Fold too much at CoinPoker’s new high-stakes tables and you might find yourself folding your chair as well. The operator has introduced a minimum VPIP requirement for its High Stakes Poker Online games, meaning players who don’t voluntarily enter enough pots risk losing their seats.
Players who drop below the required threshold face a two-hour exclusion from the game. That’s a rather different kind of bad beat, especially for a poker room already answering difficult questions about its rake. Since when does the house get to tell you how many hands you should play?
Play More Hands or Get Out: How the VPIP Rule Works
VPIP stands for Voluntarily Put Money in Pot. It measures the percentage of dealt hands in which you voluntarily call, raise or otherwise invest money before the flop, rather than merely post a compulsory blind. A player who enters 25 of 100 hands has a 25% VPIP, although the number can swing dramatically over a short sample.
CoinPoker has confirmed minimum VPIP requirements in its November software update and on its High Stakes Poker Online page. It says the rule keeps seats available and stops players occupying tables without contributing action. The operator also asked its X followers whether other games should adopt this approach.
Here’s the catch: the publicly available High Stakes Poker rules don’t specify the actual percentage players must hit. Nor do they explain the sample size, whether a new arrival gets a grace period, or whether the threshold changes between hold’em and Omaha. Poker.org reports the two-hour penalty, but the operator’s public promotional page doesn’t clearly spell that out either.
That’s information players need before sitting down, not after receiving a warning. Someone deliberately playing a 10% VPIP and waiting for aces is very different from a player who simply gets dealt rubbish for three orbits.
The High-Stakes Tables Have a Whole New Rulebook
The VPIP requirement arrives with CoinPoker’s new High Stakes Poker Online area, tied to the famous PokerGO cash-game brand. Advertised blinds range from $50/$100 all the way to $5,000/$10,000, with hold’em, Short Deck, four-, five- and six-card PLO, and All-In or Fold among the formats. This isn’t a $0.05/$0.10 table where a missed blind barely costs anything.
CoinPoker’s guidelines go beyond telling players to loosen up. Regulars are expected to help start games, avoid deliberately sitting directly left of an inexperienced player, and refrain from intentionally short-stacking deep tables. If the action player leaves, the rules ask everyone else to stick around for at least another two orbits rather than vanish as soon as the profitable spot is gone.
| Rule or feature | What CoinPoker says, or what’s been reported |
|---|---|
| Minimum VPIP | Players must enter enough hands to retain a seat; the public page gives no clear numerical threshold. |
| Two-hour timeout | Poker.org reports an exclusion from the game for dropping below the minimum. |
| Two more orbits | Players are asked not to leave immediately after an action player departs or sits out. |
| Seat selection | Deliberately taking the seat directly left of a less experienced player is discouraged. |
| Stack size | Intentionally buying in very short against deep-stacked opponents is discouraged. |
| Priority seats | FastTrack allows favoured action players to bypass waiting lists, while Chip Offload lets players move up to 250BB from the table into their balance. |
There are genuine problems here worth tackling. Nobody enjoys watching a cash-game lobby spring to life when one recreational player arrives and die the instant that player leaves. But policing seat camping and enforcing a compulsory playing frequency are two different things.
Another CoinPoker Controversy, Just Weeks After the Rake Backlash
The timing is hard to miss. In October, PokerType reported on the cash-game rake changes that pushed the three-to-four-player cap at $25/$50 from $12 to $40, a 233% increase. Certain pots won before the flop also became subject to rake, while affected games saw larger antes.
Those were increases to maximum charges, not proof that everybody’s total rake bill rose by 233%. Even so, the new costs were serious enough for players to question whether the games remained beatable, and CoinPoker’s response that “time will tell” did little to settle the argument. Its $250 million PokerGO Tour Online announcement followed while the debate was still running.
To be fair, these special high-stakes tables have a separate published rake structure. CoinPoker lists a cap of 0.6 big blinds for full-ring hold’em and Omaha pots involving three or more players, plus a 0.05-big-blind Battle Cap in qualifying heads-up games. Those figures shouldn’t be muddled with the standard $25/$50 tables in the earlier rake dispute, but the bigger question is the same: what kind of game is the operator trying to create, and at what cost to its regulars?
Patrick Leonard’s Warning Makes the Argument More Complicated
CoinPoker ambassador Patrick Leonard said in October that he would not currently recommend CoinPoker cash games, while also criticising the state of online cash poker generally. He described regulars taking seats almost immediately after he joined tables, then sitting out when he stopped playing. His complaint wasn’t simply that good players were trying to win, but that the games had become too focused on targeting particular opponents.
And he’s got a point. If one wealthy recreational player is the only reason five professionals are in the lobby, that player can feel more like prey than a valued customer. Nobody wants to deposit money and discover they are the sole reason the table is running.
That’s the argument for curbing bumhunting, seat blocking and game selection that turns every session into a hunt for one weak opponent. But a VPIP minimum goes further because it can punish a player for folding hands they genuinely shouldn’t play, not just for refusing action against specific opponents.
What If You Just Keep Getting Dealt Trash?
Suppose you’re a solid full-ring hold’em regular who normally plays around 20% of hands. You join a high-stakes table and spend your first two orbits looking at offsuit rubbish from early position, dominated broadways and small pairs in awkward spots. If the VPIP threshold sits above your natural playing style, you’re no longer deciding purely on position, ranges and the opponents in front of you.
Instead, you’re factoring in whether another fold could cost your seat for two hours. In a game with $100 big blinds, that can be a fairly expensive incentive to make a call or open a hand you dislike. That’s not an accusation that CoinPoker is forcing players to punt; it’s the strategic pressure any enforced participation rule can create.
The issue is even more complicated across different formats. A VPIP figure that seems loose in full-ring hold’em may look perfectly ordinary in some Omaha games, while heads-up play creates an entirely different set of opening ranges. Without published game-specific thresholds and a sensible hand sample, players cannot judge whether the rule is reasonable or simply arbitrary.
Five Questions CoinPoker Needs to Answer
Protecting recreational players and maintaining lively games are legitimate goals. But if you’re going to remove somebody from a poker table for playing too tightly, the measurements, appeals and penalties should be completely transparent. Players need more than a promise that the action will improve.
- What’s the minimum VPIP? Is the threshold different for hold’em, Omaha and heads-up tables?
- How many hands count? Can somebody be removed after a short run of poor starting hands?
- Where does the reported two-hour restriction apply? Is it one table, a game type or the whole high-stakes lobby?
- What counts as action? How are compulsory blinds, sit-outs and short-handed situations handled?
- Can players appeal? Is there a way to challenge a removal or an incorrect calculation?
CoinPoker wants its new nosebleed tables to be more than a group of regulars sitting around waiting for somebody to make a mistake. That’s fair enough, and some recreational players may love the idea of fewer nits and more flops. But creating good games through incentives is one thing; threatening to remove people who won’t play enough hands is another.
Perhaps the new rule will succeed where seating restrictions and rewards have struggled. Perhaps disciplined regulars will simply take their action elsewhere. Either way, after October’s rake argument, the operator owes players an exact explanation of how its latest experiment works before asking them to risk thousands of dollars under it.
Editor note: Poker Type has invited CoinPoker to clarify how its minimum VPIP requirements are calculated and enforced, including the reported two-hour exclusion for players who fail to meet the threshold. We will update this article with the operator’s response.
