Why do you seriously bring in non money games when this is CLEARLY a discussion about real money poker games, cheap trick dude.

Also i never " ascribed the same motivations and interests to everone" i simply stated that a very large number of people do.

i haven't seen less than 60000 players on Stars, if they don't have big competition in online poker market so maybe there is no reason to reduce rake.

If Stars were actually going to give the amount of money they are taking off high volume players now back to low volume players who are net depositors I could understand that.

What is likely to happen however is they take $X off high volume grinders now, pocket say 50% of $X for themselves and use the other 50% of $X to lure players to casino games or the sportsbook. Absolutely horrible for poker.

I think when RIO opens they will have a good opportunity to steal some market share. Obviously grinders will open an account and while you can't talk about it to other players in the Stars chat box news of it opening and, if it is decently setup, positive reviews everywhere online as well as advertising from sites like pokernews (remember, it will be a whole new site to get affiliate $$ from, not many people left out there to open a Stars account) should get some recreational players opening accounts.

Hopefully RIO set things up well and then the community really gets behind them.

I guess that's somewhat true, however 95/5's are in incredibly short supply these days. Most recs probably fit somewhere into the 30/5-45/25 kinda range (6m) with a few outliers. Also the games will only become rec-only games if the rake is so high that no one can win.

The other big issue is that recs don't practice bankroll management, so even if they're winners in the game, they're way more likely to go broke by playing way under rolled - facilitating this by jumping up in stakes once they've made a bit of profit at their starting stake. This leads onto another point which is that recs don't like to withdraw. They like to run their money up. If they win big at poker you will often see them either jumping into bigger games (see awesome sharkscope graphs thread) or they'll take it over to casino/sportsbetting. They're not in it to make a living, they're in it to hit a win and have fun.

Also they don't play big enough volume to generate huge withdraw-worthy profits. If they win at 5bb, but only play 2k hands/month that equates to one buy-in per month.

VIP benefits are being cut by as much as 85% in a month or two. Poll is directed towards Supernovas who are significantly affected. Who's jumping ship?

Because the principles that apply to golf, candy crush, play money poker and roulette also apply to real money poker games.

There are some people who play real money poker to win money. There are some people who play golf to win money. In both cases, the group of people who can win life-sustaining money from playing the game is very small relative to the total group of players.

There are some people who play real money poker because they enjoy the mix of skill and luck. There are some people who play candy crush because they enjoy the mix of skill and luck. In both cases, the group of people who play for these reasons is probably relatively large.

There are some people who play real money poker because they enjoy the underlying game of poker. There are some people who play play money poker because they enjoy the underlying game of poker. In both cases, the group of people who play for these reasons is almost certainly huge.

There are some people who play real money poker because they enjoy risking money and gambling. There are some people who play roulette because they enjoy risking money and gambling. In both cases, I don't know how big these groups are... but they're certainly not-zero.



You made a very simple (and, I believe, a very wrong) assertion that "The day no one can make money is the day poker will die fast." No one can make money playing Candy Crush, no one can make money playing Roulette (in the long-term) and no one can make money playing play money poker - but each of those games are certainly not dying. Indeed, I believe that all three games are far more popular that real money online poker.

ron is right about rake, i dunno why ppl think regs are good for anything besides game liquidity to a site

I don't think you should use terms like rec/reg since there should always be a "best" player at the table.

Even if all the "regs" left there would be recs better than other recs right? So there is always going to be someone winning unless there isn't a player at the table that has an edge against the field greater than the rake (i.e. everyone loses). I guess that's the dream situation for them.

Yes but those players mainly couldn't be classed as regs because even though they may beat the games, they don't practice br management, are more likely to "invest" winnings in higher stake games/casino/sports betting, and are unlikely to ever withdraw because they don't play enough volume to run it up to significant amounts before.

Plus the only way a site will end up as rec only (with your "winning recs") is if the rake is so high that regs can't profit, and in this case there's will be no winners anyway.

Hard to say until changes are in effect bro, pretty sure if it gets cut by above 50% for anybody then they will move.

quite the subjective poll. Just because you keep grinding doesnt mean you think more rake is better.

Merged the poll into the main thread so the discussion won't have to be spread between the two.

In order for rio to have a chance at earning a decent market share it needs to be heavily advertised. This alone takes a tremendous amount of money. Only time will tell but I think I speak for the vast majority of people on this site when I say RIO one ****ing time

This is fine in the abstract but in the real world, when people make money, they want to make more. When they want to make more, they search how to do it. Through this they find sites like this one that will teach them how to do so. It just becomes a circular game (just like this argument is). There will always be pros along with lots and lots of players that withdraw a bunch of money.

That's about where I stopped too. It's surprising someone would choose to write on a topic that they don't understand.

a lot of posts ITT are from ppl, who don't have any clue or are just butt hurt, b/c a company took away their candy support. so someone has to be stupid, to be really surprised, that there are ppl commenting on this issue, without fully understanding it ... but jokes aside.

i guess it was just a sassy comment, b/c Ruddock has a different opinion. but if you would have read the article, you would have found some good points, though. and since this article is more an opinion, rather than a 'news', you should read it imo.

anyway ... i really want to know, what you think about the industry

leave aside, that the poker rooms see way less deposits and face higher costs. do you think a promotion like the old RB-system - which was standard, when poker rooms fought for new players - is still needed?

just from a business perspective. if you would run the show, do you need a classic RB reward, to lure in new high volume grinders? some players even only made profit due to the RB. so you pay someone for trying extra hard, and this person takes money out of the system. do you think, this is sustainable?

while the changes are definitely not easy to swallow, i'm not surprised. changes like this were made since years and PS was the room, who switched the last. if someone plays professionally and is somehow surprised, he/she must have lived under a rock.

as a positive note, there is room for small operators to grow. so i'm sure we will see some interesting new shifts in the future ... at least it doesn't get boring.

this quote is so on point that made me cum.. so ****ing true

But it doesn't quite work like that. The regs won't leave if it is still possible to beat the rake. If it becomes impossible for them to beat the rake, then they will leave. This will end up with the tables being comprised of bad recs and good recs. Obviously the good recs will be the best players at the tables, but they will not be winners because they won't beat the rake.

In theory, at the point where it's only recs left playing, a good reg could join and still win because the standard of the games is so low. In reality though, if games are "good" then too many regs will try and take advantage of this situation, resulting once more in an unbeatable game.

I'm not exactly sure how your post differs from the point made above

I'm saying that there will never be a situation where recs are winning in the games. There will either be regs that are beating them, or the game will be unbeatable.

I guess it depends on your definition of what a recreational player is.

Imho massive mistakes in the prediction:

To begin with, rationally acting regs won't quit only after they can't beat the rake anymore. They will quit roundabout when the following equation holds (just factor in all other relevant things like time flexibility, no commuting and playing in jogging pants as "joy/pain of grinding"):

Expected hourly -/+ joy/pain of grinding - discounted impact on future career (I just assume this to be negative) < Hourly in alternative profession

This should be way before games become "unbeatable" for them.

Hello Amaya Fanboy making your first post. Stars does not make money if someone logs in, he also needs to be spending money on games. Kind regards, Daddy.

P.S.: Presumably most of the things that led to their market position were either made by the old owners or due to mistakes of former competitors (hey Full Tilt).

PPS: Comparing total users of a multi game site to a former poker only site (well you didn't even compare ) is pretty clever.

Obviously what you wrote is true, but PokerStars has said in the past that the number of people logged in (the number displayed in the lobby) is almost always less than the number of seats filled at their tables.

If you're interested in comparing like-for-like over a longer period of time, then the PokerScout data is a reasonable place to start - although that data has the limitation of it focusing purely on the ring games, which doesn't include Spin + Go tournaments, MTTs, and all the Sit & Go Tournaments.

This is a pretty random statement by stars, cause ppl multitable (a lot).

I'd start by comparing #games running at different stakes (per hour or sth) or sth else that doesn't include comparing sportsbettors and blackjack players to poker.

I wonder what proportion of regs are "rational". I think a lot of currently breakeven players won't quit until a fairly long time after the changes, in the same way that plenty of long-term losing players kid themselves that their never-ending downswings are "probably just variance" and that they are "due a big score".
There will definitely be a proportion of players that change their grinding plans sooner rather than later due to the changes, but I think that thousands of average (irrational) humans will keep playing on Stars for a considerable time even when their graphs are telling them they can no longer beat the rake. The whole industry depends on these irrational people. Without them, there's no profit for the best regs or the site.

True thing

too late for edit:
Sorry I read "Pokerstars" instead of "Pokerscout", forget the above ^^