The rakeback in the future will be going to the fish but not in the form of Rakeback. It's my strong opinion that the industry leaders are all going to break away from high levels of rakeback and move towards Mission type (instant gratification) promos that in theory anyone can benefit from but in reality are targeted towards the recreational player. The VIP program on Stars will implode at the end of the year and I'd expect SNE's to have rb% go from 70% to 40% and SN players go from 40% to 25%.

The truth is Stars is already bailing on the program. Instead of a promo like receive $xx for moving up one VIP level in the Month of January we see play 10 hands and receive .60 cents equity in some free roll. This promo doesn't bring real loyalty. It's a wham bam out the door type of promo that accomplishes nothing long term and doesn't get people latched on to the VIP program. This is why I think Stars has already bailed on the VIP program as they don't feel it's sustainable long term. Other sites have already made the move and the rest will follow. Unibet has it right from the get go and have never tried to promote their site based on grinders.

This 'clever' response comes up every time a thread like this is started. You don't get it, there is a very real problem and the attitude of people like you (of which there are many) is what caused the problem to begin with.

As someone already pointed out this is short-termism in the extreme. In the end you will suffer just like everyone else but you're too stubborn and too focused on your own immediate bottom line to see this.

Exactly. And it makes it more fun imo rather than robotic play based on a database of history that you may not have even accumulated by playing someone.

The only peoples winrates that might go down are the ones who've leaned on their hud too much with a large database that again they may/may not have even accumulated by actually playing against someone.

Personally, my winrate has shot up because there's more rec players on the anonymous site and i'm playing regs who dont know how to play me without having thousands of hands on me knowing my every tendency. They have to actually play poker.

I'm not against huds nor do i think there's anything wrong with them, but i'm also not against anonymous tables or a solution that makes it impossible to have a database and only allows for huds that are only capable of gathering current table data.

This would be the dumbest thing ever, pokerstars traffic would be gone if that happened if you took away rakeback + table selecting. Unless of course the site reduces the rake then sure do away with rakeback n charge 75% less rake.

fish dont even care about rakeback.

Why wouldn't they? Being bad at poker doesnt mean they hate free money.

They'll take the "free money", which isn't free, but it isn't a bad thing to give them rakeback, however i'd suspect a lot of them dont put in the volume to make it significant enough. They're recreational and looking for entertainment for a few hours or night. Just think of how many rec players go searching for rakeback deals before signing up to a site? How many are starting threads asking about rakeback deals? Probably not many. They just want to play and get some entertainment.

Is this actually confirmed? And which other sites? I know iPoker have cut the rakeback for winners. PartyPoker have recently increased loyalty rewards for the lowest tier VIP levels.

I vote no... Banning table selection doesn't make for an authentic poker experience. If you go to a real casino you have the choice to pick what table you'd like to sit at or wait for... and if for some reason this option isn't presented you can just go to another casino's poker room and find another table.

Making the tables anonymous won't protect the fish - they still suck and good players will notice they suck and take their money, it will just cause a slight delay since a few reads will be needed - they also will notice when the table is all regs based on their solid play, and the table will just break as currently happens.

Have you ever played on an anonymous site?

anonymous also prevents scripts and huds that utilize a mined database which means even though are able to determine someone is a weak player, you can't dissect their play to the point of knowing their every move. Kind of like when you play live vs a bunch of randoms.

No, I admit I haven't.

The point I am trying to make is if the player pool has a lot of solid players already (Stars), this won't magically make the player pool soft simply by making the tables anonymous.

You are correct of course when it comes to preventing scripters from auto seating though. (not that you're wrong about the first part, just my opinion)

I agree, it would definitely take time for a site like stars to see an impact. However, i'd have to imagine you'd have a lot of mass tabling/script using regs leaving the site fairly quickly and moving to others that allow. Would really need to run the numbers to see if this would be a viable business decision for a site like stars. Obviously not in the short term, but maybe in the long term.

The HUDS allow players to play more tables. More tables open translates to more rake $$ / hr .. Why would they be motivated to ban HUDS?

For the same reason several new sites only allow 4-6 cash tables max per player. Right now the cash games are so reg fested on Stars (partly due to the table max) that people are using seating scripts to the extreme as a way to still earn a dollar that came a lot easier when the reg/rec percentage was lower. When you combine the effects of mass tablers + Seating scripts we end up with the horrible playing experience that recs have to deal with. And they don't redeposit.

With anon tables I wouldn't be opposed to allowing Huds for that session as the real value comes from long term use.

Right now the vast majority in this thread agree that cash games are horrific on Stars. But it seems no one wants to give up the very tools that have caused this environment. Wouldn't it be better to give up these tools and bring more recs back to the tables?

By independently thinking about it.

Seriously though the writing is on the wall and I predicted this 2 years ago. This past year only a small chunk was taken from the top but I believe much more is in store for us.

No, you're still wrong as my points were about the short and long term.

With table selection gone, over whatever period you care to mention, it is worse for regs in that given period.

If a site offers regular tables with table selection and then the next day they offer regular tables without table selection, then this does not increase the amount of fish playing imo. Do you really think that there are tonnes of recreational players out there thinking ''Hmmm... once poker sites remove table selection in their games, then I will redeposit there and play again''. Therefore your ''overfishing'' comment is not right at all. You are suggesting that there are fish that have quit due to the fact that other players can table select in the past. Yeah right.

So there is no new fishy deposits increased due to these changes. What does change though is that regs are forced to play more (-EV) hands vs other regs. This situation does not change whether you are looking at a short term period or a long term period.

Therefore your comments about me being worried about how this will effect things in the short term only, are wide of the mark imo.

So LOL back at you.

So you believe that when a rec player sits down and then the whole table fills around him in a nano second and when he sits out the whole table sits out has no negative effect on him?

Tables filling super quickly due to scripts might. Otherwise no.

I personally think that the cash games on Stars are brilliant right now.

A few extra fish wouldn't hurt, and a banning of scripts would be good for me personally, but other than that, the games are fine.

Everyone should be forced to play 10% of the time heads up zoom.


And badugi.

And the only form offered should be 12 game heads up zoom, and all sites not offering 12 game should be ip banned.

Of course it's worse. It's worse not being able to have all these extra edges that hobbyists don't have or care to employ.

That's not the point.

The point is, is it fun for them to be knowingly annihilated?

Next time you go to a casino, talk to some of the players who have tried playing online how they feel about it.

Only the sites can police the player pool. The best way to do it is anon/semi-anon tables IMO*

*There's also the added factor of not being embarrassed by spewing off your stack when you do it anonymously...

+1 guy's like him are the problem. Selfserving and shortsighted.