Discussion Thread re PokerStars Player Reps Report. Feb 2012

[CocteauTwin]

Originally Posted by Hood

CocteauTwin: You are trying to pick a fight that just doesn't exist. My stance has not changed, i'm not downplaying anything. I've been very outspoken from day one. Go back and check my original posts that got me nominated by the community in the first place.

It's ok, my questions were rhetorical anyway so I didn't expect you to answer them

Originally Posted by Hood

I don't care about low rake. I care about good games.

Not downplaying anything? Oh ok... I will check where you said this in the posts leading up to IOM.

[LunaEqualsLuna]

Originally Posted by Hood

- Evidence of the sites having explicitly colluded on price and 'price fxing by major competitors'? If PS wielded monopolistic power, why would it need to collude with "major competitors" to fix prices?

The fact that all sites use pretty much the same model for rake? That after 10 years the price to play poker has remained the same except for those smart enough to realise how much they are paying?
That stars continues to use phrases like 'industry standard'.

Rakeback was a way of way of lowering the prices for those players who were saavy enough to find a loop hole to pay pay less to play poker, keep the price sky high for those not smart enough to notice. This price has not come down at all, and it is for this reason poker is dying as new players are thrust into a world where they have no chance.

- The WSEX example was just one of a dozen-ish examples i've given that lowering effective rake has not result in improved games or increased liquidity, and this cannot be ignored to those constructing the argument that stars must slice rake.

No it is an example that if you run a poker room badly it won't succeed. Correlation does not imply causation, I read a lot about the wsex example including the archived threads on it. citing their failure was due to low rake is wildly inaccurate.

Svenska Spel was discussed on day one of the meet. SS has no rewards program (by law? not sure on that), making effective rake post-rewards comparable, although def Svenska is competitive here.

Comparable? How many players have ~ 50% rakeback on stars?
Less than 1% I bet.

Now there is a site with a real monopoly

How is svenka spel a monopoly? And even if it was, they still offer better value than stars.

The fact that you don't even consider stars a monopoly and try to defend stars so much is rather puzzling...

[Hood]

@CocteauTwin - Thanks, that is perfect example of being purposefully misquoted.

Because what i say continues, "... Rake is one facet of good games"

[DiggertheDog]

Hood:

It is a given we all want good games.


The higher the rake - the higher the bar for what constitutes a good game.

Clearly there reaches a point with no matter how low the rake the game isnt good.
Which might be part of the reason HSNL is basically bumhunting now.

But think of it this way if the rake on a pot at 10PLO ends up being 8bb - and you halved the rake - all of a sudden "breakeven" players would be winning at a half decent clip of 2pt/100 hands.

So, given that games being good is relative, reducing rake often if not always improves game quality.

[mme]

Originally Posted by Hood

I'll say this: I would happily pay more rake in FLHE if there was a huge boom in fixed limit games. That was the case 6 years ago (higher effective rake as no VIP program, amazing games, winrates of 3BB/100+).

problem may be that positive effects of higher rake (funding advertising and so on) may 1) not visible at first sight to everyone and 2) what site gives away numbers on that so that people could say: ah yeah, higher rake payed off by so and so much? imo this would require a pretty high degree of transperency. give and take and it may* work.

..and btw, still waiting for 2+2 to implement -1 troll.

[LunaEqualsLuna]

Clearly there reaches a point with no matter how low the rake the game isnt good.

That assumes per hand rake which is probably here to stay for the immediate future.
If you have a rake system of winner pays all then any edge over a player means a beatable game, so it depends on the rake model used.

The problem at HS games is simply that noone can move up since everyone is rake trapped lower down. The only fish in HS games are mega rich whales like scout with far more money than sense who jump straight into HS games. One player donking of ~4million is probably single handedly sustaining HS games lol.

Gone are the days of players moving up easily as rake takes all the money out of the eco system long before it gets high enough.

[sputum]

Originally Posted by Hood

I only started posting again today because i felt your discussions weren't progressing much towards a consensus, and you were ignoring clear counterpoints to your arguments.

Wow, that's a bit harsh.

Just kidding

[CocteauTwin]

Originally Posted by Hood

@CocteauTwin - Thanks, that is perfect example of being purposefully misquoted.

Because what i say continues, "... Rake is one facet of good games"

Lol, oh it's a misquote because you then went on to say it's a facet. One that you don't care much about anymore apparently. What reason have I got not to be on that quote? It's just your real attitude coming out amidst the rest of the bs you've come out with since returning.

And why are you imagining that I'm looking for someone to blame? Blame for what? If you look at the HS thread about rake I was there trying to defend reps. When have you seen me shetstorming in this thread? I haven't seen any other rep make out like rake hardly matters and if they did before going to the IOM I definitely would have given them some flames.

[Sect7G]

Originally Posted by Hood

More than one rep has said much to this effect on more than one occasion.



No one is going to say that because it implies that a bit more 'hard work' from the reps would bring what you want, which it won't.

But hey, if you want false hope, sure, lets work harder to get this next time. What someone says doesn't change facts.

Not trying to misquote you... but is it of your opinion that this is the best that Pokerstars can and will do even for the next meeting?

You talked a lot about game quality, and you said that since rake was only part of your discussion with Stars, we hope that some ideas were discussed on how to revitalize FLHE. Could you share some of these ideas? By talking about this you could bring some much needed optimism to the community.

[Maso777]

One improvement I would like to see Stars make is remove the preset bonuses you can purchase. Allow all players to sell FPP at a rate of .016, and allow them to sell whatever amount of FPP they want, whenever they want. This would be good for small stake players if they can cash in 5-10K points whenever they want instead of waiting several months to save up 250K.

The thing about rakeback is those regular payments help moving up, allow for shot taking and help mitigate downswings. Small payments made frequently into the account is far superior in my opinion to infrequent large payments.

Unless changes is made I'll probably be looking for one of those 60% ipoker deals for next month.

[shemhasai]

Guys, Hood may me making some weird points (i.e how PokerStars doesn't have the monopoly, because really they do) but at least he is trying to answer you in a polite way and he seems open to constructive discussions.

By antagonizing him, all you're doing is directing the anger you have towards PokerStars onto him, which was really the big success of this IOM meeting if you ask me. PokerStars seems to have successfully shifted the blame on the reps, and as far as I know they didn't even need to make an official statement and just relied on the rep's report.

If Hood is as open for discussion as he seems to be, then if you argue with him through valid points and more importantly with no spite or anger thrown at him through your posts, I feel this debate will get you much further. This is the rep you voted for after all, let the community argue peacefully with him without antagonizing him, any point brought up in a post filled with dread and rage won't be listened to quite as much.

This might sound too candyworld-like, but the truth is as long as you have the community fighting against the reps (and the reps fighting against the community), PokerStars will come out the final winner because there is no organized protest. The meeting probably was a slight step in a possibly more righteous direction, but as long as you have the poker community exploding from within like this, no further steps will be happening.

[Bluegrassplayer]

Originally Posted by Maso777

The thing about rakeback is those regular payments help moving up, allow for shot taking and help mitigate downswings. Small payments made frequently into the account is far superior in my opinion to infrequent large payments.

Wow excellent point and a wonderful idea.

Let's consider thinking about it in a few months.

[LunaEqualsLuna]

Originally Posted by Bruut99

But, cap will be unbeatable if you lower the rake even by 50%, it will only take a little more time because the game itself is bound to be unbeatable.

Same logic can be applied to every game.
FL will be unbetable at some time in the future so lets not bother lowering the rake now.

NL will be unbeatable at some time in the future so lets not bother lowering the rake now.

PLO will be unbeatable at some time in the future so lets not bother lowering the rake now.

Again unbeatable also is a half truth, there are alternative rake methods that can make ANY non zero edge worth while.


High rake games was possible when the average player was terrible and the average 2+2'er was crushing the games and high edges were possible. Now we are entering a Low edge high rake era and the average 2+2'er is at best a slightly winning micro or SSNL grinder eeking out a tiny winrate multitabling.
Something has to give. Either poker shrinks to a small niche similar to what happened to fixed limit poker or the sites try and boost the popularity by lowering the cost.

I think choice is good as I am not a CAP only player and neither am i selfish to the point where i want to stop others having fun at a game I don't play.

Stars have done many things wrong but they also do many things right and i think the separation of CAP and NL was along the right track. .

They just need to stop overraking the games.

Games like CAP and FL will first feel the effects of overraking, then PLO and finally NL.

FL players have been complaining about if for years it seems, but noone cared as FL was regarded as a dying game, it is closing in on CAP and PLO and many NL players show an attitude of don't care or haha CAP is unbeatable obviously that will happen. So is FL unbeatable as well? The game itself is not unbeatable, the rake however can be, and when it finally starts to happen to NL games, noone will be around to care.

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by Maso777

One improvement I would like to see Stars make is remove the preset bonuses you can purchase. Allow all players to sell FPP at a rate of .016, and allow them to sell whatever amount of FPP they want, whenever they want. This would be good for small stake players if they can cash in 5-10K points whenever they want instead of waiting several months to save up 250K.

The thing about rakeback is those regular payments help moving up, allow for shot taking and help mitigate downswings. Small payments made frequently into the account is far superior in my opinion to infrequent large payments.

Unless changes is made I'll probably be looking for one of those 60% ipoker deals for next month.

Originally Posted by Bluegrassplayer

Wow excellent point and a wonderful idea.

Let's consider thinking about it in a few months.

Probably only a smaller step along those lines, but Steve implied they're open to the idea of people being able to swap their FPPs at the 1.6 rate once per month, instead of always having to save up 250k FPPs for the $4k. At least he said it could be brought up at the next player meeting.

Stars probably likes/benefits from "locking" people in, but might agree to more smaller mitigation of such that would really ease the non-RB downswings cash-flow wise.

[xPeru]

Originally Posted by LunaEqualsLuna

Same logic can be applied to every game.
FL will be unbetable at some time in the future so lets not bother lowering the rake now.

NL will be unbeatable at some time in the future so lets not bother lowering the rake now.

PLO will be unbeatable at some time in the future so lets not bother lowering the rake now.

Again unbeatable also is a half truth, there are alternative rake methods that can make ANY non zero edge worth while.


High rake games was possible when the average player was terrible and the average 2+2'er was crushing the games and high edges were possible. Now we are entering a Low edge high rake era and the average 2+2'er is at best a slightly winning micro or SSNL grinder eeking out a tiny winrate multitabling.
Something has to give. Either poker shrinks to a small niche similar to what happened to fixed limit poker or the sites try and boost the popularity by lowering the cost.

Why we failed to win the argument for lowering the rake at PLO. "average player is terrible and the average 2+2'er is crushing the games and high edges are possible.

The counter argument I deployed was that "fish" losing at 20/40bb/100 was not good for the games because recreational players who lose their money too quickly are less likely to redeposit. I argued that PLO should be much more popular than it is but from a business point of view, I had to accept that my argument was weak.

"something has to give". NLHE and PLO cash games are not easily solvable like chess because they are games of incomplete information. I don't think there is a problem with them becoming unbeatable (Limit and CAP depend much more on maths and are "solveable" - I don't see much of a future for them (sorry Nick )

The edges will reduce as more people get good at them, but that is why we need to drive more new players to play. As they "pay" to learn, their money will flow up the pyramid.

The costs of recruiting these players have to be paid, the costs of operating the site have to be paid, and they are not small. The last 6 monthly report I saw from B.Win Party showed that they had lost money from their poker business. The margins in this business are falling. The scope to reduce prices is limited. Reduce rake by 20%, and very few poker sites would make a profit.

A lot of what people want by way of rake reductions is what I want too, but it's simply not going to happen. What Nick and I tried to do is encourage PokerStars to do what was possible and what would bring benefits to Stars as well as the players, because if you pitch things that Stars won't benefit from, they have no reason to do them, unless they involve little work and less cost.

It was clear to me that Stars and Isai himself wanted to promote more Limit poker. There was a lot of discussion between him and Nick about how to promote the game. IMO I think it's pissing against the wind. Which is exactly what making unrealistic demands of a business is doing.

For most of us Stars has reduced the rake and we are benefiting even if it is only by 0.1bb/100 (ffs that's like a 5% pay rise for most grinders).

Yes it's possible for a few regs to get 60% rakeback elsewhere. The sites offering that are not going to be making a profit from those players. They want them because their sites have low traffic and high volume players help keep tables going so that recreational players have somewhere to sit when they want to play. SN/SNE is pretty comparable to these high rakeback deals, so I can't see the business case for Stars even trying to compete with these sites for players below SN. They simply don't need to.

It's not a perfect world, we have to work with PokerStars if we want to improve things, fighting them is a no-win situation for us.