I bet lots of fish would sign up for a million dollar bonus that clears at 2% and is released in one chunk. It's now in our interest to educate them about maximizing bonuses.

I can't see how this can ever be good.

What they do is taking winnings players winnings (rakeback), and giving some of it to the fish. While the fish spend more time losing their money now, Ongame gets hand of more of this cash in rake compared to the situation before the change.

So, basically this is not about feeding the fish, cause they lose whatever amount they can afford during the month one way or another. Its just a way of improving Ongame's return on equity for their shareholder. If they at least had the balls to say that instead of the BS they have come out with so far.

Anyway, I vote for a strike, like the French players did at Stars, where the occupied a lot of tables and just sat out! It should be easy to play somewhere else, and occupy 5-10 tables at Ongame at a time.

Any thoughts?

Today is the day. Anxiously awaiting the verdict. Wonder if they even let anyone know.

I agree with scandinit, we should somehow let the fish know about ways to get fatass rakeback deals. Without them ending up on a pokerforum off course....

yea which is exactly the opposite of what dealt rakeback does
theyre both wrong but if youre gonna steal might as well improve the game quality while you do it
funny how the break even nits who parasite and are stealing from players who win more pots than they do dont come here crying about it

This sounds like the same crap a$$ system that Bodog installed under bonehead twins Odman & Selin. If your playing at Ongame you better hope you don't get the same result & wind up with hardly any players at the site. Bodog now has even less traffic than Merge. Good luck guys.

What a load of crap that is.

Ongame is dieing anyway. This might speed up the death. Even at 30NL and 50NL the tables suck unless you want to play around midnight EST. 100NL virtually always sucks unless the random fish sits on the table and the amount of tables is constantly shrinking.....

am i the only one thats suuuuper shocked that there seems to be an automated system at ongame which can identify who is a winning player and who is not???

of 36 months playing at ongame now, 35 of them i ran under allin EV....

This thread is a good read, seems to be a similar concept.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...player-778378/

With Betfair joining Ongame in a few days, I don't see that happening. Ipoker has way more regs and nits anyway.

buy 1m ipoker hands and 1m ongame hands for a specific level and see which is nittier
keep in mind ongame is 5-max

So much misunderstanding in this thread. I highly recommend that people only read John Kane's posts, as he seems to actually get it.

The way I understand it you still earn the same number of player points, so your valueback is unaffected whether you are a winner or a loser. Pots are not raked more or less than before, it is the distribution of the collected rake between the skins that is changing.

I don't know if it will, but I can see how this system would affect under the table rakeback deals. If so, cry me a river. Ongame does not allow rakeback, and while obviously every player would prefer to get it, it doesn't help the site. Their new rake division program will help the site, by motivating affiliates to attract the kinds of players that are best for the profitability of the network and grinders.

No site needs high raking players/grinders. Just because you pay a lot of rake does not mean that you are the one responsible for this money going to the site. If you don't deposit, you aren't really benefitting the site. The source of both the site's income and the winning player's income is the same: the losing player!

Winning players are an inevitable result of the way poker games are structured. As long as it is possible to make money people will do so. If you eliminate the best players from the player pool, profits will shift slightly and a new group of best players will exist. The closer in skill all players in the group are the more will be raked as chips are passed back and forth without anyone going broke.

This is the situation that the sites want, but with the difficulty I mentioned above of getting rid of the biggest sharks, the next best thing for them to do is just attract a lot of fish.

The value skilled players offer to the site is that they create the opportunity for a greater volume of hands to be played between players of similar skill level. For example, consider the rate at which money changes hands in a game with a single good player and a single fish versus four strong players and one fish. This allows the site to increase their churn (how often money is wagered before before it is withdrawn), which has a direct effect on rake.

This value is small compared to the value added by the deposits of losing players, so it is really the fish that should be rewarded with rakeback and better bonuses, not high volume grinders.

I could have included this in my previous post, but I wanted it to stand alone because it is an important concept that I think a lot of posters in this thread don't understand.

I didn't click this link before making my posts, but it's very good. It outlines some of the same points I made and is even better in some spots. I recommend everyone complaining about what Ongame is doing read the linked post.

This is not true, actually they wont be playing under same conditions anymore:

The following will happen to winning players:
1. You will receive less commission from your winning players.
2. Your winning players will receive less valueback and clear bonuses slower.
3. The gaming operator will receive less revenue from your winning players.
4. Ongame Network will receive less revenue from your winning players.