A new poker site – the Poker Pros Network – is set to launch on the Cake network. The site is backed by a number of professional poker players, including six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner T.J. Cloutier. The news comes less than a month after Doyle’s Room left Cake to join the Yatahay network.
Poker Pros Network Launches
By Dan Cypra
Feb 20th, 2011
Several brand name players serve as the front men for the Poker Pros Network, which launched on the Cake Poker Network over the weekend. The site offers a $500 first-time deposit bonus and is headquartered in Costa Rica.
Chuck Kidd, CEO of the Poker Pros Network, was excited to bring his vision to life for players from the United States and around the world. Kidd commented in a press release, “We are proud to team with Cake Poker Network, a proven world class organization, to bring this unique PPN experience to the poker world. We have currently signed top online pro players, as well as brick-and-mortar pros, to play at the PPN. The allure of playing against the world’s best online poker players has already been proven. At PPN, we make it easy to interact with the PPN pro players of your choice on your schedule and within your budget.”
Poker Hall of Fame member T.J. Cloutier is perhaps the new site’s best-known pro. Cloutier owns six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets, tied for the ninth most overall, and has amassed over $4 million in career WSOP earnings. Cloutier’s last piece of hardware came in 2005 and he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame one year later alongside Billy Baxter.
Women in Poker Hall of Fame members Barbara Enright and Marsha Waggoner are also icons for the Poker Pros Network. Enright and Waggoner were inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of fame three years ago as part of its founding class along with Poker News Daily Guest Columnist Linda Johnson and poker author Susie Isaacs.
Other pros on the Poker Pros Network include former IronDuke pro Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh, James Worth, Charlie Marchese, Josh Brikis, Michael Schuerpf, Vincent “Diamond8” Gabel, Kevin “Civell” Vandermissen, Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo, actress Jennifer Elise Cox, Matias Gabrenja, Young Phan, PokerXFactor instructor Chris “Fox” Wallace, Jena Delk, and WSOP bracelet winner Chris Reslock. The brand also offers a casino and sports book.
The Cake Poker Network recently saw the departure of DoylesRoom, which left to join the smaller Yatahay Poker Network, whose flagship site is TruePoker. As a result, peak cash game player counts on the Cake Poker Network have routinely fallen below 1,000 according to PokerScout.com.
On January 27th, the final day that DoylesRoom made its home on the Cake Poker Network, a peak of 1,356 cash game players was recorded. The next day, that number was just 961. In the first 27 days of January, the peak cash game player count on the Cake Poker Network fell below 1,000 just once. In the first 19 days of February, that has occurred 10 times.
As you’d imagine, Cake Poker Network officials were elated to bring a new skin into the fold. Cake’s Marketing Director Andrew Turner commented in the same press release, “We are very excited to have the Poker Pros Network and their pros join the Cake Network. They are a great partner for us, as they bring a strong brand and continue to expand our growing network of professional online poker players who strive for online poker excellence.”
The Poker Pros Network was planning a weekly bounty tournament where one player will walk away with a prize package for the 2011 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas. However, no further information about the tournament was given on its website at the time of writing.
The lobby of the Poker Pros Network will highlight which pros are online at any given moment, making the process of playing with poker’s brightest stars a fairly simple endeavor.
