well, first of all, the USA is a representative republic, not a democracy.

You are idealistic and emotionally affected by the way things are. Common traits among the young. A good "poker player" would adjust to the situation..

a better player would adjust the situation.

^^^a even better player would slap you two for being ******s.

There's only two ways the skill difference-rake ratio can change. I would contend that the rake, as a %, hasn't changed dramatically in the last 5-7 years. If that's the case, then the skill difference must have changed.

Right, I agree with this. Of course, the skill difference could become so small that hourly win rates make it completely nonviable to play professionally. Regardless, reality is that if someone else is providing the game, there is always going to be some kind of rake.

This is interesting; it seems you have something in mind, and I'd be curious to hear what it is. If one contends that the problem is that skilled players are finding the games unbeatable, and you plan to fix this by changing the rake, it stands to reason that you'd have to charge those skilled players less rake. If you're going to do that without charging less rake overall, the only way I see it happening is by charging more to the less skilled players.

Well, I certainly don't claim to have all (or even any) of the answers. For many people, the answer seems to be simple - reduce the rake. But I don't think most people have any idea how feasible this is, or if it would entirely solve the problem. Could the sites charge half what they do now? If they can, would that always be enough? If the skill differential is small enough now that the current rake makes it unbeatable, why couldn't it become small enough that half the rake would also be a problem?

Thanks for the kind words, BTW. While I've disagreed with some of your approaches, I do enjoy the fact that I'm able to engage in respectful and engaging discussion with you.

And then there's others...

Maybe I can help you out with why you're getting such negative feedback.

There are many people here, knircky above being one of them, that feel the rake is too high. This isn't a new concept; it's been discussed on these forums for years by hundreds, if not thousands, of posters.

What you're doing is coming in and trying to convince people that rake's too high, as if it's some new concept you came up with. And your belief that others don't understand this seems to be bolstered by the language you use to discuss it - you don't come straight out and make your point, you carry on for posts and posts about things no one is comprehending. And then you take that failure to comprehend as meaning they don't understand the rake issue - they do, they just aren't following your rambling.

As for your rants about government and capitalism, we have a Politics forum (and an Economics subforum) for that.

I'm not sucking your teets so you will give my words a second thought. And those forums are not for political and governmental rants, this is news views and gossip.

What does he know about poker....MIT or not.

.

Is playing wining poker fun?

Um, OK. I didn't ask or expect you to, but I'm glad we cleared that up.

Yes, the politics forum is for political discussion. I'm sure there are rants there as well.

That's correct, which is why we don't need political rants here.

Any chance we can move back to the original topic now?

Sure...what is the formula for how hard online poker is?

let's take that and we'll compare todays game with pre bf's game. then we can have a basis to have a discussion. Until then you have a bunch of bad players making bad assumptions.

Do you have any suggestions with where to start here? Not an easy thing to quantify, but it would be awesome if we could.

FYP.

I mean, sure, many assumptions aren't going to be great. But that doesn't mean they're all bad, and until we come up with a magical formula, it's all we have. And no idea what "bad players" is supposed to mean - are you suggesting that every person who responds in this thread is a bad player?

Ya start with the formula I put up, and start developing the specifics. Eventually you will realize that we need more transparency from the sites, otherwise the players aren't privy to answering the question. That alone is important and deserves a full stop.

Its not magic

Ya we'll we can't know the answer so all these answer are speculation. I have to feel like such speculation is bleeding into their cards.

No, you see:

There is literally nothing you can say in response to negate that.

Why aren't you already in the process of doing this? Did you want other people to do your work for you?

What is your definition of already being in the process of doing it?

Are you suggesting I'm being lazy?

Yes.

1) I am not fully capable of it at the moment without further study

2) We are not privy to all the info needed

3) I don't want to be this guy

NYP.

Then STFU already! We're all tired of you repeating obvious facts over and over. It serves no purpose.

Sorry, I missed it. Link?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...kies-1.1932108

If you're just here to troll, move along.

Is it just me or are Newguy1234's pompous, unintelligible rantings just pure comedy gold. Since this thread is already off the rails, I might as well say it:

Newguy is Mikeal_DH . . .

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54...ks-itt-286949/

. . . meets MasterBrown . . .

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...proof-1289814/

. . . combined with John Nash - the later years.

Yupp, because I don't want to put enough money on current U.S. facing sites to play real stakes, I shouldn't be allowed to contribute to a discussion about rake.

Absolutely wrong. Evolution is still occurring, just not according to the same formula.

Hope you're right.