Natural8 Review
GG Network · 17 ambassadors · Last updated April 2026
Asia's gateway to GGNetwork - same massive pool, built for the APAC player
Natural8 is not a watered-down regional skin. It is the official Asian access point to one of the two largest online poker networks in the world, carrying the full GGNetwork liquidity plus its own APT partnership, Asian-language support, and a roster of regional ambassadors who actually play the games you are playing. Here is the honest breakdown.
Visit Natural8 →01 The signings that matter
Kitty Kuo
Kitty Kuo is Taiwan's most decorated international poker export and the original leader of Natural8's 'Team Hot' ambassador programme since 2016. With $3.7M in lifetime earnings and appearances at EPT, WPT, WSOP, and APT final tables, she is the single most recognisable face of Asian women's poker. Her long-term commitment - spanning nearly a decade - is an unusual signal of platform loyalty in a space where ambassador deals rarely outlast a marketing cycle.
Profile →Michael Soyza
Michael Soyza is Malaysia's most successful international poker export, with $4.8M in live tournament earnings (later reporting put figures significantly higher) and a ranking as #1 GPI Asia player at his peak. He joined Natural8's Team Hot in 2024 after building his reputation across Triton Super High Roller events and APT Main Event titles. Soyza's signing was a statement that the platform was upgrading its roster to compete with GGPoker's prestige ambassadors on a regional level.
Profile →Thai Ha
Thai Ha brings the Vietnam market anchor that no other Natural8 ambassador covers. The Vietnamese pro has $3.4M in live earnings and a WSOP bracelet, and joined Natural8 in 2020 specifically to grow the platform's reach in Southeast Asia's fastest-expanding poker market. His signing was a deliberate geographic bet at a time when Vietnam was beginning to produce a disproportionate share of Asia's tournament players.
Profile →Jason Hunggy
Jason Hunggy is the highest-follower content creator on the Natural8 roster with over 240,000 followers across social platforms, representing the site's push into poker content beyond tournament results. Based in Hong Kong, he blends gaming and poker content in Cantonese and Mandarin, hitting demographics that traditional ambassador programmes do not reach. His role is direct recreational player acquisition, not prestige signalling.
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02 At a glance
03 What Natural8 actually is - and what it is not
Natural8 launched in 2016 as a dedicated Asian market skin on the GGNetwork, operated by Natural8 Asia Limited. It shares full player pool liquidity with GGPoker and every other GGNetwork skin, which means when you sit at a $1/$2 NLHE table on Natural8, you are playing in the same pool as players logged into GGPoker from Europe or the Americas. The network is the same. The software client is the same. The game formats are identical. What is different is the marketing wrapper, the payment methods, the language options, and the promotional calendar.
That distinction matters for two reasons. First, it means Natural8 is not a thin regional site with its own isolated pool that dries up outside peak Asian hours. At GGNetwork's scale - consistently trading the number-one or number-two global spot by concurrent cash players - you have action around the clock. Second, it means that in markets where GGPoker is not directly accessible or where the regional payments infrastructure is better served through a dedicated Asian portal, Natural8 is the correct access point rather than a compromise.
The wrinkle is that for players outside Asia, there is usually no reason to choose Natural8 over GGPoker. The bonuses, rake structure, software, and game selection are identical or nearly identical. Natural8's edge is specifically in the APAC context: AliPay and WeChat Pay deposit support, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language interfaces, and an APT partnership that delivers live-to-online qualification pathways unavailable on the main GGPoker skin.
04 Software, formats, and what you can and cannot do
The software runs on the same proprietary GGNetwork client used across all skins, which is genuinely the best mobile poker application in the industry in 2026. The iOS and Android apps are not cut-down versions of a desktop client - they are fully featured, with multi-table support, the full tournament lobby, and the complete cash game selection. For Asian markets where the phone is the primary computing device for most players, this is not a minor convenience feature.
Game formats available include No-Limit Hold'em (6-max and 9-max), Pot-Limit Omaha (4-card, 5-card, 6-card), Short Deck Ante-Only, Rush & Cash (GGNetwork's fast-fold format), Spin & Gold (jackpot sit-and-go), All-In or Fold (push-fold format), and Flip & Go. The Rush & Cash and Spin & Gold pools are shared across the full GGNetwork, making them two of the largest fast-format pools in the world. All-In or Fold in particular is heavily used on Natural8 for efficient Ocean Rewards clearing, since the hand volume is high relative to time played.
Unique GGNetwork features that sit on top of the standard client include PokerCraft (a hand history browser and stat tracker that works within the allowed ecosystem), Tournament Staking (in-lobby action selling), Bubble Protection (refund of buy-in when you bubble in certain events), and SnapCam (optional webcam clip sharing). None of these are available on competing clients. Whether they matter to you depends on player type - SnapCam is marketing noise, but Bubble Protection and Tournament Staking are genuinely useful tools for serious MTT players.
05 Rake structure: what you actually pay
Natural8 inherits GGNetwork's 5% cash-game rake capped at stake-dependent BB amounts. The structure is competitive at the micro and low stakes and slightly disadvantageous to preflop-heavy regs at mid stakes due to the 3-bet pot raking policy. Tournament fees are tiered by buy-in and broadly in line with the industry, ranging from around 8.7% at small buy-ins to 5% for events at $500 and above.
Natural8 cash-game rake structure (NLHE 6-max, GGNetwork rates)
| Stakes | Rake % | 6-max cap | 9-max cap | Rush & Cash cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.01/$0.02 | 5% | $0.20 | $0.30 | $0.06 |
| $0.05/$0.10 | 5% | $1.00 | $1.50 | $0.30 |
| $0.25/$0.50 | 5% | $4.00 | $4.00 | $1.00 |
| $1/$2 | 5% | $6.00 | $6.00 | $4.00 |
| $5/$10 | 5% | $10.00 | $10.00 | $15.00 |
| $10/$20 | 5% | $15.00 | - | $25.00 |
Natural8 MTT rake by buy-in
| Buy-in range | Tournament fee |
|---|---|
| $1 - $99 | ~8.7% |
| $100 - $499 | 6.7% - 8% |
| $500+ | 5% |
| Spin & Gold | 7% |
06 Ocean Rewards: how the rakeback actually works
Natural8 migrated from Fish Buffet to Ocean Rewards in January 2026, in line with the full GGNetwork rollout. Ocean Rewards is an 8-tier system driven by Tide Points, earned at 100 TP per $1 of rake. Unlike Fish Buffet, tiers are locked for the calendar year once reached, eliminating the monthly decay that punished players who took breaks or ran below volume targets. That is a genuine improvement, and the headline cashback rates are higher across every tier than they were under Fish Buffet.
The practical range for most regular players is the Shrimp-to-Octopus band, which requires $100 to $7,500 in annual rake and delivers 25% to 50% headline cashback. Real-world effective rates run somewhat below the headline figures due to PVI weighting and the GEM conversion mechanics - expect roughly 20-45% effective for players in that band. The Dolphin-through-Shark tiers (60-80%) are accessible only to high-volume grinders and a handful of players globally.
Ocean Rewards tier structure on Natural8 (2026)
| Tier | Tide Points required | Approx. annual rake | Headline cashback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fish | 0 | $0 | 16% |
| Shrimp | 10,000 | $100 | 25% |
| Crab | 50,000 | $500 | 30% |
| Turtle | 200,000 | $2,000 | 40% |
| Octopus | 750,000 | $7,500 | 50% |
| Dolphin | 2,000,000 | $20,000 | 60% |
| Whale | 5,000,000 | $50,000 | 70% |
| Shark | 10,000,000 | $100,000 | 80% |
Natural8 also runs daily leaderboards, cash-game jackpots, and weekly promotions that sit on top of Ocean Rewards and can meaningfully increase total effective rakeback for players who time their sessions to participate. These are not factored into the tier table above. Heavy players who run consistently through APAC peak hours - when Natural8-specific promotions are most active - can materially beat the headline tier rate in a given month.
07 The APT partnership and why it matters for tournament players
Natural8 is the official online partner of the Asian Poker Tour, and the relationship is deeper than a logo placement. The APT Online series - which ran its 2025 edition with $42.8M in total prize money across 561,960 entries, setting multiple all-time records - is hosted exclusively on Natural8. The flagship APT Online Main Event in November 2025 drew 5,680 entries and a $4.3M prize pool, the largest in APT's 19-year history. The APT Taipei 2026 Main Event was guaranteed at $2.2M, with satellites running on Natural8 starting at $3.50.
The live pathway works through three stages: step satellites from $3.50 feed into $35 or $200 mega satellites, which award seats to either a live Main Event Day 1 or the OnLive format where you play Day 1 online and skip directly to live Day 3 if you survive. The extra 8% payout bonus for online qualifiers is a genuine added-value layer that does not exist anywhere else on the GGNetwork.
For players who are primarily interested in WSOP Online, Natural8 hosted 33 bracelet events in the WSOP Online 2025 series with a $25M guaranteed Main Event. New signups in September 2025 received a free $15 WSOP Online ticket alongside the standard welcome package. The APT and WSOP pipelines together give Natural8 tournament players two of the most prestigious live event qualification pathways in Asia-Pacific poker without requiring a separate account on a different site.
08 Who Natural8 is actually good for
Asian-market recreational players: Natural8 is the correct default. AliPay, WeChat Pay, and bank transfer support across most APAC markets, full Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language interfaces, customer support available in regional languages, and an APT promotional calendar built around regional live events. The GGNetwork liquidity means you are not sacrificing anything in game selection or traffic by playing here rather than on GGPoker itself.
MTT grinders in Asia: Yes. The APT Online series is the biggest Asia-focused tournament festival in online poker, and the 8% payout bonus for Natural8 qualifiers is a direct financial edge over buying in elsewhere. WSOP Online bracelet events and GGMasters give you the same international MTT opportunities as GGPoker. The fields tend to be softer during APAC peak hours than equivalent GGPoker fields during European peak hours, because the player mix skews recreational.
Cash-game regulars: Conditionally. The HUD ban and PVI-weighted rakeback system are the same friction points here as on GGPoker. If you are a feel-based or solver-based cash player who does not rely on population stat reads, the APAC peak-hour pools are genuinely soft. If your game depends on HUD-driven multi-tabling efficiency, this is the wrong network regardless of whether you access it through Natural8 or GGPoker.
Players outside Asia who already have a GGPoker account: There is no practical reason to switch. The games, software, rake, and rewards are identical. Natural8 is the right choice for APAC players where GGPoker does not offer regional payment methods or where the APT promotion access is specifically valuable.
09 Quick facts
10 Full Natural8 ambassador roster (17)
Top 5 by lifetime earnings
| Ambassador | Country | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| Lee Wai Kiat | Malaysia | $24.3M |
| Michael Soyza | Malaysia | $20.7M |
| WinPokerCouple | Taiwan | $4.2M |
| Kannapong Tent | Thailand | $3.8M |
| Kitty Kuo | Taiwan | $3.7M |
Full roster
Kitty Kuo
Natural8
Bryan Paris
Natural8
Michael Soyza
Natural8
Thai Ha
Natural8
Eric Tsai
Natural8
Kannapong Tent
Natural8
WinPokerCouple
Natural8
Sparrow Cheung
Natural8
Fan Chih Wei
Natural8
Kathy Yeung
Natural8
Jason Hunggy
Natural8
Charlie Chiu
Natural8
GshanBoyYA
Natural8
Elfin Lin
Natural8
Lee Wai Kiat
Natural8
Methavee Taveekitvatee
Natural8
Lai Hsuan Yu
Natural8
Inside Natural8
