how many players are going to go to FTP after everything that has happened? surely whatever bonus/promotion they offer the name "Full Tilt" is DIRT.

I'm sure most regs will recognize that this is a new company.
I'm sure most new to FTP fish won't have a clue what's happened judging by the continued existence of UB/AP pre-BF.
They'll lose some old fish who are going to paint old and new FTP as shaddy as a whole due to inexplicably having their money tied up for so long, but then again it's probably relatively small amounts per fish.

So it's really going to depend on what kind of rb deal + vip system they set up to get regs back there and get games running. I can certainly see people moving back there if they honor old FTP Iron Man and Black Card statuses plus have comparable rb to Stars that doesn't take a whole freaking year to work up.

On the off chance GBT or anyone ffrom Stars is reading any of this in planning their rewards program this would be my dream system:

• Remove the affiliate requirement for rb and set it up as a Stars-like VPP/FPP type point system using multipliers. Rakeback site-wide. I don't care which method they choose as long as it comes out to the effective percentages below when compared to Dealt for the average reg.
  
  
• Points have specific value based on your VIP level. That means High volume players pay less than Low volume players pay for the same store item.
  
  
• Allow players to spend points on cash or bonuses with cash being a 10% reduction to encourage people to clear incremental bonuses instead of running with the money. $450 cash or $500 bonus at a reasonable 4:1 clearance rate being paid out in 10% increments for the same number of points, similar to Party but not as drastic a difference as they have.
  
  
• Set up the cash/bonus reward items according to how often your specific tier customers would probably like an influx of cash. Give lower level tiers a bonus they could cash in based on the points they are required to earn every 1-2 weeks, give high level tiers a bonus they can cash in every 2-4 weeks based on their requirements.
  
  
• Low volume tiers run monthly. 25-35% based on best bonus value.
  
  
• High volume tiers run quarterly. 35-65% based on best bonus value. Annual is a huge drag and in GBT's case would be a major mistake starting from scratch imo. Also note that daily requirements like the Iron Man model are an even bigger drag since I feel like I'm chained to my computer and is actually what drove me away from FTP in the first place.
  
  
• Multipliers and any sort of volume based bonuses are incremental. For example: if you get a 2x multiplier at 100k points and a 3x multiplier and $1000 bonus at 200k points, break it up into smaller chunks to give people incentive to keep playing instead of that extra volume actually decreasing their rb% the way getting stuck between milestones on Stars does when the clock runs out. For this example: 10k point sections 2.1x + $100, 2.2x +$100, 2.3x +$100...
  
  
• Max table limit set to 16 to start with. Have a goal to maintain a reg:fish seat ratio between 4:1 and 4.5:1 using a cross section of players from 50NL-200NL and 25PLO-100PLO as this is where the biggest shift in ratios from micros to midstakes tends to happen ime. This is simple algebra if you have the data. Reserve the right to increase or decrease the number of max tables by one every 6 months in order to guide the player pool towards that ratio.

Really dislike the idea of your VIP system.
Let Stars be Stars and Full Tilt be Full Tilt.

One of the reasons I will instantly be going back to full tilt is their relatively fixed RB percentages.
On Full tilt every grinder got between 30-36% RB (27% + the points (not counting iron man)).
Unlike Stars were the RB varies from 19-63%.

On Stars I cannot compete with a fair chance against those who are supernova elites. Therefor I cannot play the higher games (SNG).
Since it is so reg filled everyone lose money or breakeven from the games, but those who get 63% RB can still make a profit, forcing people like me not to play the higher games.

On full tilt it is pretty equal for everyone and that is why I love full tilt and really do not want them to destroy their system and make it as crappy as stars which mostly only serves the full time grinders and not part time grinders like myself...

On Full Tilt my average daily rake was more than double as high as it is now on Stars.

I agree with Aeis.

Another thing is, that you got most of your RB weekly.

But I dont think ( and hope) that new FT will copy the bonus system from Stars.
You got much more RB on FT when you dont play a high volume.

Interesting point. This is from a cash game perspective where softness is largely based on max tables allowed. I didn't realize that high rakeback % was bad for SNGs.

From what I understand SNGs don't have a max on tables on Stars and you end up with guys that run like 30+. I am a cash mass tabler myself but I'm a strong believer that lowering max tables would increase game quality drastically.

By comparison do you think SNG quality would improve if they capped it at 24 tables? And do you think it would improve further if they then lowered it to 16?

High rakeback being bad for the games ? I highly doubt that.

I always hated Full Tilt's system - especially forcing people to play almost every day for Iron Man. It really sucks badly for those having a job. You're getting home from the office late at night, are very tired - but are forced to play one hour of poker. Why wouldn't you be allowed to simply play 6 hours on Saturday ?

On Stars, you can make SuperNova by playing exclusively on the weekends if you're playing high enough. And once you are SN, everything is very relaxed due to that extra month where you don't have to play at all to maintain your status.

And the non-linear RB % - well, that's a strong incentive to keep playing on the site if you made SN, but can't reach SNE.

No offence, but how much rakeback other players get has no impact whatsoever on your profit from the game.
The reason you're not making money is probably just that you're not good enough.

Capping number of tables does nothing except **** with the people who have spent a long time learning to play so many.
Also, if forced to play less tables, lots of mediocre regs (like myself lol) would be forced to LEARN how to play better, and higher, in order to make the same amount of money.

That is by no means good for the games.
You're better off with 100 masstabling robots than with 30 winning regs or w/e.


The table CAP is ridiculous, especially for SNG, and was the main reason why I (and many other Stars SNG regs i imagine) didnt play on fulltilt.

Other than that, I like your VIP system suggestions. As closer to stars, the better imo, but yeh quarterly instead of yearly would be good.

^ Can you please explain how the max number of tables has nothing to do with softness after taking a look at the following as it pertains to cash or SNGs if regs were all playing the max while fish played 2:

10 regs, 50 fish. 40 table cap.
400 reg seats, 100 fish seats = 500 seats.
4 regs : 1 fish.

10 regs, 50 fish. 20 table cap.
200 reg seats, 100 fish seats = 300 seats.
2 regs : 1 fish.

10 regs, 50 fish. 10 table cap.
100 reg seats, 100 fish seats = 200 seats.
1 reg : 1 fish.

After considering this, would you hypothetically want to play on a site that had unlimited max tables where fish played 2 and regs were physically capable of playing 200?
Would you not agree that at some point a balance needs to be forced onto the player pool by the site by capping tables?

As a secondary question: Why exactly is it that all of the small euro sites are consistently considered softer than Stars even though Stars has 95% of the industry's advertising dollars?

No offence but maybe I should have explained it more detailed so even the weaker minds would understand.
On full tilt the higher stakes regs also have to watch the games so they are not 7 out of 9 good regs and 2 is ok players. Since everyone only get 36% RB.
Example:
Say that every reg lose a 3.64$ from a 110+9 game. But with 36% RB they all break even (36%*9 = 3.64).
So on full tilt the regs have to be equally careful when registering because they all lose profit at the same time if they got equal skill.

On stars the regs that have 20% RB would lose money in a game like this. 16%*9 = 1.44$ loss.
So a Goldstar is losing 1.44$ every game.
The SuperNovaElite on the other hand with 63% RB: 63-36 = 27%
27%*9 = 2.43 profit.
Here you can clearly see that everyone below 36% RB will lose money in this game while the SNE will actually gain money. The result is that the smart players who are not atleast supernova stays away from those games.
And I am not interested in hearing that I suck anyway. Because it is not relevant for the discussion.

Now you must also be able to understand what I am talking about. And if you don't I will assume you are trolling and wont bother with you anymore since I am sure everyone else and pokerstars do understand.

Most people don't play more than 24 tables so don't think it would make that much of a difference.
16 would probably be more noticable though but still not all that big difference I think except in the lower stakes probably.

For stakes above 60$ the games softness would increase the most if the rakeback was the same for everyone. Then the Supernova Elites cannot ninja reg the 3 last spots in a SNG. Making me and other non-SNE go out with a loss due to a low RB percentage while they make a profit due to a high RB percentage.
Well what is actually happening is that I and probably others also don't even register for the higher games since it is not worth the focus to sit there and watch the lobby so that it doesn't get filled with SNE.

As to your first question, your hypothesis doesn't reflect at all on the current situation. (at stars obv)

First of all, the majority of regulars don't play that many tables.
There's only a small % that actually plays 20-25, and only a few that play more (40ish).
So all your hypothesis of fish-reg ratio don't compare to any form of the current situation at all, unless you were to put table cap at 8 or w/e.
Table cap at 24 would just screw over the players who learned to make a living mostly by playing alot of tables.

2nd, in most games, there aren't enough games running (especially at higher buyins but sometimes accross the board) to play more than 24 tables anyway.
Forcing the regs that want to play 40 tables to combine buyins and even different formats. (18+45+180s for example), causing their level of play to drop even more.

3rd, fishy/starting/lowbuyin regs see icons playing bunch of tables (boku for ex) and start playing more as well. This causes a trend of alot of regs who aren't up to it, trying to play as many tables as they can too fast, causing their game to drop in skill, if it even was good enough to begin with for some/all of the games they're combining.

4th, playing alot of tables with moderate winrate (or slightly negative) gives people a false sense of security in the high hourly their achieving, without the need for improving their game and/or moving up.

Alot of massmultitabling regs actually are fishies for the good regs who know how to abuse them, limiting the number of tables they play would make the games actually tougher, as they probably would learn to play poker properly.

5th, without regs, no games. fish lose interest if they have to wait too long for a game to start. for example: >60$ 45mans (scrapped in the meantime), >10$ nonturbo 180s (scrapped), high buyin 90 nonturbo's (scrapped i think), high buyin nonturbo 18/27 (dont even exist/scrapped i think)


As for your second question,
imo it's a combination of ALL of the below:
- crappy software
- gambling part of the site
- not enough games running
- crappy structures lowering edges for most regs
- not such trustworthy image
- table cap (some sites i guess)

All of these are reasons why regs stay away.
Regs staying away is also the reason those sites make a ****load less money than Stars.

It's simply easier/better to get a higher hourly playing in 'tougher' games (if thats what u say at least, dunno) at Stars without all the above disadvantages, than playing a few more fish on Eurosites.

What you're suggesting, a table cap, is exactly one of the reasons why stars has the SNG monopoly (at least MTTSNG), and always will, unless a new/other site comes up with solutions for most of the above.

The site closest to Stars in SNG action was Fulltilt, and because of table cap they were never able to come anywhere close to Stars.

You seem to be under the illusion that all regs are the same, and that you are automatically of equal skill level than those regs at any buyin, and that none of them make any money of of eachothers backs.

This is not the case.

Furthermore, unlike Fulltilt (where the rakeback policy was incredibly unfair and random), Stars has a VIP system available to everyone.

Those who have 58% rakeback with their SNE, have put alot of work, time and effort into achieving it, and deserve all the rewards they get.
You have equal opportunity as all those people to achieve the same amount of rakeback, something which was not possible at Fulltilt.


Furthermore, if you're not breaking even after rakeback, but seem to think you have the same skill level as the SNE players on the higher buyin levels, it's most likely more +EV for you to play lower buyins anyway, which will be softer games, and were you will win BEFORE rakeback, and probably alot more $/game is possible, as well as higher hourly.

So even if what you're saying would make sense, you would be wrong in complaining, as the SNE's are forcing you to play the games most profitable to you.


Also, if I'm not mistaken, rakeback% at Fulltilt was only 27% (which is basically lower than almost every other site), not 36%. And they were real *******s in subtracting everything they possibly could before paying it to you.
For example, points usage, email communication with support team, bonuses, etc were all subtracted before paying the player, in case you didn't know this.

I'm not under any illusion. Every reg is assumed to be the same in my example for explaining purposes.
Whether it is fair or not in the long run is up to Stars and Full tilt to decide. But in the short run those who got the higher rakeback got an unfair advantage.
Where it is most profitable for me to play is irrelevant for this. I don't know if you are just trying to take the argument away from the real thing or just not smart enough to realise it is not relevant.

And wrong again on the full tilt RB.
I already explained this in the post above but you seem to be having trouble with reading comprehension or again (what is this, the third time you cannot understand?) or are not smart enough.
RB + full tilt point (double or triple FT points because of black card) I assumed for explaining purposes to be around 36% on average but like I already said it varies, and this is also not counting iron man.
You really seem to have no clue about anything. No clue and a strong opinion doesn't match very well imo. Please stop trolling/being stupid now.

I knew it was pointless to try to explain you anything, why do I even bother to begin with...

Sigh.
Goodday sir, all the best.