There is no doubt that competition is an extremely positive thing for any industry. Look back into the days of PS VS FT and you will remember extremely aggressive marketing that would seem insane in today's poker climate. I truly miss the aggression of FT's marketing team and personally believe that is the only reason why FT was able to grow so quickly. This is not something we see today, however competition still exists. I think I speak for everyone saying we do not want a monoply, and real competition is essential in the growth of a stable online poker industry.

Itt I compare Pokerstars VS 888 as 888 is the only site even close to Stars.. I do not have enough experience with other sites (recently) to compare other competitors. But realistically do we really expect Ipoker, ongame or even Bodog/Bovada to grow, or pose any threat at all as a competitor of pokerstars?

As a non usa player I do not have any expertise on usa facing sites, but do think it would be interesting if Americans can chime in on what the state of online poker is for them.

Pokerstars: #1

Positives

Pokerstars is ahead of its competition in many different areas.

Software:
There is no doubt that PS/FT's software does not even compare to the joke state of every other competitor's withered and buggy programs. It is very easy to use and something that loyal customers truly love. It is a huge factor to why some players choose to play 100% of their volume on pokerstars/ft (mostly stars). This is something every competitor can't even hold a candle to and I think other sites such as 888 over look the importance of having a stronger technical product.

Traffic- Games run 24/7 of the majority of stakes, this simply is not the case on any other network. On many sites there is no point playing during non peak, especially for tournament players.

Rake- Excluding spin and gos, pokerstars still is the lowest rake site by far. Although we will all agree the rake is to high in certain game types, Pokerstars still beats it's competitors offering the lowest rake.

VIP rewards= To this day, even if SNE/SN gets attacked by reductions it is the best rewards system available.

The negatives:

Disclaimer, this is opinion based as I do not like the path AMAYA is laying out for the future of pokerstars. Feel free to disagree.

Oh pokerstars, what has Amaya gaming done to you. Amayastars is not the company it once was. It is clear Amaya gaming is trying to shift its customers and potential customers into a more gambling based platform, (see spin and gos, see all in shootouts, casino sportsbook). While it is true that every other competitor focuses heavily on casino and sportsbook, more so than poker this was not something that players would have ever thought to happen 5 years ago. The old owners were strictly against it even.

Traffic is being forced into spin and gos, with no effort in promoting other game types. It is clear there is no incentive to promote any other game types than Spin and gos or their major series such as COOP series/micromillions. It really does seem that Amayastars is trying to milk their customers as much as they can in the current declining state of online poker. I personally would not be supprised if Amaya sold stars in a few years time.

888 #2

The positives:

Growth: 888 reported a 7% revenue growth to poker and a 15% increase of registered real money accounts (see 888 holdings investor pages) in 2014. These are fairly huge numbers in today's climate, and the traffic sure shows it comparatively. 5 years ago nobody would expect 888 to be a better option to play than Full Tilt. They are a clear number 2, and potentially will be requiring partypoker (nothing is confirmed).

Bigger and better mtt schedule: Many tournament players are adding 888 into their schedule more and more within the last year. 888 was previously seen as another euro site to play on sundays, but now is a must play for any serious tournament player. The schedule is improving, slowly but surely. While it holds a very small candle to the mecca of tournaments pokerstars offers it is surely improving as time goes on.

The negatives:

Disconnections, poor servers and buggy software.

It is 2015, and 888 has been running for over a decade. It is simply unacceptable that the site has been experiencing such a ridiculous amount of disconnections (most recently). Something needs to be done to better the overall playing experience from a technical stand point. There is not much else to say, than fix your servers! I have seen new players say that they just recently signed up, and hate the site simply because of the disconects.

Improve your software. It is 2015 and the software of 888 still reflects online poker from 2005. I say this to improve the player experience for everyone, not just multi tabiling regulars.

Rake:
At least match it to pokerstars, the rake is to high in cash games and SNG (mtt is fair). All I have to say, because I do not expect 888 to lower rake ever.

Push fold poker= Delete it from Snap poker, and replace 2/4 snap with 2/4 regular. All i have to say about push fold as 888 will never get rid of their beloved rake trap.

Extremely nitty promotions. "Summer splash", "Battle of the planets" are basically a series of 1-2k freerolls with the illusion of winning prizes on their stupid spin wheel that pops up when you log on. They don't even feel like promotions.

Vip reward system: There barely is even a rewards program. The most a player can earn is 27% RB. Seems like a FU to high volume players.

All in all there is a lot of problems with 888, nobody will deny that. But somehow they are continuing to grow, and have managed to become the number 2 of online poker somehow.

How is this possible? Is their growth sustainable? Does anyone feel that they can become a legitimate threat to pokerstars in the future? I believe that many poker players today think that AMAYA will fail and pokerstars will eventually sink. If that happens is it GG online poker? Or will 888 or another competitor take over the thrown? We keep seeing threads on the future of online poker, is poker beatable, will there be a poker boom, how do we make it happen, etc. Nobody seems to talk about where we are actually at now, and the sites that control our fate.

No comparison imo. If 888 gets a daily traffic same as pre BF FTP, then we can consider it a real competitor.

Hasn't there one big Achiles heel been there software and I guess their rewards system? The software has always been something that seems like it was duct taped together in a software sense and from what I understand they still rock that bs. You can never be a competitor if you main thing, software is dog****.

888 doesnt have heads up tables. Introduce it, and maybe.

They'd have to stop ****ing everyone over on withdrawals and exchange rates for starters.

PokerStars completely dominates the market. It does not have any "close" competitors. Stars vs 888 is like Man Utd vs Tranmere Rovers.
Not true, and most customers don't directly care about rake anyway. For professionals, it's how much money you make after rake and rakeback/rewards that counts, not how much rake you paid in the first place. Certain other sites have lower rake than Stars in many games/limits, including those with the most traffic.
In what way is it the "best"? It might be more generous than 888's at some VIP levels, but what isn't?
888 is presumably picking up players from Stars and iPoker that have got fed up with their single-digit winrates or double-digit lossrates. Assuming the trend continues (and 888 fixes its server problems) there will probably be a greater proportion of regs on 888 over time, as move people look for beatable games. But 888 hasn't got a chance to challenge the market leader in the near future unless Stars makes a monumental ****up.

To answer your questiion Americans want sites that have the fastest payout(same day) stars is the closest, it does help to have a few pros with a fanboy following. oh and regulation!!! i wann know my deposit isnt being transfered to eric lindgren or Chino "Rheem Job

LOL you need to know what your talking about bro. HU butchers a decent % of the player pool enough to hurt it. You could see it instantly when stars and ftp introduced them. Just sparse ring games and endless bumhunters sitting alone where there was once a vibrant upper stakes player pool.

I miss Pacific's old clunky software that kept the clones away. Use to have some sweet games.

I completely disagree with this stance. I think 888 has a lot of potential and a lot of players no longer care about being loyal to pokerstars. I do think 888 focuses very well on attracting recreational player, somehow. I do agree that probably a lot of their new player base comes from the player pool of other sites such as withering clients like ipoker or ongame and it does show that there are a lot more regulars on 888 then a few years ago. I do however think 888 has to be very agressive with marketing and make some serious changes in order for them to actually threaten stars as a competitor.

I disagree with players who think that making their software a better program and easier to use will only attract multi tabling regulars. I would imagine there are a lot of recreational players who choose stars because of the easy to use and more attractive software. A complete overhaul of their software is duly needed.

Isnt bum hunting to blame thought? the bum hunting platform may have been removed but what can be done about the concept itself

Completely agreed and I think HU tables are a huge leech to online poker.

Of course. To see tables insta fill within seconds of when a fun player site at stakes above 200nl/plo is extremely intimidating to new/recreational players. And when said player busts or leaves the table SNAP sits out without even playing another hand. The higher the stakes go the worse it is. This is just the state of online poker. I think if 888 tried hard to ban seat scripting (which is probably impossible) it would help a lot. Though nothing can be done about game selection really.

Completely agreed and I think 888 underestimates the importance of this.
You do have a point, but I dont think it is fair to compare today's state of online poker and pre BF of a site that accepted US players. They are a competitor by definition (2nd biggest site atm), I don't see how people can deny this.

I dont think heads up tables should be removed why cant to friends fire up a hu table a few people shouldnt f it up permanantly.

plus isnt game selection apart of poker? bum hunting or not

Guess what? Poker rooms run themselves to make money. If they say that only certain game are allowed, then that's what you get. You have no right to complain.

Try walking into your local casino and demanding a heads-up table for you and your buddy.

"Buddy"? I do have a right to complain as its what I am doing, and I have a right to request a heads up table just as much as they have the right to say no, I chose OLP over live for variety not to play the same neanderthal level game types.... my gripe is removing heads up isnt going to matter as much as they think, stars doesnt care about what players or their fan boys want so wobble off that hi horse of yours and let my opinion be

Your opinion is predicated on the idea that your ideas pertaining to the poker economy can somehow be as valuable as Pokerstars' ideas, which is absurd. I'll stand by my assertion that your opinion is silly, self-centered, and uninformed, thanks.

You were correct though, you do have a right to complain, you just don't have a right to have anyone take you seriously or even listen to what you have to say.

No reason to personally attack people. Yeah obviously Pokerstars and competitors do not particularly care about 2p2 and their ideas are put before ours, but that doesn't mean we can't openly discuss our opinions on a platform like 2p2.

Look at the big brain on "BJ giver" just oozing success from his mayonaisse filled man boobs I stand corrected....up tight douche bag get a grip Im not the only one who feels that way about heads up tables and this new pokerstars isnt concerned about whats best for the poker econonmy just their bottom line so of course they would have a better idea as to what increases their personal profit than I would my ideas are based on what me and plenty of others prefer if your contributing rake you damn well have the right to demand certain things if you think other wise then you must have a low sense of self worth

calm down man

get the f... out of my aquarium!

It's not a personal attack if his ideas are indeed how I described them, which I believe them to be. Part of openly discussing something is being able to accept criticism when it comes your way.

The entitlement displayed by Dr. Gonzo isn't an isolated thing - there are many, many posters like him who don't seem to understand how business or the poker economy works, and that their personal wants and needs somehow equate to the personal wants and needs of everyone else. Or, to the wants and needs of the people who are most important to the poker economy.

What these entitled people fail to realize is that, what they want (and consequently whether or not they play on a particular site) does not matter to these sites, with the way that the poker economy currently is.

You never fail to hear "the grinders are valuable because they start games, etc." in these recent debates, but it's just not true, not today. There are just too many good players and not enough bad ones.

The only goal that a poker site should have is to get players who don't know how to play very well to come play at their site, everything else comes after that. If you don't understand this, then you're probably a massive drain on the poker community.

I for one don't have any idea what the best way to get bad players to play on your site is, but if there is one thing that I'm sure of, it's that the current competitors in the online poker market and the people who work for them know how to do their jobs better than 99.99% of the posters here. Seeing as these operators probably want to keep making a bunch of money for what they're doing - and given that if the poker economy is destroyed then so are online poker sites - I'm not too worried.

But, if Dr. Gonzo and posters of the like want to complain on 2p2 about how poker sites are doing their jobs, I'm glad to let them know how impertinent their opinions really are, because people who post on 2p2 add zero value to the current poker economy.

I completely agree with your premise and overall point and do think that there needs to be less focus on catering to winning regulars and rakeback whores. More focus on promoting the game to new players who simply want to play poker for some entertainment value.

That being said any customer who deposits even once and pays rake is a valued customer, whether they are a winning regular or not. Although it is true that they are not adding new money into the ecosystem (by not depositing often) they are a contributing factor to why games run. Not THE contributing factor, but they still matter. Recreational players simply would not log on if there are no games to play. A huge reason why pokerstars is so attractive is because at any time you can just go play zoom and get right into the action, or join a tournament with 1000 players that pays a huge ROI. Regular plays have to exist for these games to be around.

And bjsmith your posts just seem to come off extremely aggressive and anti poker players/2p2ers, that's why it seems like you are personally attacking DR gonzo for example. I respect your opinion though and think you have some valid points.

Anyways I disagree with the overall premise of how this site seems to think online poker will continue to decline in the coming years. I do not expect a massive boom of any kind but I do think there is potential for growth.

Catering to the needs/wants of winning regulars in today's poker economy in the hopes of growing the economy would be like catering to the needs/wants of white people in america in the hopes of increasing diversity.

I agree but that doesn't mean that some of the needs/wants of winning regulars don't co exist of the needs/wants of a recreational player.

Examples that can help grow any poker site that every player type wants:

-Software that is more attractive to the eye and easier to use

-Promotions that feel like a customer is valued. This could be targeting both low and high volume players. Could be a number of things, big tournament series, Jackpot type promotions, aggressive instant deposit bonuses, etc etc etc. Promotions that feel like a player is getting added value for simply choosing to put their money on a specific site.

-An attempt of cracking down on seating scripts/certain software and predatory behavior.

Sure, lots of reasons for a new player to play are much different than a winning regular who plays for a living/semi living. New players want excitement and the ability to earn a huge ROI for very little work. Hopefully this can be done not at the expense of making poker into more and more of a luck based game such as spin and gos on Pokerstars/all in shootouts and push fold poker on 888.

Bjsmith taking a couple of tards back to school like they'll ever learn anything