Natural8 Poker Site Celebrates 5-year Anniversary With Giveaways

Many online poker players in the Asia-Pacific know Natural8 as a friendly poker room. The site is a part of the GGNetwork alongside the flagship site GGPoker.

Natural8 grew faster than most other new poker sites and quickly became one of the most prominent in the region…and many other parts of the world. And this month, Natural8 celebrates its five-month anniversary. And it has many reasons to party, having become the official international online partner of the World Series of Poker in 2020 and hosted numerous official WSOP ring and bracelet tournaments.

In lieu of a party – social distancing considered – Natural8 launched its own Birthday Bash, complete with $55,555 in prizes.

The site also started 2021 with several new Natural8 ambassadors and new features on the site.

Birthday Bash Giveaways

To celebrate the anniversary with players, Natural8 set up five freeroll tournaments. Each one awards $8,888 in prizes. Several already ran – one on January 8 for players who signed up for new accounts in 2016, one on January 9 for those with new accounts in 2016 or 2017, one on January 16 for those who joined in 2016 through 2018, and January 17 for everyone who signed up through 2019.

One remains, however, for all players who have Natural8 accounts:

• Natural8 Turns 5 Freeroll: January 24 at 12:00 UTC-0 (capped at 4,000 players)

For those who missed these freerolls or can’t get into the final one, Natural8 has hourly freerolls on every day of the week except Sundays.

The freeroll tournaments happen every hour, on the hour. Each day, players win $240 in the prize pools.

There are also GGMasters Freerolls, VIP Club Freerolls, and First Deposit Freerolls.

Natural8 Ambassador Lineup

The list of Natural8 ambassadors welcomed a few new names recently.

The most well-known of the group is Kitty Kuo, but many poker fans also recognize Tanny Tang, Michael Soyza, Niklas Ehrenholz (also known as NikkyMouse), and Bryan Paris. Kosei Ichonese and Phachara Wongwichit have also represented the site for some time.

One of the newer names on the list is Pete Chen of Taiwan. He shows more than $3 million in live tournament earnings and titles on the WPT, EPT, and APT in recent years.

Toma Tsugunari is a Japanese poker pro with more than $2.2 million in live earnings, making him the top earner of all Japanese players. He won higher buy-in tournaments at EPT Prague in 2019.

And Thai Ha of Vietnam joined the team with his $2.3 million in live earnings and final tables at WSOP and PartyPoker Millions events from Russia to the United States, from the Bahamas to the Czech Republic.

New Flip & Go Tournaments

Natural8 is consistently bringing new features and variations to online poker games. Its most recent releases in late 2020 were the Snap Cam (to video stream to other players at the table in 15-second clips) and tournament staking, which allows players to buy and sell pieces of each other.

The Flip & Go appeared in mid-January on all GGPoker Network sites. It is a chance for players to get involved closer to the money and spend less time playing each tournament.

First, the player chooses an amount for which to buy in, starting as low as just a few cents. He or she receives a certain number of chips based on that buy-in.

Next, the Flipout stage of the tournament begins, which plays as a turbo shootout. The players receive three cards and must discard one within 30 seconds. All of the players’ cards are face-up. After the discards, the shootout begins. The winner of that table secures a portion of the prize pool.

When the player receives his or her three cards in the flipping round, there is a chance to win a bonus. If that trio of cards makes a straight, flush, straight flush, or three-of-a-kind, the player’s chip stack is multiplied by a preset number. For example, if a player hits a straight flush with the first three cards, that person’s chip stack increases 4x.

GGCare Flipouts

Since flipping is the new thing on Natural8, the poker operator introduced GGCare Flipouts.

Essentially, players who meet certain criteria are classified as having “bad luck.” These are suckouts, bad beats, or coolers. Natural8 automatically tracks these hands and then offers them a seat into the daily GGCare Flipout tournament with $30K on the line.

The Flipout tournament is one in which players are automatically all-in on every hand. Players need not even participate, as their moves are decided for them. They can simply check later to see if they won any money in the event.