Great post, Shane.
I would say that I was basically in the same category as OP when I started, although I started playing in 2007 and had little/no willingness to lose any money. So I read basic strategy first, deposited $50 and started at the lowest stakes SNGs on Bodog, which I read was the softest site. Learned, started grinding it up for a while, switched to cash games, wasted too much time playing and then cashed out everything so I could actually finish my dissertation.
If I didn't think online poker was beatable, I never would have deposited. Like OP, if I can work on my game, improve and make a little money on the side and feel like I have the potential to someday be a good (not great) player, I will be a lifetime customer. Black Friday, family and job have thrown a wrench in online play for me, But I still play live when I can. In the 4 years I played online, I literally profited $630. But I improved, I enjoyed playing, probably paid at least $5000 in rake. Also, I appreciated the sites hosting the games and I effectively marketed them to my friends and family.

The key question is "how many rec players like OP and me are there" and is it worth it for online sites to cater to long-term, breakeven-ish rec players?

interesting read.

only playing 13 months, yet you have the savvy about hems, winrate etc, you might just be in the bad side of variance.

some pros go on longer downturns than 13 months.

Really solid post.

Is OP a recreational player? I'd call him a very serious amateur but I don't think it's out of line to call him a recreational player.

That aside, he brings up an important point. How much does poker benefit from being a game where it's possible to win over the long term? What are the long term implications of poker shifting to a game where fewer and fewer players will win over the longer term?

I'm genuinely disappointed that the OP isn't longer. Such a damn good post

+1

The allure of online poker is that it's beatable. Even the most degenerate recreational players believe they have an edge, and they're playing with the intention of winning money. This is less true for live players in casinos obviously.

What OP is missing, though, is that while he's a recreational player, he's pretty intelligent, informed and engaged relative to the average. The vast majority of recreational players depositing $25 every few months (with the intention of skillfully winning money) won't even notice the rake changes. Yeah, recs want to win money, but that doesn't mean any of them are drawing the same conclusions OP is wrt how beatable online poker is.

OP has done an excellent job of highlighting the ambiguity of the term "rec". We need start depolarizing the range of player labels and start referring to players in a wider, merged range i.e. Pro, Amateur, Serious, Casual, Novice, etc..

i think its the main attraction. i play poker but i hate gambling, im sure its the samething for a lot of people. i went to casino 3-4 times long time ago just to try few games and i quit for life because i know its EV- games.

i play poker because i know it can be EV+

i dont think they are all complete dumb gamblers.

since the first day i played, few years ago when a was a complete rec, the main annoying thing i see its when you register in a 1,50$ HUSNG and you see that you only can win 2,73$. its really annoying.

you play 7-8-9-10 HUSNG and you win like 6/10. you are tired, you think you will make a tiny profit but finally you see that you lost fkn 32 cents because of fkn high rake. its annoying.

Amen! Ive played since 2009 got about 360K in VPP dont know how much rake that is? But had no choice but to close my account @Pstars..

If you can't spot the fish at the table, you are the fish at the table.

I play micros, but last week I accidentally registered for an MTT with ten times my normal buy-in (on my tablet, I read the rake amount as the buy in). I didn't cash but I thought the players were really no better than at my buy-in level. One guy cold-called an all in with ten high.

At one time Dutch Boyd had a rake-free poker site, which presumably didn't get off the ground as his reputation was already trash by this point. Anyone know what was the business model for it was though?

He loses and keeps depositing, so yeah he's a rec, he got platinum? so what? is he not a rec because of that? Any fish degening on mid stakes NL can get there, besides 300.000 Hs is not that big for someone who enjoyed playing over the years. He uses HEM, big deal


Btw loved the post OP, been saying this for a whole time, friends of mine say it as well, stop calling people re tarded. +1

Thank you OP for an interesting read - glad I took the time.

Great post - cheers Shane

OP was a very good read.

Since I can't play on PokerStars anymore I haven't been following the details closely other than skimming through the various threads on here.

If what everyone here is saying that the message from Stars is don't play poker to win money, play for fun... that's a very troubling change.

Moneymaker winning the WSOP was a big boon to PokerStars. Not just Moneymaker but the sometimes implicit, sometimes direct message through advertising and other marketing has been play poker and win a lot of money. The touted their pros success, showed commercials of people winning big pots, etc. The message was always come to PokerStars for a chance to win money.

When a company makes a complete 180 turn it usually doesn't turn out well.

It's never seemed right to me for rake to be higher than what a reasonable winning player could achieve. It's like there's 12 players at a 6max table except 6 of them win far more than anyone else at the table and never risk losing.

Great post long time fish,deposit donkey,we just want to win sometimes and have some fun

well said Kiwi-san

I think the word we have for you is "amateur", if you play 300k hands in a year I don't think I can call you recreational anymore. Some amateurs are better than some professionals and the only real distinction is that these amateurs don't have poker as their primary source of income to rely on. I think with "recreational" we mean something closer to the father of 3 kids who logs in on sunday to one-table the sunday storm or something.

Great post, Shane.

We needed someone to say something to contradict thoughts like...
It's really patronising to portray losing players as "action junkies" that don't care about losing. Of COURSE they care.
I'm not exactly sure how you define "truly recreational and degenerate", but I'm pretty sure it's a tiny proportion of the player pool.

People spend money playing poker instead of lottery scratch cards because poker is a skill game that offers an ability to affect the odds of winning. That's what creates the entertainment value. As poker players, we should be very critical of sites introducing games (like SaGs) that remove the ability to affect the outcome. "Lottery games" are almost certainly bad for regs and recreationals, and everyone should be against the trend towards them.

Brother in law earns OK salary and plays poker to try and win money (when my sister lets him). Will usually deposit around $100 few times a month with a few whiskys to play NL50/100 zoom.

He hardly knows the hand rankings, has never heard of any kind of strategy and thinks nothing of shoving 150BB into a 3BB pot with ace high because "he doesn't have it". He thinks Chris Ferguson is the best player in the world. He bluffs 1BB on the river into a 200BB pot. I doubt he knows rake exists, let alone Huds and seating scripts. He's never opened more than one table. He still sits at the original table design, in the top right hand corner, using a 4 colour deck. He laughs when he wins pots with nothing and then tries to show his 8 high before the next hand.

He has fun, sometimes wins (when he sucks out) and deludes himself into thinking he is a good/winning player. I don't think he's ever cashed out.

The OP makes good points obv, but the above is what I think of when I imagine a true "rec" player.

You don't sound like a recreational player either.

Great post OP. I have often found that many "fish" using the chatbox are far more intelligent than common knowledge might indicate.

This is the root of almost every disagreement so far itt. You should probably go even further than what you suggest and create exact categories by wr then create sub categories within those for hours spent improving and maybe level of natural talent.

The problem is these threads seem to completely lack the precise data that every poker room no doubt has and it leads to pointless speculation and unresolvable debate when its clear most of these questions can be accurately answered with the right data.

no, OP is making mistakes in his logic imo

obv a site uses the 'win phrase' to get customers. and sure, everyone likes to win. but the truth is, that most of the players don't care. they play for fun! recs comes from recreational or recreation. according to oxford dict:

you won't find any recs on 2+2. fishes, donks or loosers? of course, but no recs!

why are there sites like zynga out there? people pay money for virtual chips ... sure they can 'win', but it's for pure enjoyment!


the funny thing is, that a few weeks ago, this was the major argument from most of the winning players. if you asked them, "hey you're taking money away from other people", it was like "they don't care", "they deserve it" or "they could play better".

it was "I DONT CARE FOR FISH" all over. but now some loosing player shows up, writes an long rant and just b/c he says the obvious thing (more rake sucks), everyone cheers and thinks this proofs anything

the guy says he's a looser at O8 and badugi ... did they increase the rake there?

there where similar threads before and it was like "hey get better or keep depositing!"


even this is the main thing, it's not the solution ... other sites maybe softer, but for how long? for small sites it takes only a handful of regs to make the games unbeatable. if small sites have big winners, then they will change the rules (e.g. raise the rake, cancel specific games) b/c they need the money!

truth is, that recs are the majority AND that recs bring the money into the system. but as long the masses of fishes don't follow you, a mass exodus of 2+2 to any other platform is only fun for a few weeks.

get rid of the illusion, that if you're a winner now (or before the rake increase), you will be a winner forever or that you have any given rights to be a winner. regs will donate or leave, maybe games or specific limits will dry out, but the recs stay and so there will be still some players, who can make money.

Hi everyone.
Hi everyone.
Thanks for reading it, sorry it was long, but I had read through basically every thread I could find on the matter and read every news story before I wanted to reply. Get my thoughts straight. By the time I did, I had a fair bit to say as you can see.

As regards to me being a "rec" player or not while having HEM, understanding bb/100, playing 300,000 hands etc my statement would be this: I came to this forum and others to learn basic skills/rules of poker, and didn`t understand a damm thing you guys were saying.

Raise from UTG? Where the hell is that? Ultra Turbo Germany? 3-bet? Is that like 3 bucks?
So I had to look it up.

I also got HEM because, hey, thats what the ads and all you guys say on the "how to learn poker" forums for noobs right? Find a thread for beginners here on how to improve your game where someone DOESN`T proclaim having it as an imperative eventually.

300,000 hands? Commuting in Japan every day. You`d have a looooooot of time to play cards too.

I personally class myself as a "rec" player because I play recreationally, with no thought of being professional, because I know I shouldn`t drink and play Badugi but damm it, it`s fun, because I`m playing O8 for the lulz at stakes that are too high and I`m terrible at it..... It all IS recreation. I AM a "recreational player". Look at my other posts. I think I had a meltdown about variance and my QQ hands getting cracked at some point.

But I don`t think the definition of a "recreational player" should be shorthand for "people who play poker with absolutely no desire to get any better", do you? And therein lies the rub, because I (personally) believe that is EXACTLY how Mr Negreanu and Amaya want to see us.

Think about it. Their Wikipedia page claims they had 50 MILLION players as of 2012. How many of those 50 million originally opened a/c`s are still active or play even a couple of times a year? 3 Million? 5 Million max? Why did those other 45 Million people quit forever? I promise you it`s not because they won anything. What other business out there can have a 95% attrition rate of their customers and yet be a "market leader" to the point of having a strong enough monopoly that they can tell their remaining customers they are secretly raising prices and to get bent and leave if they don`t like it? And be the industry SUCCESS STORY? It`s crazy-land. Down is up. Up is down. Holy crap.

People in Amaya and even on this forum are claiming Spin`n`Gos are popular with the "rec" players, the "fish", the "donks" because we all are just gambling. Thats what the rec players want right? To gamble. Rec players WON`T EVEN NOTICE rake increases right? That is the prevailing wisdom. EVERYTHING that comes out of Amaya`s hole right now is in that direction.

How about this instead? They are popular because the average rec player knows they are literally the only way for them to win anything serious on Poker Stars ever, either to cash out or to build a bankroll for Poker. Deposit 50 bucks, work your way up from 2NL to 100NL, build a bank roll? Don`t make me laugh. Utter pipe dream for 99.9% of those "50 Million" a/cs opened. Poker books and forums pushing that line may as well be selling "Lose 30kgs with this one crazy trick" advice instead nowadays. "5 Pick Up lines that will make her wild! Oh, and you can win 3bb/100 on 25NL with a bit of time and application." Hah.

I`m in Osaka, I know 7 people here with PS a/c`s and another group of 5 guys in Nagoya. We play together live sometimes. That`s 13 people, and out of them all, I am the ONLY ONE who plays more than once in a blue moon. Everyone else stopped. You know why? It`s wasn`t because of a lack of Spin`n`Gos in the past, I promise you that. No, they quit because NO-ONE could win. Wouldn`t it be cooler if 3-4 of us out of those 13 guys were winning $50-$100 bucks a month? Or even breaking even? Wouldn`t that encourage everyone? Wouldn`t that help attract new people through simple word-of-mouth?

It`s disingenuous of Amaya to claim they are trying to attract "rec" players and for Mr Negreanu to claim the impediment to getting more of us and for us having fun is the "winning" players on Poker Stars. It removes any discussion of their own culpability in the lack of recreational players. It removes all discussion about why 90% of any of their new customers quit after a year. It makes a whole bunch of assumptions about what it is that will attract us, all leading to the destination "YOU. Regular players. It`s your fault. We`ve got NOTHING to do with it. Everyone pay more. Shut up." It`s SUCH short term thinking.

What does a new beginning "rec" player have to look forward to exactly? Utterly unbeatable games, even at the lowest limits, losing over and over and over and over, with the slimmest possibility of maybe getting 3bb/100 if he/she is AWESOME at poker, while the website itself is taking 4 times that much right off the bat. Oh, and cash-out and deposit fees too now. How does that sound? Fun? Not exactly "Moneymaker" is it? It`s "lets screw the new customers for as much as we possibly can as fast as we can and move on".

In Japan, they call it a "bicycle business" in as much as you have to keep pedaling like mad to remain afloat and your business model depends on attracting a new supply of customers constantly. Their continued survival depends on getting everyone in the U.S back in the game it seems. O.k, then what? What happens after everyone there sees how impossible it is to ever win? China? Mars?

Poker Stars thinks rec players don`t care about rake. Because Poker Stars didn`t mail me and tell me it was going up.

Poker Stars thinks I don`t care about deposit fees. Because Poker Stars didn`t mail me about those either.

That`s just simply insulting. They have some weird ideas about the price elasticity of their product I guess. They figure, to rec players, poker is basically comparable to heroin it seems. Us losing players can`t get enough right? It would seem 45 million quitting hasn`t got the message home to them yet.

Poker Stars thinks they are in competition with bricks and mortar casinos and should therefore charge like those places do.

Wrong again. When I go to a casino, once every 3-4 years, I go with a group of my friends, sit down at a crazy high buy-in poker or blackjack table with a bunch of free drinks and go mad. It`s an event, a holiday, a bunch of money I`m totally expecting to lose. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I don`t. I`m not keeping records.

But when I play on Poker Stars, I`m quietly trying to play a game to the best of my ability in my home (unless I`m not, 3% of the time....see Badugi above.... CIV 5? Or Poker? Chess? Or Poker? Warhammer? Or Poker? Lets see....which ones out of those treats me like a total degen, raises their prices behind my back and encourages me to play to lose. And seems to feel offended if I want to learn to play better.....hmmmmm......hmmmmmm......

Here`s the cycle. Raise already eye-watering rake, redistribute rake randomly to player pool through stupid All-in tournaments and gambling games, rake it again when it comes back through, redistribute again, ad infinitum until poker site has all of it. Pretend rake is insignificant to people`s enjoyment of the game. Throw hands in air. "What can be done?! It wasn`t me guvvner. Honest. It was them winning regs. They kilt pokaz."

And finally Mr Negranoid, winning players make more than Poker Stars do? Really? You are claiming the "winning players" who are "killing poker" withdrew more than 400 million dollars from the poker economy through Poker Stars cashouts in 2014? Speechless. Fxxk, you think we`re all idiots.

Sorry, my rant is over, I promise. I`m going back to being a reader not a poster.

Good post OP. Two points I want to discuss:

1. The idea that "rec" players are just mega whales who deposit get drunk and fling money around is ridiculous. It's not roulette, people enjoying reading strategy and thinking through hands the "rec" just tend to make mistakes. Having HEM and playing 300k hands doesn't mean you aren't a rec player

2. The biggest issue for me with this whole amaya thing is they aren't making the changes clear and giving people a chance to make a free and open decision. If you don't use 2+2 how would you know about the conversion fees? I don't see it in the cashier and no news was released in the client. Also if they doubled rake in cash games how could anyone know? Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see anywhere in the client it telling us about the rake in cash games. This seems like exactly the kind of thing the UK Gambling Commission should be pushing onto sites and the kind of change we can reasonably ask for rather than just planning sit outs when regs dont make stars money anyway