NO-verlay, the Latest Ultimate Poker Promotion

Ultimate Poker has introduced their latest unorthodox promotion: the room returns the full fee to players in every guaranteed prize pool tournament where there is no overlay.

The first legal online poker room of the United States, Ultimate Poker has built a reputation of preferring to go off the beaten track since its launch in April 2013. For instance, it has discarded the all popular weighted contributed rake system, where rake is calculated in proportion to players’ contribution to the pot and has introduced the winner takes all concept; that is, only the player winning the pot pays rake, therefore users are only eligible for rakeback after hands they have won.

More recently, UP launched a new game type, Two Street Hold’em, where preflop action is followed by tabling the entire board, then comes the second betting round and the showdown. Now, the room has announced yet another unorthodox feature, the NO-verlay promotion, running from 9 February to 9 March. If there is no overly in a guaranteed prize pool tournament, that is, the total of the buy-ins exceed the guaranteed prize pool, players get their full buy-in and fee back in U$ (the tournament dollars of Ultimate Poker), for which they can enter yet another event.

The room currently offers an average of eight guaranteed prize pool tournaments per day, the largest of which being the $20,000 Sundays. Obviously, the aim of the promotion is to increase player numbers; while normally, participants of a guaranteed event naturally prefer overlay, the NO-verlay promotion turns this concept upside down and rewards players if more of them participate, essentially making the event a freeroll. As a result, Ultimate Poker players have already been found trying to lure in new depositors on forums in hopes of a great prize for free.

The promotion has slowly been picking up momentum; first, only one tournament had no overlay but on Tuesday, the count was four already. Whether it reaches its aim and the room can keep players who deposit to participate remains to be seen. However, if the promotion does prove to be successful, rooms on other markets can be expected to follow suit, hopefully.