Wow that is an awesome idea. Buy a 12 pack and get entry to a freeroll.

thanks.

I havent read every post but op is on the right track imo. Actually the free tables could have prize structures for player of the month etc, so new players dont lose money but keep the games competetive, etc.

but in the real money games, the huds and data mining sites have to go.
level the playing field a bit. I'd even limit multitabling to max of 4 tables.
I know these ideas probably arent popular with some but something needs to happen.
Bigger problem is already growing which is bots as well.

Great post OP!

I play a lot of B&M (a bit of online for passing time) and have found this thread very interesting. I have a few thoughts:

B&M poker rooms are not having problems as far as I can tell. I live in Metro-Phoenix and Casino Arizona's poker room is very well attended. When I visit Las Vegas there is plenty of action there too. I haven't been to LA in a while but I think the poker rooms are packed there as well.

I think that online should try to make itself a bit more like B&M play to try and attract players. Low/moderate stakes B&M players are interested in things like Bad Beat Jackpots, splash pots, high hand promotions, etc. They come for the social interactions as well and to let loose, blow off some steam. These things aren't available online. If there were a way to add them it might help, the chatbox isn't enough. I wonder if the sites could add social networking on their web pages that players could keep open while they play and converse. B&M players that have tried online think they're getting cheated somehow and things like HUDS and tracking sites don't help.

The time factor is another thing. Online only allows a short period to make decisions and I think something has to be done about that.

Lastly, and I know I'll catch heat for this, the problem is that you're mostly talking about NLHE. NLHE is bad for the poker economy and the fact that online play is so much faster and multiple tables can be played at the same time means that the rec player is going to go broke even faster than at B&M's where they go broke fast enough as it is. The sites, and you regs, ought to think about promoting other games that don't destroy the rec players so quickly.

This 12 pack missed the mark.



But this one was closer.

The cost to play a computer game is variable as well

This is brought about by opportunity cost , is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative foregone .

E.g. I am a 18 year old tween. Instead of flipping burgers to earn extra bucks say $10 / hour , i choose to play computer game instead. So the cost of playing the computer game is actually $10 / hour.

great op.

1) What do you think the top three poker sites are doing wrong?
2) How many tables would you allow players to play?
3) Do you think PS teaching the SS strategy helped or hurt the poker world?
4) Care to share your opinions on the French and Italian markets?
5) Will your company work with FTP2?

1) What do you think the top three poker sites are doing wrong?

Spending too much on give backs to high stakes players and winners....then again PS is already addressing this...you need to give more value to smaller beginning type players to get them "hooked".

Also tournament rakes are a joke....15 bucks for the honor of playing in the Sunday Mirrion...i think thats easily halved if you streamline operations and give back some value. Really 15 bucks, REALLY>?

2) How many tables would you allow players to play?

4-6

3) Do you think PS teaching the SS strategy helped or hurt the poker world?

Ahhh, what? I think edges shrinking caused mass tabling, which in turn caused crappy game conditions, which then caused many fish to get turned off to the games.

4) Care to share your opinions on the French and Italian markets?

Yum Yum...
5) Will your company work with FTP2?

Oh, this wasnt directed at me...oh well...lol at FTP2.

Would be nice if a mod gives him an undertitle.

Quick thoughts. Bonus for best hand of the day. Promote mixed games with incentives. Collection bling rewards like Zynga. Chat quote of the day to be on Twitter. Beat the pro (Kill Phil). Poker Academy rewards (don't remind me).....

Im getting kinda bored of these poker 'utopia' fablulations...

I don't really agree with all of this, but offering a social aspect like that of xbox live would definitely help.

I've played online shooters(Counter Strike, etc) for a long time. For the longest time It was just a bunch of nerds in IRC that were playing. Then xbox live came around and tons of people were playing halo.

Most of them were playing with their friends on xbox live.
If you find a way for people to involve their friends or even compete with them they will be more interested.

The OP was entertaining but I don't understand why this thread is accepted by mods and other threads are locked.

The idea of getting online poker $$$ with beer purchases is excellent

Make the games more interactive. Include a system of advancement, a leveling system which awards play. Offer digital awards such as new skins, new avatars, custom cribs, new decks etc.. Poker is a game and it would benefit from borrowing the leveling system from Modern Warfare.

I want to see poker incorporated into World of Warcraft. Imagine a Pokerstars skin inside Azeroth. Players would gamble with their WoW gold as a painless way to learn the game. The Goblins could host a casino and offer special perks and awards to players. A similar thing could run on Second Life or other MMOs.

Live play needs to become more like online. There is no reason to have a dealer. NONE. It's a waste of the casino's time and money to have a dealer at the table. Live play needs to take the best elements of online play. Think of the money saved in overhead if they could replace all their poker dealers with interactive tables which could spit out hundreds of hands an hour. It combines the best parts of live play (social interaction) with the best of online play, hands her hour. The old regs will hate it, of course. But old people hate anything new.

...

Another solution would be to create an open source site which the players owned and all rake proceeds went to the good of the site. Kind of like your local soccer club or other non profit. Players don't actually need a Pokerstars or Partypoker in theory. You could probably lower rake by 50%+ without sacrificing security, playability or a promotions budget. The hard part would be getting it started.

The future of cash game poker, sadly, is that it becomes a house game where people just shuffle money back and forth while getting rake raped

This is obviously due to various factors, including; the government, training sites and greedy game hosting companies

The even harder part would be getting recreational players to deposit.

If any of this were true wouldnt las vegas have dried up and ceased to exist decades ago?

they only and aggressively cater to gamblers
they try do crush low stakes players with worse games/comps than HS players
they want ALL your money today, not a dribble of it.

Wow, that would be great. That's a really good idea.

I don't think so. Once you had the framework in place it would only be a matter of advertising. Lots of people would instantly recognise the benefit.
The hard part would be organising to the stage where your site is running properly, bug free, with good systems in place. You would have to get a lot of capital to get this project off the ground whether it be money or passionate people dedicated to starting it.
You would have to innovate in many areas to make it run.

Interesting post but I have a few comments.

-2x the amount of withdrawals to money raked seems completely completely off. There are very few regs who would be profiting more than rake paid at 1/2 and below and how great a % of play do these players represent (can't be much at all)? Granted, a % of deposits go towards operating costs/payment processors/marketing, etc. but the numbers you quoted just don't seem right to me at all. The number of players profiting after rake is not insigificant but the number of players profiting more money than they contribute towards the site in rake cannot be very high at all (let alone 2x as an average).

-It also seems to me that most of the donators nowadays are not "i'm going to deposit 200$ once every 6 months or deposit 500$ and try this once" sort of recreational players but are in fact semi-reg fish who are often donating a significant amount into the games (at midstakes at least). These players probably would have been considered very good 5 years ago if they played the way they do today in the environment that was then (ie. most "fish" nowadays actually aren't THAT bad they are just bad compared to the reg-filled pools we have today). Some of these players have been playing quite a while and were once "winners" who have just had the game pass them by and haven't quit (let's face it - most winning regs nowadays wouldn't be able to accurately assess and lay aside their ego to quit playing when the game does actually pass them by).

The video game like system would be much better for overall sustainability imo but I don't think it would provide by "2p2s" actually want - ie. the traditional poker model whereby losers lose big and winners win big. It would probably greatly benefit a company that managed to capitalize on the "losers lose a manageable amount similar to video game subscriptions and winners win a small amount and as a result you increase the player pool dramatically" - much like Zygna has done, even without the winners winning anything - but nobody can ever win a huge amount in the absence of mass depositers (even if you have far more the amount of small deposits that will mean more people will get a chunk of it - much in the same way microstakes runs nowadays...while nobody loses a HUGE amount, nobody is getting rich at microstakes either).

Either way, if something is to happen in this vein i think it needs to be a new company (Zygna, etc.) rising to fill a new niche - I don't think you can expect current poker sites to revamp their business plan to that degree (esp. if they are relatively profitable).