PKR went live on the Micro Gaming Network today. But keeps it's old software with avatars and stuff. Thoughts on this?

I think it is cool that sites can be on the same network, but with different software and not only different skins. Hopefully it leads to more innovation among the sites.

EDIT: Can a mod fix the spelling of launches in the heading?
It is tilting me !

Terrible.

The MG network is a vulgar little cesspit, shame to see a good site/playerpool go down that route.

HM2 does not work in the new PKR software.
Previously, we were able to read a hand history

Before you update it was possible to read the hand history.

Is there a solution ? ?

Sad to see another standalone commit to a horrendous network.

I'm not sure why you assess it as 'horrendous', it probably depends on the game you play, it was surely damaged badly by the departure of Ladbrokes and Unibet but must become decent for PLO again after PKR's fish tank has arrived (or, to be precise, after the most basic bugs are ironed out and that fish becomes able to play at all ).

Read HM2's forums, the fix is in the works.

Am I thinking of the wrong network? I thought microgaming didnt allow the use of tracking software and only kept hh in their client for viewing for a limited time.

No that ain't mg.

Thank you for teaching
Even in HM2 of forum it seems to be talking about this matter.

I just also other PKR players not HM2 was able to see that not working.


I would like for a while watching the progress in HM2 forum

You're confusing it with Unibet that started doing this after it left Microgaming (to become standalone) in February 2014.

In a business sense, I'm really not sure if PKR is doing itself any favours, but they must think that it will help with liquidity.
For players, it's good for MPN regs, and bad for PKR's loyal fun players.

Indeed.

PKR would die of lack of liquidity if it hadn't joined any network, though.

Their withdraws take ages now, i wanted to withdraw 1k eur and it has been over a week. They are saying their system still does not work due to merge with micro. Sucks hard

For some reason I cannot log in, and I also cannot access PKR's website. I only use the site for play money (US player), anyone else having trouble logging in?

Alas PKR no longer serves players from the US at all, even in play money games. That's because of Microgaming's policy. Sorry.

You've got to be kidding me! I had a lot of fun playing in those games. That really sucks. Regardless, thanks for the information.

I would like to play on MPN network, but I can't stand their awful software. Is PKR offering a "normal" 2D view?

It is, but the 2D mode is awful imo - sometimes one click isn't enough to make a betting button work (of course the same applies to the 3D, but at least it's more colourful). And there's a forum thread about its post-migration bugs that's already become more than 500 posts long over the mere two weeks.

All the tables switch to the 2D mode automatically when their number exceeds 4 (the maximum is 9).

There's a 'PKR Lite' launch mode which is 2D, gives no access to the avatar shop apart from the default selection of ready avatars and doesn't produce dealers' and players' talk - it only plays the 'your turn' signal (turn the SFX volume down in the settings because that sound is hard on the ear, especially to someone who has played on Microgaming) and the basic sounds like chip movement.

withdrawing 1k for over a week now. what this merge PKRs only way to get some money? It seems like their are in deep hole.

They have "technical difficulties" apparently. What's weird is that they were to pay some people, but still blame technical difficulties to be behind 2 weeks in cashouts. Not sure if you read their forum but you can read the same bull**** excuses over and over there.
I really doubt the site will make a stand in the network anyways, to me this migration will be the downfall seeing they will have no grinders left. They won't be able to survive on the number of recreationals they have.

Bear in mind that PKR's CEO is the same Chris Welch who was the director of poker at bwin.party during the Protected Tables era so I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't care about regs at all now, though his stance might have changed to the better during his hiatus from poker management when he was facing major eye health problems.

Well, every Microgaming site I knows offers better rewards than PKR does now. With PKR capping at 25% (and that level is also hard to reach) and no site-only-incentives as good as rakeraces from affiliates, no one making a decent amount of rake will play on PKR anymore. People playing to make money will rather eat use the standard Microgaming software and have a much better deal than using PKR software (that switches to 2D with 4+ tables anyways). There simply is no merit anymore in playing there when there are a dozen other sites on the network that are better in many aspects. Even the "community" aspect is now gone because now only like 10-15% of the players one plays with are PKR players.
I don't really understand that migration anyways. What's their point? It was obvious with rulings like lower VIP system than other skins plus a cashout fee on cashouts over $2K they will have even less players playing on their site than when they were a standalone. And I imagine on the rake players who end up staying on PKR they have to pay a % to the network. So really this was a guaranteed failure IMO.
I give it another one year if things stay the way they are.

Firstly, the VIP rewards are capped at 30% (requiring to rake $3K in a month to reach the top level - Sapphire Elite - and $750 in subsequent months to maintain it); secondly, there's a special clause in the VIP T&C stating that the VIP level of some players can be raised to Sapphire Elite at the discretion of the management (which is not advertised on the PKR forum for an obvious reason - those who didn't have rakeback prior to the migration would be pissed off again if they were made aware of the clause).

I've just read this, when they released the loyalty scheme it was def. 25% being the highest level, I even complained about it :P
I still believe 3K rake is a whole lot, especially for SNG players probably close to being unachievable with MPN traffic, even those who play like up to 20€-30€ Games will have trouble reaching this, while on other sites they will get like 50% total (30% + like 20% from different races).

I agree that PKR hasn't been generous as to rake races... well, it's facing so many issues now that its inclination not to offer promos for grinders is understandable - it wants to operate on thick margins now. Because the network has True Value system in place that awards a skin less money for $1 of regs' rake than for $1 of recs' rake, it's rather risky for a skin to give much to regs, it might end up suffering losses on them.

PKR's big disadvantage is that it's a single brand on the network, whereas the Betsson group has as many as 6 brands and apparently one's accounts with separate brands are treated separately by the True Value system, i.e. a new account with a new skin is valued like an average player, not like an existing reg, and it's +EV to make a player use the signup bonuses of all or most of the skins owned by the company.

All that said, the True Value system is going to be modernised soon, which might change the situation quite a bit.

Regarding rake races, the current Head of Poker at MG Alex Scott has mentioned in part 4 of the 'Are Leaderboards Bad?' series by his predecessor Lydia Barbara (Melton) that 'Almost every operator on the MPN wants to ban rake races, and it’s telling that the world’s most successful poker sites have never run such promotions'.

Well, there has been no ban on races because that 'majority of operators' consisted of small skins that failed to outweigh the oligarchy of the Betsson and iGame (24hBet et al.) groups in network board votes. I'm not sure if Betsson + iGame still have the majority after the new skins have joined. Presumablly, PKR is now a somewhat big player on the network board at least at the deliberative level.