can you share these items with us

So, I thought of two things that I don't think would be that hard to do if you thought they were good ideas.

1: Hotkeys to fold/check or call/bet or raise. This would be awesome to have because I'm very used to it playing on other sites where that is possible. I've adjusted to not having it, but it would still be awesome.

2: I know its un-likely, but maybe a skillpoints challenge where the winner gets cash or something? Each person buys in for skillpoints and the winner gets $__, depending on the stake or whatever.

We raised it to 12 (for up to $25) and added a $50 buyin (which currently has a limit of 8).

Please tell us if you hit the 12 limit often, and perhaps we can increase further.

i think that if cushion play is here to stay that skillbet should start paying out the free roll winnings instead of it coming out of my pocket. i get free rolled multiple times each day and easily over 10x as often as i am the one free rolling. i understand why it is that way, but i get sick of always having money at risk with no chance of reward.

having skillbet cover cushion "freerolls" would destroy the company. Essentially 2 people could team up, lose the buyin to the other and then freeroll the site.


i mean i understand your point but it all comes down to having enough skill take place to have a super strong legal stance. Adapting to the erratic cushion play is just another layer of skill imo.

obv i wouldn't actually expect them to do something like that, but it wouldn't be any less fair or ridiculous than players having to pay out their money to other players that aren't risking any money of their own.

there's nothing really all that skillful about cushion play. optimal play as the person with money at risk is to do exactly what the other person does, but obv we won't always know what that is. even if you handle the situation as well as possible, its still a game that you can only lose, and that sucks.

here is a hand i played earlier today where villain had just gone into cushion:

**** History for game 4738306 ****
New Kid - 1/28/13 03:33:20 AM
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players: 6
Seat 1: Player 1 (15)
Seat 3: Player 3 (15)
Seat 5: Player 5 (15)
Seat 7: villain (15)
Seat 9: Player 9 (15)
Seat 10: Player 10 (15)
Player 5 posts small blind 0.15
villain posts big blind 0.3
Player 9 folds
Player 10 folds
Player 1 raises 0.9 [to 0.9]
Player 3 raises 2.7 [to 2.7]
Player 5 folds
villain all in 14.7
Player 1 all in 14.1
Player 3 all in 12.3
* Flop is dealt [Td,2d,3c]
* Turn is dealt [Ks]
* River is dealt [8c]
Vying for pot #1 (45.15): Player 1 Player 3 villain
villain shows [3d,2s] Treys and Deuces
Player 1 shows [Jh,Qh] King-High
Player 3 shows [Kc,Ah] Pair of Kings
villain wins 45.15 from the Main pot

villain doesn't have a nickel at risk but still gets to spin the wheel against me and wins 2 buyins of real money from me as a result. in theory its possible for him to win up to 5 buyins of real money from me without a nickel at risk, and that's stupid nomatter what the reason.

it wouldn't be such a big deal if all the players got free rolled by the other players a similar % of the time, but that's not the case. decent players lose many times the amount of money to free rolls compared to the rest of the player pool.

^^^ Agree, this seems really dumb.

You are also right about optimal play for person who is up in the endgame scenario. In theory, it turns into a cooperation/defect type game that, tbh, I don't find all that interesting. For instance, if villain is down a buyin and open shoves ATC on hand 27, best response for hero might be to shove hand 28, expecting villain to do the same and locking up the result. But of course, an observant villain should notice this and may change strat for hand 29/30.

That said, shove "matching" may not even be the best approach. It could be that just limping every hand with a substantial lead is the right strategy to hedge against some trash hand hitting a huge flop and stacking a fishbot. Dunno how interesting that is.

Suggestion: Add limit holdem, or some variant where bet sizing is not an option. So it could even be something like auto 1/2 pot bet.

Why? Bet size seeding won't give matches a butterfly effect where hands play out completely differently based on opening to 2x as opposed to 3x. If I'm not mistaken, the hands should play out exactly the same if both human players take the same lines since the bet sizes are fixed.

yes, exactly. for the person that's free rolling there are tons of different ways they could go about taking their shot, esp if there are many hands left. no matter how smart the person being free rolled is there's no way they can avoid it.

lol come on daycare, you are absolutely crushing the site so obviously the cushion isnt too big of an issue to your bottom line

How do you respond to a nice request from a person who asks you not to sit them but then they sit in all your normal level buy-in games ???

Sit out button will be coming in the next month or so I guess, so there's that.

Maybe give them a nice request to open a table up for you...?

i don't really see how that's relevant. just because i am a winning player doesn't mean that people should get a no risk second chance drawing at my money when they lose. i don't get how anyone in their right mind can think that its acceptable for someone with no money to win multiple buyins from other players. in live games winning players already pay the lion's share of the rake. they shouldn't have to get free rolled on top of that also.

its not your money until the minimum 30 hands are completed though, no matter what happens during those 30 hands. The score is official once you leave the table. Just like the score in american football is official after 4 quarters. teams cant say "hey ref's can we stop the game? we are winning by 70 points, that team isnt in the playoffs but we are- can we stop to rest our players? we are risking injury."



its either 30 hands minimum = solid legal presence

or

no hand minimum = not enough skill required, no legal grounds.

its nothing like football, because football is winner take all, like a challenge. you don't get anything extra for point differential.

also, i'm not a lawyer, but saying that playing 30 hands crosses some magical skill threshhold is ridiculous. if its really necessary, then the amount that a player can lose during a live match should be raised instead of people being rewarded for losing.

edit: if you want to use a sports analogy it'd be more like if one team gets up by 20 points the other team gets the ball every time.

lets say the cushion was removed and the game ends if you lose your buyin.

ok so say you play a live match, first hand you fold 55 utg. your opponent open shoves and gets called by every bot. He gets lucky and wins. Now you lost your buyin in one hand due to pure luck.

Should the game be over? or should it be 30 minimum hands (cushion included).

also, how could that stand up in the court of law as skill?

there is no way around the cushion, just gotta adjust and use skill to defend against it or skill to fight out of the cushion.

if an opponent lucks out and wins with their own money at risk, then so be it. that's a lot better than them lucking out and winning someone else's money while not risking any of their own. to say there is no way around it is just a cop out. it is unfair enough that a way around it has to be found or it shouldn't be spread.

and in the scenario you described i think it makes the most sense to offer the player that lost the choice of whether or not to reload, and if they do reload, the other player must finish out the 30 hands.

if a player can lose everything in one hand due to getting unlucky and then be presented with the option to rebuy, how does that help the "legal" arguement? it would just be another game being dictated on the luck of the draw.

Id like to see an option on how many hands to make the match.
ie:You can sit at a $15 30 hand match or a 45,60hand match.
maybe even turbo's like 15 hand matches

right, because that's so much more luck oriented than the way it is now where a guy with no money wins 2 buyins off of me by cold 4bet shoving 3high pf.

one hand versus 30 hands i'd think so.

let them keep making -EV plays in the cushion. it only ensures your long term success.

there is no such thing as a -ev play on the cushion for them.

also, in the scenario you describe, you might be playing 30 hands the way it is now, but you're still only playing 1 fair hand.

its -ev in the sense that instead of them trying to play optimally to give themselves the best chance at climbing out of the cushion, they instead dig a deeper hole