.

7. For Bwin.Party, the game of poker is not just a numbers game. It can’t be just a numbers game. We are in the entertainment business and entertainment value is not always measured in dollars. If we choose to ensure certain players that have been less fortunate or have little experience play more with each other we are not basing our argument in just dollars and cents. We have to consider other values, like the fact that a lot of multi-tabling high-activity players aren't particularly fun to play against if you're new to the game. Not socializing. Not answering honest questions. Not shy of delivering a critical remark to complete strangers. That's awful entertainment for someone who might not yet fully grasp the intricacies of the game.

8. If all this sounds like we're patting ourselves on the back and dismissing your concerns, then that couldn’t be more wrong. We recognize that we’re in a chip and a chair position and need to stack up some goodwill rather soon.

9. Lastly, a note of appreciation: This may sound odd, but thanks for putting on the pressure. Sometimes that can be tremendously helpful for a company like ours. It forces us (in a good way) to move ahead on issues that have been sidelined due to more (perceived) pressing matters.

With that out of the way, here is an explanation for the context and timeline of this feature being introduced. Some specifics about how certain things are calculated will not be communicated because: a) the methods and algorithms changed subtly during the months following its release; b) it doesn't matter as long as the features that rely on such calculations are not active; and c) they fall under the protected business secrets category.

Protected Tables

There has been speculation in both the poker community and poker media about the introduction of 'Protected Tables' on the global partypoker network earlier this year. This speculation has been due to our own silence about the implications of this functionality on our poker room, how it was intended to work, or why we were introducing these tables. We certainly had many opportunities to reply to players’ concerns, but at the time took a position that our operational decisions were proprietary and confidential. Unfortunately this resulted in misunderstanding about our intent, leading to ill will in the poker community and ultimately harm to our business.

Protected environments for some players have existed within the online poker industry for a long time. Many poker rooms have had ‘shark tanks’, multiple ‘tiers’ of a network, a ‘welcome lounge’ and ‘beginner tables’ or for other reasons separated or ring-fenced players that technically and theoretically could play each other in order to give similarly-skilled groups of (usually new) players the opportunity to compete against each other in a relatively-safe (from sharks) environment while they learn the game, gain some experience and improve their skills. This could be seen by some more-experienced players as disingenuous, setting false expectations about what poker is like in the ‘real world’ outside of these environments, but the fact is that if new players don’t have a good experience playing then most just leave after one session and never return. So it’s in the broad interest of poker itself, and certainly our own poker room specifically, to ensure players have a good experience in at least their first few sessions.

Given the obvious opportunity to extend these players’ lives in our poker room, we sought to create an environment for them to have a better experience. We did this by introducing tables at low and middle stakes which would only be visible to players who our analysis showed were in the danger zone of tapping out before having even found their footing. We called these tables ‘Protected Tables’ internally, though recognize the poker forums have referred to them as ‘Segregated Tables’.

Protected Tables (PT) first appeared on our global liquidity (.COM/.BE/.DK) on 23 February. Players who could see PT could also see all our other tables in the lobby, and sit at any of them, but players who could not see PT could obviously not sit at them.

Following the introduction of PT, we did see new players start playing more hands and sessions after making their initial deposit. Players on these tables also started playing more hands between deposits.

While other macro factors have negatively affected our poker room this year, the impact of PT was positive. Unfortunately, in recent weeks it has come to our attention that some players started to exploit the system. Given that, we can no longer in good conscience continue to operate PT in their current format so have removed them effective today.

We made a mistake in not addressing either the introduction of this feature or its failure immediately and openly. While many stronger players may not have liked this approach, we should have made our position clear, and thus allowed players to make informed decisions about whether to play on our sites. Poor communication also meant that we failed to make clear the limits of the PT mechanism – especially the fact that Fast Forward tables as well as tournaments have always been shared across the full player liquidity because these modes of play are not affected by the same ecology-based issues as cash games.

Just so it’s clear: we are truly sorry for our silence, and will do much better in the future. Someone in my team is cataloguing issues from this thread, and will follow-up in the 'official thread' next week.

Our intent is to create great online poker experiences for most players. We are continuously testing and improving our software towards this objective, and we do promise to share as much as possible with the player community for feedback, stress testing and transparency’s sake.

Good luck at the tables!

Jeffrey Haas

Cliffs
  1. Really long post about only 1 topic
  2. Protected Tables (AKA Segregated Tables) first appeared 23 Feb 2013
  3. Protected Tables were removed on 31 Oct 2013
  4. PartyPoker promises to improve communication, and somebody from the poker team will be posting at least weekly - starting next week