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After announcing that they were eliminating all tournament fees for the foreseeable future it was a foregone conclusion that tournament traffic on Party Poker was about to spike, but there was a significant carry-over for the site and their cash-game traffic has also increased 23% since the announcement according to www.pokerscout.com.

The promotion went into effect on July 3, 2011 and basically all tournament fees to the prize-pool instead of into the bank accounts of the site. While the site will definitely take a hit monetarily from the promotion, with thousands of online poker players looking for a new home as Full Tilt Poker struggles to have their licenses reinstated the timing by Party Poker is impeccable.

Additionally, if they continue to have a 20%+ carryover into their ring games the site may extend their rake-free tournament period even longer –there is currently no word on how long the rake-free tournament period is going to last.

With Full Tilt Poker basically offline, Party Poker has moved into the #2 spot in terms of overall traffic, trailing only PokerStars in that respect, and is putting more, and more, distance between themselves and their closest competitor –the iPoker Network.

With the current online poker atmosphere it will likely be the sites that can not only adapt, but also create innovative marketing ideas like rake-free tournaments that will survive and thrive in what has become a very topsy-turvy industry since April 15, 2011.