Paradise Poker/Party Poker circa 2000
 

I remember when I first started playing online Paradise was the place to be. This was back when they had more traffic then Party. Does anyone remember when Party had only 2000-3000 players at a time, and only a few games going at each level? Boy, what a long strange trip it's been.....

I started playing online in early 2000 when Paradise was undisputably the number 1 site. They used to have around 3-4000 people at peak periods.

I played on both PartyPoker and PokerStars when they were still in Beta testing. PokerStars had some great freerolls running - the first freeroll I played I won it and got $50.

PartyPoker had some problems early on with their random seed generator. I was watching a friend of mine play once in a PPM qualifier (late 2000 I think) and the identical hand was dealt two hands in a row (same hole cards for EVERYONE, same flop, turn and river). They called my friend and asked him to keep quiet about it, and offered him some free stuff. My friend posted the hand histories on RGP back in 2000.

Somehow they recovered from that and now they have just gone crazy with numbers - I saw 58,000 on Party the other day. And its still going up.

Paradise must be kicking themselves for letting Party take over - although Paradise has gone up in numbers as well (8500 the other day).

CF

Newer to the scene ...
 

But I do remember when it was harder to get a seat at a Party SNG than it was to win one!

for some of the more expereinced players here...

do you guys think that party will continue to dominate the field, or do you see another shift in the next couple of years? do you think party has risen to the top only because of marketing, or is it something else?

are there any smaller sites right now that have a chance, or are the full tilts of the world just dreaming?

Wow. All poker sites just want to shut everyone up to keep it as business as usual.

I started on Paradise years ago, it lost its appeal when it just didnt keep uptodate with the new sites that offered more variety and options for players.


Sporting bet has paid just shy of $300m for Paradise, of which nearly $200m is in cash.