888 Poker Removes Heads Up Games

The UK based 888 poker has this week announced the removal of all Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold'em heads up games from the client. The news comes from a posting on the popular online poker forum 2+2 and it stated that, "In keeping with our strategy to make our poker room competitive and fun, the decision has been made to remove the heads up cash games." The debate against heads up games has been going on awhile, and many players and operators have been unhappy with larger players being sat at heads up tables for long periods of time waiting for smaller players to come and be beaten. They are said to be hogging the tables and are not good for the game in general, however we are sure that some of them will disagree about that.

To solve the 'problem' altogether Microgaming got rid of its heads up tables in June this year and they were replaced with their very own Heads Up 8 Man Blaze tables. At the time Microgaming, the only network so far to have taken this somewhat drastic step said that, "Heads Up 8 Man Blaze will replace all regular Heads Up tables, thus solving the industry-wide problem of 'bum-hunting', in which players park in a seat at a Heads Up table and wait for a weaker player to arrive, refusing play with any player of equal or better skill." The iPoker network has also addressed the problem but in a less dramatic fashion and introduced 'heads up hogging prevention' which monitors players that sit around on heads up tables and are inactive for periods of time. Many players believe that it isn't really a problem and at the end of the day, everyone has the same right to play everyone else, and that if a player is patient enough to sit and wait for what they believe is a winning opportunity then that's their call.