Hot Tables are tables where the game is especially profitable and, therefore, they are considered as intense game focuses since they create a call effect for the rest of the players.
It is also a way of screening the tables in order to select a specific type of table for each session, and thanks to their inclusion many players have persevered in their game by increasing the intensity of the games and the potential winnings.
How Hot Tables are selected
Although the presence of Hot Tables is always welcome, in the case of Partypoker their inclusion turned the players’ perception of the room upside down. Since its introduction, participation was encouraged and many players saw their winnings increase thanks to the new game concept.
The Hot Tables are selected at random. That is to say, the system gathers the operating rooms and the algorithm chooses by pure chance which of them will be Hot Tables. This increases the value and allows players to opt for much bigger jackpots.
Through a pop-up window, the player can see to what extent the Hot Tables are being boosted. At the end of the game, a cash prize of between 1 and 500 big blinds is awarded to the winner of the pot. In practice, that means that a player can win up to $500 extra just for playing the so-called cash games.
Hot Tables were created in order to replace the cash game leaderboards and thanks to them this type of games have much bigger rewards. In addition, there is a certain consensus that this system is fairer, because before the system rewarded a small group of grinders with very high rewards.
Now, with the random selection of Hot Tables, rewards are given to almost any player, and all of them are more likely to be eligible for the highest rewards.
The arrival of the Hot Tables to Partypoker
It was at the end of 2020 when Partypoker let slip that they were working on a new type of promotion based on the Cash Drop. From the first leak it took more than two months to have official indications.
The launch of the Hot Tables took place in March 2021, when the rewards came for those players who won a random pot.
First it started with a testing stage, applying this system to some tables. The limit was set at the 0.5/1-dollar tables, although it was later extended. However, it was specified from the beginning that the Hot Tables application was not going to have anything to do with club games and could not be implemented in private tables.
It was also ruled out those games in which there were less than three players participating, in order to promote the inclusion of as many players as possible.
To make the game fairer, Partypoker established two phases to work with this system. At the beginning, players would only be shown the range in which the possible payout would be, but the total amount of the bonus would only be recognized once the hand was finished. In this way, overcrowded hands full of players who do not go and choose to hinder the game with absurd plays are avoided.
The bonus system ranges from 1bb to 500bb. As always in this kind of incentives, the higher the prize, the lower the probability of winning it.
The prize system started as follows: for $0.05 to $0.10 limit games, the lowest prize would be $0.10 and the highest prize would be $50.
For the 0.10/0.25 limit tables, the lowest prize would be $0.25 and the highest would reach $125.
For the 0.25/0.50 limit tables, the lowest prize would be $0.50 and the highest could reach $250.
Finally, the 0.50/1 limit tables would have a minimum price of 1 dollar and could reach 500 dollars.
This would counteract one of the main handicaps of the Cash Game Leaderboards, which only rewarded a small part of the player pool. Hot Tables seek to attract more recreational players in order to renew the ecosystem of the rooms, something that benefits both the organization itself and the performance of the rooms, improving the players’ experience.
How to know if a table has been selected as a Hot Table?
There are many indicators to let the player know that he/she has entered the Hot Table phase.
To begin with, it is marked with an indicator that all players can see in the upper left corner, which changes color and activates the animation of falling chips.
A public message will then appear in the center of the table letting you know that the table is now under Hot Table rules.
When the next hand ends, a counter will appear on the table, which will randomly determine the total amount of the bonus. From this point on, all players will notice the first difference: the game becomes much more frantic.
However, this results in a lower concentration capacity of the opponent, encouraging mistakes and democratizing even more the players’ options to win the jackpot and, therefore, the reward.
