PokerStars removed NL2 cash games for Belgians

It was revealed that starting June 15 all the Belgians won’t have an opportunity to play such cash games as No-limit Hold’em and Pot-limit Omaha with 0.01/0.02 blinds. It’s not yet for sure, whether this innovation is temporary, but one thing is pretty evident: PokerStars managers are simply trying to find out if the players choose to raise the stakes or they just quit the game.

Belgium was chosen as an experimental country for a certain reason. Even though Belgians share the global pool liquidity with players on PokerStars.com, they use their own software as required by the government of the country. There are no games with 0.01/0.02 blinds in any currency (including Pot-Limit Omaha and No-limit Hold’em Cash/Zoom tables) now in Belgium.

Poker room representatives commented on this decision with a claim that the company tries to experiment more often to find out how they influence the players who use PC and mobile devices to play their games.

It’s interesting that excluded limits had the lowest rake (3,5%), when the others had 4,15% to 5% rake. Moreover, at NL2 maximum rake didn’t exceed $0,30.

When previously mentioned games were removed, the cheapest cash games left in Belgium are ones with $0.02/$0.05 blinds (NL5). We’ll see whether the players are ready to raise the stakes or they will just change the poker room.