Unlike most major online poker sites, Full Tilt was founded by the pros for the pros. A collection of like minded players put together a sleek poker client that over the last 5 years has become a huge online presence. Their focus on the professional player has enticed the very best talent onto their roster of sponsored pros.
Well known names such as Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, and Howard Lederer are all Full Tilt players.
Most days, the peak number of players on Full Tilt is somewhere between 90,000 and 110,000. Even at the lower end of the scale this is still a very sizeable figure. Looking at the traffic graphs you can see that there is a surprising amount of variation from day to day. Some are noticeably busier than others and the hours of peak traffic vary a relatively large amount.
The highest peak of all usually is on
Saturday, with over 110,000 players online at around 3 p.m ET. This might seem like a strange time for a lot of players to log on, but it is consistent with sites such as PokerStars, where this is regularly the most popular hour. This spike in Saturday traffic is also the most defined of any day. There is a less gradual build up of players, with figures jumping from 90,000 to 110,000 and then back down to 90,000 in the space of three hours. However, the largest player count ever came on Sunday July 18th when Full Tilt was running record breaking promotions, as seen in this graph showing their traffic from July 14 – July 20.:
We see a lot more variation in daily peak hours on Full Tilt than we do on other sites. On Sunday you’d do
well to be online any time between 3 p.m ET and 6 p.m ET. Unlike some other days, there is no standout peak on a Sunday with numbers sticking pretty much around 90,000 during that period.
The early part of the week runs it’s own little pattern. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all plot a similar course, distinct from the rest of the week. The busiest times are from the mid-afternoon through midnight. The peak hour for Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays is 9 p.m ET, consistent with a large number of US players logging on after they get home from work. All of these days also experience a mini-spike in traffic at around 3 p.m, most likely the European contingent logging on during their evenings. The peaks all tend to settle around 90,000 players, although they do occasionally
tip over 100,000.
Things change once we reach Thursday, with a far more gradual ascent than the previous three days. Things begin to build around midday, growing until about 4 p.m ET. At that point the numbers sit consistently between 75,000 and 85,000 up until midnight. The number of players online briefly hits 90,000, usually somewhere around 10 p.m ET. It’s a very similar story for Friday, with a gradual swell from the late afternoon that lasts up until just after midnight. It never quit reaches the same figures as the rest of the week, but still boasts consistent levels of between 75k and 85k. Like every other day of the week, people seem to log off in the thousands after 1 a.m ET.
With strong traffic numbers across the board you’ll rarely find a bad time to play on Full Tilt, but with these facts at your disposal you should be
able to maximize your profits. Tournament players should bear in mind that the best time for them to play is almost always on a Sunday, thanks to the selection of great guaranteed events offered by Full Tilt Poker.
Every Sunday there’s more than $1 million available across a selection of tournaments. The biggest of them all is the
$750k guaranteed, which features a $216
buy-in and runs at 6 p.m ET every week. If you can’t afford such a large entry fee Full Tilt offers more than enough cut-price opportunities. Satellites start as low as $2.25 and could even net you some bonus cash. The Satellite Challenge runs every week, with the player who wins the most seats receiving $400. Once a month this event expands to an even greater level of injected value, becoming a $1 million guarantee with a $500 + $35
buy-in.
Other big weekend events include the
Sunday Brawl at 2 p.m ET. $40 of each $256 buy-in becomes a bounty on every single player, encouraging fast and furious play. There’s a guaranteed prize pool of $350,000 and the player with the most knockouts wins a buy-in the following week’s event. There’s also the
Double Deuce tournament at 4:22 p.m ET. This $200,000 guaranteed event has a
buy-in of just $2 and promises a first place prize of at least $30,000. Satellites for this event start at $0.60.
