The world's second largest online poker - Full Tilt Poker - announced a down period for the entire day Tuesday. European poker addicts in particular were most affected as the maintenance schedule was being conducted via California time (Pacific Standard Time).

3AM PST to 8AM PST to be more specific. For the Euro crowd that meant they would be unable to access Full Tilt until some time in the mid afternoon if not later. Those living in the Pacific US states would be least affected by the downtime.

The long closure period was presumably scheduled for a time during the morning when most US customers were either sleeping in, heading for work and least likely to be playing online poker. But addicts are addicts.

"What pisses me off about this downtime is it's forcing me to have a LIFE," one angry poster stated on the Two Plus Two poker forum.

The iPoker Network, at least for a portion of the day Tuesday, was now the second most used online poker site on the Net in terms of overall cash players. Full Tilt Poker showed zero players during this time period.

Full Tilt Poker is an online poker card room launched in June 2004 with the involvement of a team of poker professionals, among them Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Jennifer Harman, Gus Hansen and Chris Ferguson.

Full Tilt Poker is one of a handful of online poker rooms that still accept US players. Following the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, a number of major online cardroom operators closed their doors to U.S. players as a result of the legislation. Full Tilt has contended that poker is a game of skill, and that the legislation does not apply to Full Tilt's operations.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher