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Over the past few weeks a number of online poker sites have made a major course correction in an attempt to win over causal poker players. The first site to make changes for the benefit of casual players was Bodog, which changed all of its poker tables to Anonymous Tables in an effort to deter data-mining by skilled grinders. The Microgaming Poker Network followed Bodog’s lead and expanded the number of Anonymous Tables they offered, and the Everleaf Poker Network announced their own change in policy by limiting “winning” players’ access to certain tables.

For an idea of what these sites are fighting against take a look at this statistic cited by Minted Poker (a skin on the Everleaf Poker Network) that puts into perspective the type of income inequality the network is dealing with: “Less than 0.004% of the entire player pool [will be affected]…It is this 0.004% of the player pool that accounts for over 50% of the net win on the entire network,” the 0.004% they are speaking of is players earning over €750/week at the poker tables.

Players affected by the “Shark Net”, as Everleaf is calling the new policy, will be met with the following pop-up at certain tables, “You are not allowed to play on this table because your player rating is too high.” Conversely, plow rated players will see the following pop-up should they attempt to sit down at a table not protected by the “Shark Net”, “The rating of the table is higher than yours, do you really want to play on this table?”