For me:

$4NL FR - ~45k hands - 6.69bb/100
$10NL FR - ~102k hands - 3.61bb/100
$25NL FR - ~31k hands - 10.38bb/100

I don't have a significant sample at $50NL FR and I don't play 6max or HU tables but the games are there if you do play them. The rake IS high @ ~9bb/100. I typically play between 5-7 tables at once.

In my opinion, a good step in the right direction would be for Merge to offer a 27% tier if you got 10k to 15k VIP's. This 15% is just too low with the rake where it is. If they capped the rake somewhere reasonable, then maybe 15% would be doable.

Thanks for the post, Phatty. Do you think once you got to 100K hands on the other levels your BB/100 would be more in line w/ your 10NL stats? Your BB/100 goes down on each level you play a decent amount more hands. Is 100K hands significant enough to know the true impact of the rake? I'm looking to stake a friend for some micro stakes and am weighing my options across the 3 networks. Really just Merge and Bovada.

At Stars back in the day, my winrate was higher at $25nl than $10nl. I think the fish and loose money gravitate to $25nl over $10nl and $4nl over $10nl. $25nl is probably the first time the money seems to feel meaningful. So, I don't think my winrate will go down the more I play. The only reason I played 100k hands is that was how long it took to get my bankroll sufficient enough to play $25nl.

Hey PLO I saw that Odds doesn't except anymore us signups i noticed it was a year ago when i signed up.. I opened the client to see what side of the fence it sits in...they are on the SportsBook side.. they have their own cashier similar to Host: Bankwire, Checks, and ACH are the withdraw methods... I'll keep being a high volume loser on Host lol they are good to me

I'm aware, I posted about 5 minutes after you mentioned Odds saying the same thing.

Nothing wrong with playing on Host if you're a cash player. I just won't because I refuse to support a site that kicked off winning players, no matter how many it was. If you play tournaments you're pretty dumb because Carbon/Aced are just going to keep attempting to have more and more tournaments sans Host. If you can separate your roll between Aced/Carbon and Host so you don't miss out when they have Host-less tournaments I guess it'd be a good option.

Oh, btw Tech, if I remember right Kahn posted directly after me about Odds saying they are a known scam site. May want to go back a few pages and read to confirm. Just a heads up if you play there. I wouldn't want to be on such a site right now when Merge is clearly trying to get rid of all skins except Aced/Carbon and Players Only/ Sportsbook.

I was talking to him as it happened. He wasn't happy at all. But he is a professional and these things happen. He's grinding again tonight



In every poker ecology there is a pyramid of player skills. When the rewards go up, more marginal players can win. When the rewards go down the opposite occurs. It is a change in the "effective rake." As can easily be surmised, adjusting the actual rake has the same effects on the ecosystem.

Whenever a positive or negative change occurs it takes time for the affected parties (those in the middle) to realize and react or not realize and fail. The guys at the top of the pyramid, the great regs, will always win. The guys at the bottom, the recreationals, will always lose. When the "effective rake" was increased, it took months for the marginals to quit, busto, leave, etc. But once those players in the middle (who were taking money out of the economy before the change) leave, more money frees up to be won by the top of the pyramid players (and obv more rake for the site). Eventually equilibrium is achieved again.


One day I will make this up into an info-graphic, but I hope you can visualize how I was able to answer your question of how people can still win in spite of what you consider cruel and unusual conditions for poker combat.


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Kahn

Carbon says the $10,000 Dollar Frenzy on 1/26 is cancelled?

Anyone know why? Kahn?

Is my Tournament Coupon useless?

Thanks for any info..

This is exactly why I left merge 3 months ago, the tournaments are just no fun anymore. They are almost a painful experience and I found myself sighing every time I registered for a tourney. I have since been playing on Bovada and I never thought I would say this but Bovada is the best option for US players. Love not having re-entries or outrageous late reg. Oh and it is good to be playing rebuys again! Guess I will keep checking in to see if merge gets their act together because I do miss the software, it is by far the best, but not enough to keep me around. Poker in the US is so sad

Good post, thank you. It makes sense, I've just always heard the consensus was the micro stakes were unbeatable on most sites until a certain level. With Merge's abnormally high rake and lack of rewards (at least for those levels since it'd be hard to achieve anything worthwhile) I figured I'd ask around. I've never played micro stakes so I wasn't sure if it was just bad regs exaggerating or actually unbeatable. I've heard varying stories about WPN micro cash, but I don't really want to teach him on a site where it's a bunch of nitty robots who really should be playing mid stakes but grind the beast instead.

Having rebuy tournaments is very nice. Merge added back a few, but it's mostly like $2 rebuys. No rebuys above $11 afaik and the only $11 rebuy is a ****ty $400 GTD that no one plays. Even though the old $11rb near that time slot regularly was $5,000+ prize pools...

The Merge tournaments have become very un-fun and painful to play. It's no wonder people are running from the site. Sure, it's all about making money, but it'd be nice if it were enjoyable outside of that.

I'm not sure how some of the better regs on the network that post here don't understand how absolutely terrible what they have done to the tournaments is for the long term health of MTTs here. It's already showing in many different ways and even though you may be winning, it will only decrease as time goes on and less fish are left in the pond.

The same thing happened with a lot the WPN regs I use to play with. I think this is one of the reasons Bovada has taken over the market. (in addition to better marketing, as Kahn, I believe, pointed out) I'm really hoping Merge does something to help the health of the player pools even if its cutting the re entry time in half.

At least some of the winning players aren't being delusional about the short term edge they have because of reentries. Take edge now, don't have a viable site to play later.

Strange they cancelled the 10 k added tourney my ticket is no good I guess are they broke? They run a promo and cancel it . Every one hates the 4 hour late regs even casual players . Now you have a double 100k gtd they will lose atleast 30-50k on this I will guess. I cant see over 75 k for each one its bizarre . Was going to bovada but was denied with the eyes wide shut photo id , I cant see depositing here again this blows .

I'm sure it isn't cancelled for good? Not that I'd be surprised if it was.

Shhhhh, try not to bring up the blood bath the double 100K is going to be. Don't want to give them any ideas.

Yes, the top players will always win, but top players don't win as much when the rake goes up. Sometimes those players leave even if they are winning. I stopped playing for months because of lack of motivation over the loss of rakeback. Poker sites need players and no one except the competition benefits when players leave no matter if they are regs, fish, or middle tier - this is true of ALL poker sites whether they are B&M or online. Prop players exist at B&M for a reason - you need regs. You need fish, too. You need good games with a rake that is beatable as well.

Or they keep the lobby open solely to bumhunt, making the site a really obnoxious predatory environment for fish, with sitout abuse, buttoning, table hopping the norm. That's the state of MSNL on e.g. PartyPoker with high rake and low rewards / no incentive to grind.

It isn't just the players in the middle that leave. The players on the bottom also leave. CarbonRyan emphasized that Merge's data showed that when losing players lost money quickly, they tended not to redeposit. The rate at which fish lose has an important impact on the player pool. If both the lowest and middle losing players leave the site it drags the entire pyramid downward leaving the site more reg heavy but with a smaller overall player pool.

what does this mean lol?

I may be wrong, but I think Merge may have combined player pools for sngs at buyins below $5.

I saw this in my chat today:


I was shocked because I know this guy is in the sportsbook player pool.

I only saw him in a $2 hyper and I didn't see any new players in the $5-$22s I was in.

I logged into sportsbook to check and sure enough there was some overlap in the player pools, but only in the $1-$2s.

If merge combines the player pools across all buyins there'd be some hope for the hyper traffic...

FYP

lol classic truelies

The players at the bottom are getting more and more 35% invitations. I have seen it with my own eyes.

I confirm this to be true.

Let us hope that the aforementioned desegregation works out well numbers wise. If so, who knows.........


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Kahn

.

Figured someone would enjoy that

Guess what I miss most are the rebuys. Especially the deep stack $11 1r/add on. Getting misty eyed. Just sayin...