Khan and WPN Rep are not the same person, I can vouch for that.

Khan's points aren't very logical or thoughtful. Chazley's points are. And WPN Rep hasn't addressed the issue under discussion to a satisfactory level (the 90% of the player pool getting less rakeback bc of the beast...AND... The fundamental way in which that harms the overall poker community/ecosystem).

Imo, chazleys arguments are based on sound logic, common sense, and have precedence to back them up. Simply ignoring the main points or simply saying "we are confident" (Winning TD), or simply saying "you don't know all that we know" doesn't suffice as a response.

This!

Also brings up a minor pet peeve: how many players does it take to have a flop, minimum? Two! What percentage of a full six-max table is two? 33%!

Ok then, I should never see a stat that suggests there is less than 33% to the flop at 6-max. I have no idea how Stars does their stats, but I'm quite certain it doesn't represent "players/flop" in any way that would be intuitively understood.

Just to play Devil's advocate: isn't 27% rakeback, even with the Beast tax, better for the smaller players than the Stars VIP?

Yes.

--
Kahn

Just to play devils advocate, this means absolutely nothing. Its like saying, we offer a 25% rebate to all customers, best in the industry. Then you really only give a 22% rebate and distribute the rest of the rebate to your biggest spenders. And don't actually tell anyone that you really only give 22%.

Sorry but that is shady as ****.

I am actually kind of curious how many of you who are complaining about the beast have considered how much money is going back to the players because of the beast vs the increase in rakeback if the beast wasn't around.

I don't think you do understand. There is no 15% extra rake that is subsidizing anyone. The rake + beast that WPN is charging is going to be the same if there was no beast at all. No doubt players are losing some in total rakeback dollars but by my estimations the beast is giving back 3-4 times more back to the player pool than the rakeback would.

All of the money goes to winning high volume regs (or bad regs who would lose without it). I've cashed in the best every week for a while now and I really hate the new system, and wasn't a huge fan of the old one either.

Sounds like you should go play somewhere else. I suggest that you attempt to harvest all the player rewards on Bovada, Carbon, and Chico...


--
Kahn

Why stop the beast roars?

That doesn't answer my question so I will try again. Can you tell me how much money is put back into the player pool from the beast as opposed to the increase in rakeback dollars without it?

I play on a number of sites because there isn't a single US site that provides enough games. This thread is about the beast and I can voice my opinion. Honestly it should be against the rules for a shill like you on the payroll to be posting your bull**** in these threads. You provide a constant stream of zero substance bull**** that ends up being just plain wrong half the time. I'm sure you can grab a beer with your bro the CEO and complain about how rude the paying peasants are to disagree with anything a company does.

I really don't care how much they give back to winning grinders and its short sighted of anyone to think this way. I'd like to play on ACR a year from now, or two years, or five years. The sad truth is that ACR's American business plan is likely cash in quick and disappear when regulation comes around.

For a lot of us it isn't how much money that is given back to players that is the issue. It's simply that we feel that the Beast money can be put to better use. The question isn't whether the Beast draws new players to the site; the question is the type of players it is drawing to the site.

A healthy poker economy is a pyramid. The money moves from bottom to top, and then from the top it moves off the site. An inverse pyramid, which Kahn brushes off as an unoccupied niche, is something that is obviously known not to work.

One of the things that has been holding WPN back is it's, righfully or wrongfully, reputation as a reg infested network. Some of us simply feel that the best use of the Beast would be to draw Recs rather than Regs.

I think that the WPN network is the best network in the US by far. Any suggestions that I make are to better the network, not to cut it down.

Posts like this sicken me.

When the Merge Network closed their subforum, Kahn moved into the void and acted like he was speaking for the management. He gave vague, biased, and often wrong information, while at the same time trying real hard to suppress anyone's criticism of the direction that the network was going. When I see him starting that type of nonsense again in this thread, it feels like deja vu all over again.

And I have zero problem with having a discussion about how the beast can be improved in anyway. I do have a problem with people saying how the players are somehow paying extra % of rake that goes towards only high volume regs when in fact they are not. WPN is going to take the same amount whether it goes back to the players or stays with the site. I am sure most everyone agrees that it is far better to have it go back to any players than the site but unfortunately to me it seems a few posters dont see it that way.

I don't think it's a given that the Beast drop would revert to straight rake in the hypothetical scenario of the Beast being discontinued (same for Sit&Crush, btw). Arguing it either way, along with arguing who "pays" for the Beast is probably an exercise in creative accounting/marketing.

I guess the purpose of my post is to +1 focusing discussion on potential improvements.

fyp


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOgxZ8lRUw

It bothers me that you continually bash one of the few people who is committed to getting us answers.

It bothers me that he is sometimes committed to giving people the wrong answers for his own self interest. And his answers are sometimes so vague as to be useless. Those vague answers are just to let people know that he knows something that only someone on the inside could know.

There are people here whose opinions I disagree with on many subjects. But those opinions are usually formed in a sincere and objective manner and expressed in a non derogatory style. I'll debate those people but I'm not about to criticize them for having an opinion. This is a forum; debate is what a forum is about.

You're never going to see me criticize Kahn for giving a helpful answer. But he profits from the Beast as it is now. He promotes a top heavy leaderboard not because it's the best thing for players overall; and not because it is the best thing for the network in the long run; but because it is the most profitable thing for himself. It's about what best serves him and what best gets him in with "the top brass".

When Kahn tries to demean someone by flaunting his own connections with management, or says something like, "...but this is just ignorant dribble at this point" to someone who is simply expressing his point or view, or tries to sell us the idea that a reg infested player pool is an unexplored niche, a void that needs fulfilling, then I'm going to say something; and that something isn't going to be very nice.

If you are going to say someone is knowingly lying you should at least come with some examples.

Also, Kansas could profit from 10 players raking $1k each or 1 player raking $10k. Actually he might profit more from the former. I'm unfamiliar with WPNs particular setup.

I'm saying that he uses his image of being well connected to skew the facts. And as I have said many times in the past, he intermingles what he actually knows with his opinions. He is able to present his, sometimes self-serving, opinions as something that he has inside info about. That's why so many of the things that he presented as facts in the Merge thread turned out to be wrong.

In order for the big guys to generate $10k in rake, they have to eat. It takes a lot of minnows to feed each shark. The Sharks don't just generate the rake for the site out of thin air. You get the pyramid shape of any and every ecosystem, right?

When the shape begins to look more like a reverse pyramid, resources begin to be consumed at a faster rate than they are replenished. The result is what? A correction! (Yes, this implies error, as it should). The correction will result in equilibrium being restored, whether it is at zero (total collapse) or some sustainable pyramid. That will happen natually, a process that inevitably involves much pain and suffering for all involved...or it can happen with deliberate planning and foresight. The choice is WPN's in this case.

There is one slight problem with using the pyramid as an example. In terms of rake generated in total dollars the players who place in the beast would be making up a large portion ( any probably the majority) of it. So in fact the sharks are actually generating the beast prize pool for themselves.

It would be interesting to see how much rake the players who cash in the beast are generating for the prize pool compared to how much is being paid out. My guess is the amount the non cashing players are putting into it is not as large as a percentage as many are making it out to be.

The obvious answer is more. But that's not the point is it?

I've been saying all along that I think there are better things to do with the money. I still agree with my belief but I don't think that it really matters - The Beast isn't really going anywhere (the CEO loves it.)

IMO a better system gives a recreational players a chance at some of the money, FWIW. Obviously high volume players should get more rewarded than low volume players on average but there should be a chance for any rake paying player to get something IMO.

My post was a general statement on what represents a healthy economy, not on the merits of any particular program within that economy.