As I noted in a recent op-ed, a very talented, experienced team of professionals in the online poker space have collaborated to produce a first-rate online poker offering, and that – for some reason – doesn’t seem to be generating as much buzz as it ought to be.

For a closer look at the online poker site itself, I invite you to check out our 4Poker room review. But that’s not what this particular op-ed is about. I wanted to know more about the people who’ve “made the site happen” and their approach to running an online poker site.

4Poker: Making a Name for Itself

The challenge of any new online poker site, especially in a crowded field that includes numerous household names and legacy operators, is to distinguish themselves and stand out from that aforementioned crowd. Pointedly, over the last few months, the team at 4Poker has produced a dozen top-quality videos that demonstrate what the site is about, how it will operate, and the unique selling points (USPs) that make it different than the other online poker sites out there. I believe those videos are quite instructive as to the team’s overall approach, and they go a long way towards demonstrating the extent to which 4Poker is about far more than “just” Bryn Kenney.

A Model of Openness and Transparency

The first video in the “Inside 4Poker series” features an interview with the company’s CEO, Heath Cram, as well as a shorter secondary chat with their Director of Marketing Tom Lenihan. At almost nine minutes long, that’s about a third of the total length of the 12-part video series. It’s also the most must-see of the lot.

The video series began being released six months ago and on camera they’re talking about how the company started its journey two years prior. So, while they’re a just-launched online poker room, their team has been working on creating 4Poker for 2.5 years now. More than half a dozen of the company’s key employees, from CEO on down to the Directors of Marketing, Legal Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Customer Experience, Payment Processing, and others feature in the interviews, which were conducted by veteran poker broadcaster Matthew Broughton.

4Poker’s Founding: Going Retro but with a Modern Twist

To bring a good idea to life, it takes enough people who believe in it enough to put their money where their mouths are. Kenney recruited “30-40 professional poker players” as the site’s initial investors. The team of poker industry professionals they recruited has “a combined over 150 years of experience” among them.

4Poker is based out of the Isle of Man, and — perhaps fittingly — the outfit is staffed by a number of ex-PokerStars employees. These are primarily folks who used to work at PokerStars way back in the days when it was a private company owned by the Scheinbergs; i.e., what veterans of our industry call and fondly remember as “the good old days.” Many of those folks took breaks from working in poker, and it would seem that to a degree “they got the band back together” to launch 4Poker.

Much like the 4Poker site has a classic look and feel, so does the team behind it; and they’re working towards propelling the site into prominence with today’s technology. Unlike the early days of Wild West online poker, the industry is now a mature one and there are plenty of excellent sites out there. Thus, the 4Poker team are seeking to distinguish themselves at first primarily by being the most generous with rakeback and deposit bonuses.

4Poker’s Overarching Promise: Players First, Always

It’s no secret that when it comes to online gambling on the whole, the money to be made (by a company) from offering online poker pales in comparison to what they could make from other verticals such as online casino and sports betting. It’s “only natural” then that, as the years have ticked by, more and more online poker sites have become part of a greater online gambling megabrand. The purity of a “poker first” focus and mentality has steadily been eroded, and that’s something I dearly miss from “back in the good old days.”

4Poker, as a standalone online poker site, is by definition different. Its sole focus is poker, and everyone working for the company plays poker and is genuinely passionate about the game. How lovely it will be to not incessantly be cross-sold to other gambling verticals!

The 4Poker team has the luxury and opportunity to “do things right” and truly develop a site that’s “by players and for players.” And that’s precisely what they’re promising to do in a number of key ways that set them apart as an extremely player-friendly site, including:

• A commitment to never charging for making deposits or withdrawals, with ultra-quick transaction processing
• Players will have a voice via the 4Poker 4Forum; this establishes a two-way communication channel where the company can directly respond to and cater to what the players want
• They have a player advisory board acting as the unofficial ombudsman, ensuring that management will staying true to player values
• Enhanced responsible gaming features, including offering self-imposed deposit limits, format exclusion, and self-exclusion periods. Players can also track their spending as they’ll have access to their own profit/loss data.
• They’re launching their flagship 4Poker Series of tournaments with ambitious guarantees and full knowledge they’re likely to miss. The team realizes: if you build it, they will come — and in the meantime, “early adopters will have a sweat at some free money.”

Conclusion

Having watched the Inside 4Poker video series, I couldn’t help but be reminded of when PokerStars released their Inside PokerStars video series about eight years back. It represented the first time an online poker operator took us behind the scenes to give players a greater and fuller understanding of how they operate and their approach to poker.

Reviews of the Inside PokerStars video series were universally positive, and those videos served to win many hearts and minds among poker players. It’s a wonder that no other online poker operator ever produced a bespoke video series about their own brands.

Until now.

But perhaps most notably and admirably, 4Poker produced their Inside 4Poker series and shared it with the public before even launching! They’ve realized their main challenge that lies ahead, of trying to lure poker players in a mature market. They realize they need to stand out, be transparent, and be crystal clear about what their site will offer players, and the company’s modus operandi.

And the folks behind the scenes have clearly understood the recipe for success. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. There’s already a formula for what will work. Should they stick to this formula and stay true to their stated principles, I have no doubt that legions of online poker players will find themselves competing at the 4Poker virtual felts in the not too distant future.

We’ve opened our doors wider across the globe giving even more players the chance to join our rolling beta. Bag your favourite username, try the 4Poker software and give your feedback on the 4Forum as we build towards full launch.

Read the latest here: https://t.co/VyT9LF2Qce pic.twitter.com/uy9B6GDMMu

— 4Poker (@WeAre4Poker) March 23, 2023

It’s had very modest traffic, as would be expected for a quiet beta testing that was building towards a tournament launch. And that’s where they appear to be right now. Just a couple days ago, 4Poker hosted its first ever MTTs: two freerolls and a $11 buy-in $500 guaranteed event. Then more of the same on Friday with a slightly larger $55 buy-in with a $1k guarantee. Small events.

Tournament at ⁦@WeAre4Poker⁩ are now just days away. We will announce our first high roller event soon! Until then, I’m sure grateful for everyone who has come to the site already and to say thank you, we’re giving away cash every day in April at our 4pm ET happy hour. pic.twitter.com/VI7qYDgDcQ

— Bryn Kenney (@BrynKenney) April 3, 2023

True to their word, 4Poker then announces that today they’ll be running $1k and $5k buy-in tournaments with $75k and $200k guarantees. It’s quite a statement that they’re laying big buy-ins on their first weekend tourneys. By all accounts, it would seem like like Bryn and 4Poker are putting their money where their mouth is.

These big online buy-ins are taking place today, on Sunday starting at 1pm and 1:30pm Eastern Time. It’ll be interesting to see whether they’ll hit their guarantees or if, by contrast, there will be large overlays. A lot of people have been quietly waiting to see what 4Poker can do. Will they challenge the market leaders? How long it will take 4Poker to build up momentum? Will it live up to its public promises about low rake, high rewards and no deposit fees?

Beyond Bryn: A Roster of Experienced, Professional Talent

Time will tell on those questions, but if you look closely, you can see what folks at the company have been up to behind the scenes. They appear to have built a very experienced team, leaning heavily upon former PokerStars staff based in the Isle of Man, to create a poker site that has every chance of making an impact. The most notable PokerStars alumni are the well-respected duo of Heath Cram as COO and Serge Bourenkov as CTO, but there are also a number of key personnel installed across poker room management, payments, and marketing departments. At least, there seem to be if my LinkedIn searches are anything to go by.

Heath Cram leaves Flutter to join 4Poker as COO #4Poker#WeAre4Poker#GoodNews4Poker#4PokerCommunityhttps://t.co/QbIKTNkd0F

— 4Poker (@WeAre4Poker) August 1, 2022

Moreover, 4Poker’s YouTube Channel has proven quite instructive as to what players and the industry as a whole can expect from them. Over the past half year they’ve released a dozen excellent, well produced videos totaling about half an hour in length laying the groundwork for what the company is all about (modus operandi), how the 4Poker online poker site will relate to and protect player security and game integrity, and a number of other interesting topics.

As our longtime fans and followers know, we tend to stay far away from any sorts of controversies, scandals, and other gossip happening in the poker world; that’s not what Cardplayer Lifestyle is about. As such, up until now — in the wake of the accusations from Martin Zamani — we haven’t dedicated any space to saying much about 4Poker. Moreover, 4Poker still felt like a faraway concept. It was a train down the track that you could see but not really hear. That train is now a lot closer.

Wherever you stand on Bryn Kenney as far as his on-felt poker exploits, from a business side of things he seems to have set 4Poker up for success based on the management team he’s assembled and their combined years of professionalism, expertise, and execution in the online poker sphere. The 4Poker site is regulated in Malta and they’re working on getting approval from the Isle of Man as well; those are gaming operations licenses that are hard earned.

Bryn’s challenge is of course to try and win over the high stakes community — but even if he should manage to do so, that community alone cannot sustain an online poker site. For 4Poker to succeed, it needs to be much bigger and reach far further.

Will they succeed? Time will tell, of course. Let’s see what happens, and judge the 4Poker team by their actions over the weeks and months to come.