As a side-note, purely because I think it may be an interesting "puzzle.":

I'm not certain on the following, but I think it could be true, and so it somewhat nullifies the discussion on who are the most valuable players to a site:

I've hypothesized more than once before in these forums that the most valuable player could well depend on the current state of the games; the factors would include the make-up of player types, ratios of each type, total number of players, how rake is specifically calculated, etc. It may be difficult to work out precisely but by simplifying/approximating a model, the value of a certain player to a site can probably be gauged fairly accurately.

E.g. On a site/stake with few players, but mainly low volume fish, a high volume grinder could well be a great addition for a site due to the extra rake generated by the site. Whereas on a site/stake with a high ratio of pros/grinders to fish, an additional fish is going to bring in more value. Somewhere (in a simplified model) there's probably a tipping point where one player type becomes more valuable than another.

As I say, I'm not certain on the above, but often situations like these are a lot more complicated than people realise, and detailed modelling is required to come to a conclusion, and that conclusion could well turn out to be counter intuitive. Either way, even if I'm mistaken here, I still think it's unwise for people to make claims with certainty based on intuition, and what seems like it must be right, rather than considering what other factors could be present.

(I had a discussion with the old Ring Game manager at Stars sometime back on this topic, IIRC he had made comparisons with how this situation was paralleled in real life eco-systems.)

well technically BE regs are winning "poker players" but because poker should be a 0 sum game but because of rake they are losing

for example like someone who lives in a 3w country would deffo be happy making 40k/y (after SNE) which means rake stars ~140k. (SNE rakes ~182k). hence the closer someone being to BE after RB the better it is for stars.

obviously the money has to come from somewhere, which I think is your point about recs being valueable. but there's just alot of money out there right now in the poker economy right now and I think as games get tougher BE regs will becoming slightly losing and winning regs will become BE, so on so forth.

I agree with Melea though that things are tough to quantify and in certain situations this could not hold true. not here to argue though, just posting my 2c

Where did i say im moar valuable than a rec? I said im more valuable than a low volume reg with similar wr. Quite obv and hard to argue against it. So yeah, i assume my opinion matters moar than some guys opinion who plays 10k hands a months and thinks about coming to stars.

Im quite aware that any rec is way moar important than me no matter if i play 100k or 500k a month

Teh general hierachy is like rec > massgrinder low wr > low volume rec low wr

I disagree.

I believe that any one high volume grinder is more important than any one recreational player. That high volume grinder pays more rake and surely helps the site's bottom line more right?

This is potentially possible if for instance this type of situation occurs:

Let's say that in a year, $1,000 gets deposited by 20 recs onto a site, and the 5 regs win $200 or $40 each, and the site takes $800. The site rakes 80% of what is deposited. The volume of total hands remains the same over the following examples because the regs are motivated to hit the same VIP milestones each time.

If we remove one rec that deposits $50 then the total deposits is now $950, of which the site gets 81% or $769.50, (due to the slightly tougher games now, assuming the same volume of hands is played), and the 5 regs win $180.50 or $36.10 each.

Now if instead we remove one reg, then the total deposits is $1,000, but perhaps the win-rate increases of the 4 remaining regs such that they are able to win 25% of the total deposits before the money is taken by the rake, so that now the regs win $250 or $62.50 each, and the site takes $750 which is less than the $769.50 they were taking when you just removed one recreational.

The four remaining reg's win significantly more in this second example because they not only split up all of the winnings that the other reg would have had, but the remaining regs are also playing in softer games over big volume too, so it's a double gain for them.

You could argue that these figures are contrived etc. and maybe they are, I'm just trying to quantify how it might potentially be possible that losing a high volume regular is worse for a site than losing one recreational. Obviously for long-term sustainability, all types of player are needed.

Maybe this is why high volume is rewarded with the VIP system and that the regulars benefit more from the VIP system than the recs do. This is also how Stars has always thrived despite their games always being the hardest, because the harder their games are, the higher proportion of deposits get turned into rake.

stop trolling already

That's not a troll, Twatle.

Stop being so damn rude, you are not cool in the slightest. Offer up something productive or sling your hook.

An easier way to view things is look at an SNE player. They pay about $182,000 in rake to PokerStars each year.

Let's say that this player now drops out of the ecosystem. Stars is now $182,000 short in rake revenue. Where is this shortfall going to be made up from? All of the other players in the pool are going to play the same volume as normal, and with the SNE player gone, all players at those stakes that the SNE player normally played have had their win rate increased by say 0.01bb/100. If the population's win rates increase, then this means that the population as a whole win more money compared to the rake that they are paying on that money.

This is clear because at any particular stake, a 2bb/100 winner and a 4bb/100 winner both pay roughly the same in rake, (slightly dependent on play styles of course), but the guy with the higher win rate takes home a greater proportion of losing player deposits. So a higher win rate means more money withdrawn for the same level of rake revenue.

So if everyone's win rates increase by 0.01bb/100 in the above example then basically Stars lose lots of revenue if an SNE player quits. They lose a decent amount of money if an SN quits, and gradually less if a Platinum or Gold Star quit and so on.

Would Stars really reward their SNE's and SN's if they were bad for the games and a drain on the poker economy? Of course not, it's because Stars know that these players sustain the poker economy, with the proviso that these players are provided enough fishy deposits to remain profitable so that they can continue to grind.

So in a nutshell, Stars needs to keep it's biggest customers happy, and all this BS that I read from people saying ''Stars doesn't need you, you are not important and they don't owe you a living etc.'' is wrong. If Stars wants to make a good living then they need to help the grinders make a good living. Stars doesn't owe any particular individual human being a living, but they do owe the population of grinders as a whole a living.

If an SNE player grinds and earns them $182,000 in revenue a year, boy do they owe that man a living!

if fishes leave lets see how many profitable sne's will be left..

i think in any promotion, update or whatever stars first priority should always be to attract fish and recreational players

if you keep the fish happy, they keep coming >>> that makes all the regs happier

I have to agree with Doofus here, I don't really see how you guys can't see that?

yeah once the recs dissapear SNE BE/loing regs will start dissapearing, but recs aren't going to be around forever. I think you're undervaluing how bad some recs are (lossrate), how limited their incomes are, and winrates of different regulars

yeah just read Doofus tldr post and it's pretty spot on, looking at it from Stars standpoint

Damn you, I had to temp remove Pokie from my ignore list to read his post.

I'd like to believe what he wrote (not the maths part, I think that's inaccurate), and I used to believe high grinders are worth a lot to Stars. I understand though that Stars don't make much profit from their SNEs, even losing money with some of them.

Maybe they don't make as much from their SNE's as they would like because a lot of the SNE's are actually really good players with decent win rates as well as the massive amount of rakeback they get. It would certainly be better for Stars if their SNE's raked $182,000 and only broke even after rakeback. That would be a mammoth win for Stars if that ever happened, and a massive beat for the SNE.

Well, if you adjust what you were saying to apply to one specific type of SNE who doesn't exist* then you will be getting closer to a more accurate picture.

(*except Mossified, and maybe one team of Chinese players.)

You are such a clever clogs Mel with your smart-arse comments all the time.

You never seem to be able to have a normal conversation. I'm trying to imagine what kind of person you must be like in 'real life' and I just can't.

Think of someone who is imperfectly masculine and handsome, tough but also a great romantic, a caring listener, a stylish dresser, an expert cunnilinguist, and a lover of animals who does a lot of work for charity.

A kind of cross between Tim Stone and Cliff Richard*.

lol

I honestly have no sympathy for you pokie. You've spent the best part of 2 years just trolling ssfr and finally, when you decide to try and act semi normal, you're getting pissy that people aren't giving your ideas the credence that you think they deserve. Well tough ****.

You have little to no good will left here and don't think the "twatle" comment slipped by me. You have no more warnings left, 1 troll, 1 insult, hell 1 stupid comment that upsets another poster here and i'll just ban you, it doesn't matter how seriously you're taking this current issue.

That comment was in retaliation to what another poster incorrectly put. I thought you were fair?

I am, that's why you haven't been perma banned yet.

ponty in vacation mode...
can you send me to phuket, so dont have to wait untill end of march gaz

Tempted to use picture as my new avatar and description as my new tinder introduction

Ps: ok, edited tinder, that gotta be gto text

for real lol