Monday, June 30, 2008

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Biggest online poker pot ever leads June stats

The Black Lotus: Scoops the biggest "legitimate" pot of the month at $449k.

By Christopher Hunt

The month of June in the poker world is, naturally, all about the World Series of Poker. And for the most part, it always will be. But online poker is definitely carving out its own space.

Showing perhaps how much of a force online poker has become, action at all stakes online seemed to roll on virtually unabated despite the heavy live action in and around the Rio this month at the WSOP.

Surprisingly, that also held true at the highest stakes online, where virtually all of the top pros seemed to squeeze in their usual activity. As always, the $200/$400 Pot-Limit Omaha tables on Full Tilt Poker were packed and six-max and heads-up games ran regularly.

And while they definitely had their fair share of huge pots - including a massive $449,656 pot won by Finnish pro Patrik Antonius just last night (hand details in the MarketPulse biggest pots section) - the biggest story of the month came from the newly created $500/$1,000 No-Limit Hold'em "RailHeaven" table at Full Tilt.

Although possibly not the biggest legitimate story.

The big deal, based on over 20 million hands tracked by the PokerListings.com MarketPulse section, was of course the record $585,009 pot that changed hands in the early hours of June 25.

Initial excitement over the history-making event was quickly tempered when the forum regulars started to look more closely at both the participants - high-stakes regular Jay "pr1nnyraid" Rosenkrantz and relative unknown Tony Bliar - and at the way the hand played out.

Some peculiar play definitely made it look like a setup to create a bit of buzz for both the players and the new table.

A PokerListings.com feature story about the hand and its details can be found here; the Coles notes of the situation are that Krantz and a fellow high-stakes player, Ariel "DaEvils" Schneller, who also happens to be Krantz's good friend, appeared to be playing around at the high-stakes tables earlier in the day.

The end result was a $370k loss for Krantz, so the speculation was that Krantz and Bliar set up the game and the big hand to transfer the money back and create a bit of attention at the same time.

And it worked, sort of. The story grabbed some headlines and still stands "officially" as both the biggest pot online ever and, obviously, so far in 2008.

To check out more of the top 100 biggest pots won online over the last day, week, month and year, visit the MarketPulse biggest pots section.

More numbers of note from June:

Shannon Elizabeth: Newly sponsored pro drawing them in at DoylesRoom?

Online Traffic Report

The story traffic-wise in June was undoubtedly the massive surge of players at DoylesRoom.com.

A virtually unprecedented 101% increase saw player traffic at DoylesRoom jumping to 1,532 players on average over each 24-hour period this month, compared to just 765 players on average in May.

Also showing traffic increases in June were Absolute Poker, with a 15% increase to 1,208 players, and traffic volume leader, PokerStars, who managed to increase yet another 6% to an average of 12,856 players.

See a complete list of the top 10 online poker rooms in terms of traffic volume here.

Also of note is the expanded traffic report now available at PokerListings. The report is now split into three tabs:

Traffic Today is a breakdown of player volume by poker room for the current day, including the number of players presently online, the average over the last 24 hours and the high point and low point over the same period; you'll also find a graph plotting player traffic per hour for each room compared to the industry average.

Traffic by Month displays average player volume details for the current month and the two previous months, plus six-month and 12-month traffic averages. Monthly volume is also charted against industry average.

The 2008 Highlights tab lists the figures for the busiest and quietest days/months for each room so far this year. All data is also updated hourly; visit the traffic report section here.

Average pot size through the roof at Mansion

Another prominent stat from June is the booming growth of pot sizes - generally meaning looser and juicier games - at Mansion Poker.

Average pot size at Mansion jumped a surprising 83% in June, finishing off at an impressive $28.80 compared to $15.70 in May.

Other sites with pot size increases: UltimateBet, up 13% to an average of $32; and PartyPoker, up 1% to $21.50.

Top 5 rooms overall for pot size in June were Pacific Poker, DoylesRoom, Full Tilt, UltimateBet and Mansion Poker; check here for full details.

For more monthly stats and trends in the online poker industry, visit the full PokerListings.com MarketPulse section.

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