PartyPoker Protects Fish With High Stakes Ban

In a move designed to improve its revenues, high end cash games have been removed from PartyPoker with the highest games now available on the site being $5/$10 NL or PLO ($1,000BI), and $30/$60 FL ($6,000BI). Following the decision, a company announcement explained its reasoning, stating:
“We have removed some of our super high stake games, this decision has been taken to make improvements to our poker ecology and in our players best interests. We believe this change will improve the action at our tables and is in the best interest of the poker room as a whole.”
Recently, PartyPoker has seen a dramatic decline in its customer numbers with cash games action down a massive 50% compared to the same period in 2011. With its latest decision the poker room is apparently trying to stem the flow of  money off the site by improving the enviroment for low stakes cash game players.
In accordance with The Peter Principle, within a hierarchy a person tends to rise to their level of incompetence. Therefore, in the poker world money often exits upwards as lower stake players moving up or taking shots often lose their money at the next highest level.
Although it will take time to determine if PartyPoker’s strategy will prove successful, the reaction from the site’s high end players has been more immediate with many believing it may simply force regulars to take their business elsewhere. Other members of the poker community have received the news more positively with Two Plus Two forum poster “human,” commenting:
“The majority of a sites income is certainly not from high stakes regs. Ultimately a poker economy survives on money injected by ‘fish’ (any losing player) as this feeds the reg’s as well as the rake. Allow fish to let their money go further obviously generates more rake and (possibly) repeat business. Allowing somebody to blow their $10K roll at 3am drunk in about 4minutes doesn’t really help the economy.”