Party Poker has long been known as the place to go to catch unsuspecting poker "fish". What are fish? Well they are the players who are just starting to learn to play poker or who have been around for a while but just aren't very good. They are the prey of the poker "sharks" and the traditional hunting ground for the last while has been Party Poker.

Well the bad news for the sharks is that the fish pool seems to have dried up! It just isn't as easy as it used to be to clean up at Party Poker. There are a few possible reasons as to why this might have happened and they are outlined below.

More competition from other sites.
Party Poker Ring tournament tables where you just join in and play - have a minimum betting level of $0.50/$1.00 for their real money poker games. This is actually one of the highest entry levels in the industry, many sites now offer $0.25/$0.50 tables and there are even some who go as low as $0.10/$0.25 and $0.05/$0.10. The minimum deposit at Party Poker is also high, currently it's $50 and again this is much higher than some sites.

Increased awareness through books and ebooks.
Recently there's been a large number of books and ebooks on the subject of Party Poker, leading to more educated players at the site. The information in the books usually tends to be along the same lines and is basically fairly sound advice, so with more and more people buying and reading these poker manuals the standard of play is bound to improve.

Economic climate.
The economy in general has taken a bit of a downturn since most of the Party Poker manuals were written and most people now feel that the dollar in their pocket is worth slightly less than it was. This means of course that they are more careful about searching out less expensive options to play while they are learning.

Bonuses.
Party Poker being the industry leader attracts many new sign-ups daily and in order to try and compete the other sites need to offer better sign-up bonuses. You need to deposit your own money to get the bonus released so a lot of new players are just staying and playing at the site until their bonus is released.

As an aside, the Party Poker sites graphics leave a bit to be desired - they are clunky and old fashioned and none of the players are smiling! Also its not all that user-friendly for new players and the information provided in the lobby is fairly sparse.