The online poker industry has been evolving for over 15 years, and in all that time, there are certain features that have become standard with all major platforms. One of them is a rather simple feature known as the ‘wait list’. It appears that, after more than a year of legal online poker in New Jersey, and nearly 8 months of public pleading from players, PartyPoker NJ is finally going to incorporate some type of wait list
PartyPoker NJ took to the TwoPlusTwo forums and Twitter last week to announce “big upgrades” in the coming year. Not many details were provided as to the full scope of the upgrades, but we do know that the mobile poker platform will see enhancements, and some sort of waitlist is finally in the works.
New Year’s resolution #1 – go mobile! Big upgrades coming in Jan. Download now: http://t.co/tbvyKL2i96 pic.twitter.com/gzmFynFNhT
— partypoker (@partypokerUS) December 24, 2014
A somewhat less clandestine announcement was made on 2+2 by ‘Party_Rep’ Collete a few days prior to the Twitter post. “Having spoken with our Product team today – we have a wait list solution planned to go live early 2015,” the missive read. “I will feedback with more detail when possible”.
The initial reactions were positive ones, but it didn’t take long for New Jersey’s online poker players to read between the lines. The phrase “wait list solution” struck a chord with the community, who began to question why Party Borgata doesn’t “just add a wait list!”
Michael “Gags30” Gagliano said the idea of a ‘wait list solution’ “scares” him. He suggested that if the online poker room doesn’t wish to integrate standard wait lists, they should “at least employ table starters so people can start new games without having to play heads up (since many recreational players do not like playing heads up)”. Gagliano explicated that, “the way it is now basically only regs are getting empty seats at tables.” He wrote, “if there was a wait list at least recreational players would have a shot at them”.
Others argued against Gags30’s point though, saying that wait lists only serve to further bumhunting – a term applied to online poker players who intentionally seek out weaker, ‘recreational’ opponents. Ostensibly, the lack of a wait list 13 months after the launch of online poker in New Jersey has everything to do with protecting recreational players from bumhunters.
One way or another, the sizable group of forum posters who have been unofficially petitioning for wait lists since May 2014 will finally get them – or at least something to that effect – in early 2015.
Party Borgata isn’t known for its speed where upgrades are concerned. Another universal component of online poker sites is the Sit’n’Go tournament menu. PartyPoker NJ didn’t incorporate SNG’s until the summer of this year. Realistically (and historically) speaking, the new upgrades are likely to roll out in the second week of January, within days of the Garden State Super Series II, scheduled to begin January 11, mirroring the last major upgrade that hit in September just before the inaugural GSSS.