Seems almost all of the talk (and rightfully so) in regards to online O8 has been about Stars/Tilt/Party etc. However, I wanted to talk about where we are in regards to the US sites, and throw out some ideas for improving games. Unless I'm somehow not in the loop, below are the 4 sites, to the best of my knowledge which offer O8 MTTs to US players, ranked, based on my opinion:

1. Bovada. Hands down the best. They offer a weekly $50 PLO8, $7k guarantee which usually sees ~175 runners, and a first place of ~$1800. In addition, they offer daily LO8, a NLO8 rebuy, a $20 NLO8 and several PLO8 MTTs. Even better, the checks arrive at your door roughly a week from cashout. One free check up to $2500 is available per month and each afterwards is $35.

2. Merge. My skin is Carbon, not sure what others are out there. They received plenty of flak from players, for being the first of the US sites to offer this 2+ hour registration/re-entry. The upside is that prize pools are always covered. A daily $33 PLO8 MTT typically has a first prize over $600, and there are, in addition, a $5 rebuy, and a $10 rebuy, not to mention a few other PLO8 MTTs. One free check per month arrives in a few weeks, and each additional check is $50.

3. Revolution. I play on Intertops, and I believe Juicy Stakes (formerly Cake) is the only other US skin, but again, not completely sure. What happened to these guys? Oh I know, Lock. Back in the day when I was grinding on Stars, they used to have a $10 PLO8 rebuy which almost always had a top prize near $700-$800. My have the times changed. The schedule is as follows now, all times PST. 12:00 a $6 rebuy, $300 GTD. This for a while was not running, but has been going as of late, with roughly 15-20 runners during the week, and $150 for 1st, with about 25 runners on weekends. 4:00, a $5 turbo rebuy, $500 GTD. This tournament typically gets the best turnout due to the time and quick structure. 6:00, $15, $300 GTD deepstack turbo. $50 per check, but P2P transfer is a nice feature.

4. Americas Card Room. I use Black Chip Poker, which used to be my skin for Merge. An interesting concept, they have On Demand tournaments. Essentially, there is open registration, and once 12 players register, a tournament starts, with registration/re-entry lasting roughly a half hour. Their only daily O8 MTT of note is a $7, $400 GTD with late registration/re-entry lasting about an hour and a half. This tournament almost always covers, leading me to wonder why more MTTs are not available. I have only used P2P transfers, but I hear cashing out is a breeze.

My main goal here is to find ways to get higher buy in and additional MTTs added to the lists. I know with the Lock player split, Revolution has taken a big hit, and I know Merge has seen similar things happen. However, these sites seem to be doing a bit better than they seemed to be earlier this year. I am frankly growing tired of emailing the sites, where I ask about adding MTTs only to be met with the standard "Thank you for your email, I'll be glad to forward this on to appropriate parties" response. Numbers have been consistent for the tournaments and I'm sure we can find ways to get more added on, any thoughts or ideas?

John

I loved the $10 Rebuy on Revolution, and I would love to see one on Bovada.

I have gone to the official Bovada forum to request this, maybe some more of you guys could also ask.

Bovada forum:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...-post-1177209/

I suggested 9 PM as there are other MTTS starting at 7:30, 8:00, and 8:30 and the quadruple up at 9:30. (I also suggested that time because I have an agreement with the wife to help her get the kids to bed before logging in to poker!)

Carbon Poker aka Merge no longer offers one free check a month. it is now one free check a year and every one that follows is a 3% fee, sigh.

lulz at that policy

It's good to see some talk about US sites. I was beginning to think this forum had turned into discussions of pretty much only RoW sites and the occasional live games.

I suppose I'll use the same format as you did:

1. Bovada is most certainly the best, but they could make so much more if they would expand their MTT schedule. I remember around last december they had some sort of promo and almost every day there was a $55 plo8 MTT. I don't think any of them had a layover or only a small one rarely maybe, so there is definitely interest already there. Might be helpful to remind them of this fact if we push for more/higher MTTs. And yes their cashouts are the best currently... came in quickly and regularly for years now, much respect for that.

2. Merge has been a bit of a nightmare for me, on my 3rd skin now...RPM and then PokerHost both shut down or something. I went against my better judgement and started up on carbon a lil over 2 months ago to get in some more volume on top of Bovada. Really disappointed to see their SNGs only go up to $11, we get nearly 20 of the $11's and $5's running simultaneously at peak hours so it's not like interest is lacking there. I think bringing back $22's and $33's should work, they would fill occasionally. Still annoyed they removed everyone's poker points too.

3. I tried Revolution a bit, also through Intertops. Seemed like a better rewards program compared to Merge and Bovada, but not sure there is enough volume or larger sng/mtt to justify having a 3rd poker window to deal with. I haven't played there in quite a few months so I'm not too informed on this one.

4. I just started an account at America's Card Room a few days ago. Disappointment set in when I saw how low the traffic is there, but it has the potential to be a fun lil site. Whoever created their SNG schedule did a very good job, I'll try to start some games there when I can.

I'll help out however I can in getting some of these US sites to recognize o8 a little more. First thing will be posting in the thread cfreaks linked above. Thanks for the thread OP, it's kinda keeping me from losing interest in the omaha/8 forum a bit.

I was really sad to see the state of PLO8 MTTs on revolution/cake decline so much. There's pretty much nothing worth playing there anymore, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $50 every time I need to cash out, so I withdrew my entire balance (yeah yeah they got their one $50) and will probably never go back. That network put food on my plate for many years

Equally sad to hear about Carbon's new policy... The schedule there is still petty good and I probably can't afford to leave it but jeez... gonna be annoying to restrict my cashouts so much.

Thank goodness Bovada is still thriving. They are life savers.

It isn't too bad these days. Probably the best it has been in a while for MTT's.

The entries are kinda high lately, but there just aren't enough MTT's. The high entries also seemed to coincide mostly with both sites extending late registration though.

The scheduling is terrible for many of them and saturday/sunday large buy-in tourneys are sorely lacking. I quit playing the saturday one on bovada when it got reduced from $33 down to an 11$ MTT quite awhile back. Only decent daily MTTs left are a couple 22's on bovada and a 33 on merge. And the only thing we have thats even close to a weekly major is the 55 on bovada, and absolutely nothing on merge. Aside from the 55 going from 5k to 7k GTD many months ago, there's been no good changes that I've seen.

I doubt it will change anytime soon, interest seems lacking. I stopped playing most of the smaller mtts and started playing sngs in place of them a few months ago myself.

I play every single o8 and plo8 tourney on bov when ever I'm grinding(about 1/4 of all my mtts in last 2 mons), ~40-50hrs a week. Bov def gives me a free 3k check (not 2500 as op said) once a month. Then each check costs I believe $50 but haven't ordered more then 1 check in a month in a few months.

I am pretty much an O8 only player so wanted to chime in on this thread.

Bovada - seems to be most people here's top choice but am I missing something? Is this not the site the went to assigning random numbers to every tourney player? If so, and unless this has been changed back, I don't understand how decent players can play there. As soon as they did this, I cashed out my entire balance because obviously, this not only makes it impossible to track stats on other players but also prohibits note-taking. Im not saying that you cannot be profitable without these 2 factors but most certainly it will cut into your profitability if you never know who you are playing against. Am I missing something here?

Merge - been playing most the the $5's, $11's and some $33's starting in around March. Went through 2 BR loads totaling about $700 in just over a month, which was perplexing, given i have/had run in the 70% ROI range on all other sites playing O8 MTT's. Finally, on what I told myself was my last shot (3rd $ load) I began to get some traction. Was up near 40% ROI for a bit but now back around 25%. Even being profitable here, there are some things that really grate on me. First, those 2.5 hour rebuy periods have GOT to go! They make the payout structure completely ridiculous, sometimes paying 40-50% of the entrants, since Carbon's lame software counts each rebuy as a separate entry. The other thing that I know will get some of you going is that it REALLY seems as though the donkey reward factor on this site is way more in play than on other sites. By this I mean there are a tremendous amount of horrible suckouts that occur at a much higher rate than they should...even for an online poker site. And of course, the vast majority of these are awarded to clueless donks who get in horribly hand after hand, yet somehow, manage to keep hitting the miracles. On Revolution, this still occurs but not at nearly the rate I notice here. I don't have enough tourneys of data to get a good analysis going yet but I would put it at at least 15-20% worse than Revolution, which as I've said, has already been proven to have this factor programmed into its RNG.

Revolution - echo the sentiment of others here about the very sad reduction in traffic since the Lock debacle. I'm still winning consistently here but it sure takes a lot longer to build up enough to make that $50 cashout fee somewhat bearable. I mostly play through Tops but still have some $ on JS, which i should just go ahead and cash out and be done with it now that they are running decent on cashout times. Pretty sad when even winning tourneys there almost never gets you even $200 any more. However, despite the lack of traffic, to me, this is still the best site for reasonably close to real odds onlineO8. Definitely better than Merge and certainly a plus over Bovada (assuming that you still cannot know who you are playing there).

Have not played at Americas nor do I plan to unless their traffic on O8 takes off dramatically.

Take a break from poker.

Variance is real homie. Even on Stars some of the best O8 MTT players have had several 1000 tournament stretches where they are break even or losing.

On Bovada...being from Canada I can also play on there and from what I have seen on the site I think you are making a mistake by not playing on it even if it is anonymous.

HI John. Glad to see plo8 has success on bovada. All i hope is that online poker will be legalised soon in all states. And i also hope that PS will buy and/or merge with bovada so that all the plo8 players come together > bigger fields and prizepools for the tourneys.

Counterfeiter

Nonsensical comment Kroebar... but then again, if you're an O8 player on any common sites as me, then I guess it makes sense that you wouldn't want me there as competition lol!

Don't let kroe bother you, he tends to make short posts with no content or explanation. He talks like the best player ever, but haven't seen him ever mention his screen names. There's quite a few like him here, just ignore them lol.

Merge is currently asking active players for input on the tourney schedule and how to improve it. Maybe if enough ask for more o8 MTTs and some weekend majors, we might get something nice. I already sent my reply back to them a few days ago. Also told them how annoying multi-entry and super late registration was for all their o8 tourneys I can see having some R/A tourneys, but what they've done is just ridiculous. My favorite had to be the 22 quad-up on bovada, late-reg <4 bb and abuse that poorly structured excuse for a tourney.

SNG are still going fairly strong though

Not to derail thread but I think Kroes comment makes perfect sense and I actually find him to be one of the most useful/helpful contributors when it comes to hand analysis on the o8 forum.

Yes Bovada is the best. If you live in Nevada or NJ Ultimate Poker has very easy 7 handed PLO/8 Sit and gos for micro stakes. Not many but they are easy to beat. Other than that Bovada is it.

How does it make perfect sense? Telling someone flatly to take a break, which to that person probably comes off as something closer to quit poker and give up basically.

When instead could've simply said variance can be a bish sometimes, learn to deal with it in a more healthy way instead of mistakenly blaming a pseudo-RNG.

Not trying to nit-pick or anything, just seen alot of this lately...more than I'd care to list. And contributing seems like an excercise in futility lately. Nothing much seems very constructive, I could be wrong though. And not trying to hate on the community, I respect a ton of them. Sadly many don't post here anymore it seems

I think it makes sense because op sounds like he needs to either take a break from poker or change his mental attitude. As someone who spends quite a bit of time talking to poker players moaning about suck outs and rigged rng's gets boring quickly.

I agree that this forum is not at its best lately but Kroe is one of the few guys who does still make the effort to offer his thoughts on hands posted which is why I made my post.

I would like to contribute more but personally I am just not great at expressing my thoughts on hands through the medium of forums.

It's true that you can't keep stats on Bovada but I find the micro stakes mtt's and sng's still soft enough you can beat them anyway.

I'm sorry if that offended you, but it's what you need to hear.

Bovada- "The players have numbers now, how can any decent players play there?" They do and they win.

Merge- "The donkey reward factor seems really high on Merge" This says a lot about you.

You seem to like Revolution, "However, despite the lack of traffic, to me, this is still the best site for reasonably close to real odds onlineO8." WOW

I'm not telling you to quit poker, or give up, I'm telling you that you aren't in the right mindset to be gambling. Blaming the sites won't get you anywhere. Sometimes breaks from poker can be the best thing for your mind. Just take a month off and see how you feel.

Thanks.

Why would I mention my screennames, no one else does? What is your Merge sn?

...and your favorite Bovada tournament is late regging the quadruple-up with less than 4 bb?

I am not sure where you get the notion that contributing to the forum is futile. Substantive posts usually get a number of good responses, and I think Buzz and I are pretty careful to keep the nonsense like the stuff in the trashcan threads out of substantive threads. Unfortunately, since Black Friday the O8 world contracted significantly. I don't see how this forum ever enjoys the level of participation it had pre-Black Friday, at least any time soon. But when low volume participants complain about the level of participation in the forum ... well, the forum is what you make of it. It's hard to criticize participating in the forum as "futile" when one does not seem to participate in the forum with any regularity. And baselessly criticizing quality regular posters like Kroe doesn't help the cause one iota.

merge sn is rrroadhouse, bovada sn is Seat 2

It's a fast tourney with very few clicks, and the broken structure makes it kinda fun oddly enough. The hyper turbo grinders would probably crush it.

I've tried to contribute a bit lately instead of just reading when tables get slow. But when regulars like daCus and broken_jia among others basically call you ******ed or beyond help, it kinda makes you question why you even contribute in the first place. Disagreements are bound to happen, but responding to it with stuff like that isn't exactly constructive or even worth the time really.