News has been released to the online poker community recently that has rocked the very foundations of the ground upon which many players thought they were safe. This sturdy ground was built on top of Poker Room, one of the oldest sites in online poker. The site, which for the last few years has been a part of the On Game Network, has decided that April 14th will be its last day of operation. After the calendar switches over to that day, Poker Room and Casino Room will be done with business indefinitely. Players that log into their Poker and/or Casino Room accounts after the shut down has occurred will get an option to transfer their accounts over to Bwin, but no more playing will ever get done on Poker Room.

It is easy to assume that insiders within the online poker industry were aware of this particular development, but at the same time the news comes as a general shock to the public, including many members operating online poker sites that simply did not see that shock coming. Poker Room has long been a lynchpin in the online poker community and was noted for being one of the early pioneers in the field of three dimensional graphics for online poker sites. Another early pioneering field in which Poker Room was present was the idea of online poker rooms that could be played through a browser with flash enabled, something that to this very day has not really been adopted by the mainstream poker community. Because of their history of pushing the envelope, Poker Room will be sorely missed by many in the online poker community.

The news might have been viewed as more dire on the part of poker enthusiasts within the United States, but players from that country have been barred from playing at Poker Room and Casino Room for some time now. It started with the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006 and ended with Poker Room and Casino Room voluntarily exiting the US market a short time later. In spite of that history, many American players still have fond memories of the site and have expressed regret that one of the storied franchises of online poker will be calling it quits on April 14th. For many, the shock will take at least a few days to wear off.