Even if Spamz is a long term winner in super turbos, that's not a point to make for keeping super turbos at their current rake structure.

You don't see what one of the top few players in a game can do in order to judge whether or not a game is good for the playerbase long term.

I think it's pretty clear that possibly only a very small group of very good players can beat these long term. If not, nobody can, and in either instance, the games need to be altered.

To a few people that missed the point, this is actually very good for FTP, as nobody really wins except the rake in those games. We're just hoping that FTP does something in the interest of the community here. After all, we do pay an absurd amount of rake compared to many other forms of poker out there, especially the high stakes players, where edges are very small these days.

Quite agreed. Though I would sooner see super turbos disappear entirely, I could live with lower rake.

Nice post mersenneary, nailed everything I wanted to say.

Also, one thing I'd really like is to cap the amount of available lobbies, like on Stars. Having 10 regs waiting for a fish @ the 105s is just ridiculous. If there was a limited amount of lobbies, those who pay attention get the lobbies when one fills up and it also encourages reg on reg action. I think a lot of regs are leaving money on the table when they wait 45 minutes for a game when they could of sat another reg who has beautiful stats but has a terrible game.

1-2 lobbies should be fine, atleast it forces the regs who really want to play to actively be there on the lobbies instead of just mindlessly registering and waiting for action. Plus, obv. more rake for the site~.

One problem I could see is if two players want to play a HU4ROLLZ or something and can't because there's already people in the lobbies. Adding a feature to create private games should of been included a while ago imo.

Please keep in mind that full tilt's primary goal is not to give a miniscule part of their playerbase (us) what *we* want, but instead to give the majority of their playerbase what they want, and secondly to take as much money from those people, as quickly as possible.

Sure, they want to keep us around as well, because individually any one of us generates far more rake than, and therefore they will absolutely do what they can to make us happy. But I think you're all deluding yourselves if you think they're going to implement changes (ie, removing superturbos) that affect their bottom line in a negative manner.

Actually, though, what I was *really* hoping somebody much smarter than me could make some very persuasive arguments, backed by facts and logical arguments, about why the rake-sucking machines (superturbos and rush poker) are actually bad for Full Tilt long in the long term, while keeping in mind that they have to have put at least *some* amount of analysis into that very topic.

By trying to sweep it all under the rug, and basically tell everybody to "stfu about all that **** please", you have failed my hopes and expectations quite miserably.

If they had a real plan for super turbo HUSNGs, they would have implemented them long before people on 2p2 asked for them. So yes, I believe that this is the case with super turbos, as they were implemented in the same way that lots of minor changes are implemented.

And yes, we asked for them. We didn't think they'd be so shallow and we didn't think they'd have such an incredibly high rake.

+1. Currently, trying to play with friends can be rather annoying and can only be accomplished by using some other method of communication (phone, AIM, Skype, etc.) to arrange a near-simultaneous join. It usually ends up like this:

Player A: "Are you ready?"
Player B: "Yeah, you sit first."
Player A: "Go!"
Player B: "Someone joined right before you sat ..."
Player A: "@#$%! That's the 4th time!"

One of the side effects of this is that we end up choosing to play $1 games against each other rather than higher stakes because we end up shove-festing the accidental games and don't want to lose too much money doing so. I for one would appreciate being able to safely arrange a $20 game or series with a friend for fun, and wouldn't mind paying the rake for the dealing service FTP provides.

I assume they are pretty close to that point on the curve. I just think (know) that the idea that lowering rake automatically means lower profits is ******ed. Also, "the people making decisions over there at Full Tilt" had figured everything out flawlessly why would they be paying an employee to sift through our feedback?

if no wins but the rake that's a casino and not good for u.s. players.

Everybody keeps saying this, but I have to wonder if it's really true. You're smarter than me, argue the point, because although this:

Is obviously true, I'm not sure that's actually counter to full-tilt's long-term interests, or that it necessarily leads to this:

This part is obviously true as well:
But I have to wonder if there are actually enough of those players to matter. Just look at the monthly ironman tournaments. Obviously some people choose to take the medals instead of the tournament entry, but the number of entries in the iron level tournament is measured in hundreds, not thousands.

i just replied to somebody saying i liked their idea.

don't come here quoting me saying i make a mockery of the thread

i pointed out 2 things that i consider very important,

abolishing superturbos in favor of another coinflip alternative that would take away less traffic from husng turbos while still generating lots of rake (alternative wich exists on other sites),

and putting a rake cap for husng like there is in cash games, giving reasons why it should be so.

that's MY feedback. period.
---

to many people here want to tell others what to think, if this is becoming a trash thread like the husng regs thread i've nothing to do with it.

Of course they don't have everything figured out "flawlessly", I just think the point needs to be made that the odds of full tilt implementing things like superturbos and rush without actually considering the long-term impacts is practically zero, so calling them "shortsighted" might be just a little bit off-base.

Of course, I could be wrong. They could all be idiots over there, simply gave us what we asked for, and are now gleefully rolling around in all the extra money it's generated in the short term. That's not completely impossible.

But yes, the idea that lowering rake automatically means lower profits is in fact ******ed. Fortunately I haven't made, or even implied, any such claim, nor do I think anybody else has.

I just don't think it's unreasonable to believe that Full Tilt has a much better idea of what's actually in their best interests long-term than we as the players do.

Rake cap is good.

They don't take $5 when one player stacks another at 50nl, but they rake $5 every time a $50 HUSNG is played.

They don't take $10 when one player stacks another at 100nl, but they rake $10 every time a $100 HUSNG is played.

Do they take $20 when a player is stacked at 200nl? They do at the $200 HUSNGs.

Yeah, cash players pay rake every hand, but that pretty much becomes a non-issue around 100NL / 200NL, because of the rake cap. Rake is still huge at $100 HUSNGs and I would imagine at the $200s where edges are even smaller.

And how much is raked when two players decide to meet at a HU cash table and "flip"? Isn't the rake cap $.50? So if two players sit down with $160 and go all in at a cash table, FTP takes $.50. If they do it at a super turbo, FTP takes $8.

The argument that it would balance out because the cash players pay rake each hand is void, as they're playing so few hands in each case that it doesn't matter. We just have two wildly different rakes for the same, basic situation.

in husng, yes it matters. try to find some $30+ games going off without regs. pretty sparse.

in FR games, maybe not.

TNixon: As FTP naturally knows the structure of its profits better than we do, I don't think I'll get into the "am I right that it is shortsighted at the expense of future profits" conversation, because either that argument is persuasive to FTP based on what they know or it's not. I think me speculating more doesn't add much. I do believe it's likely that tis is a bad plan long-term, but I'll leave it to FTP to decide that based on what they know about their business.

No way FTP takes away the HU Super turbos or even changes the rake/structure... until the idiots stop filling them like wildfire. Look at the rush ante games they were gone within a day when they had close to no players on the tables.

Bottom line FTP is making a ton of money on them and why would they care if they are beatable or not when they are the ones winning.

Ok, so basically alot of points have come up, so i'll give out my points


I've played ALOT of super turbos, I think the rake in them are absolutely absurd, and should probably be 1/10 of what it is, its v unsustainable for the community, the $ rises incredibly quickly to the top, and even more so to the site, its had a DRASTIC impact on the $110s and lower games (just look at any lobby, there are 4-10 players waiting now as opposed to 1-3 on average before super turbos), because a decent portion of the fish are jumping to $160s and under, and not to the $110s and under.


So, the rake MUST be changed, or a large portion of your player base, who I KNOW for a fact are some of the highest raking players on the site, considering when I was playing primarily on FTP I was raking 25k+/month, and nobody I know playing cash, or MTTs rakes even close to that, are going to leave your site because the games there are worsening in an extremely obvious way.




The same goes for promotions, either make promotions for us, give us more rakeback or more reward for rake per game, for instance, if you cant give promotions because of the potential to rig them, whatever (this only really applies to promotions for win X $ at HU SNG in Y time frame), then give us more FTP points per $ paid, in a way that it actually effects our rakeback in comparison to the bonus it gives players who have access to these constant promotions.



Lastly, I think the "Add Addtional Table" feature would be great, and also be innovative in comparison to other sites atm, but its a truly beneficial feature and I see almost no downside to it, but regardless, I think the aforementioned things need to be addressed first for sure.



Oh, and give us a new VIP program or a conceirge service , but first, take care of the super turbo problem, cause its awful

In essence what Super turbos are doing is "Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs".

Goose is good, and I'm sure FTP's bellies are really full right now. But later on you're going to miss those golden eggs as your steady income.

Additionally, Abolishing super turbos would be an amazing step in the right direction in promoting poker as a sport as opposed to merely facilitating degenerate gambling.

Also the FT Store is way better for U.S. players than European based players. More choice, better items, better price-quality. And yeah, efff the super-turbo´s, those are a ridiculous addition to poker. It´s basically just a flipping contest.

The issue of rake caps is interesting, though. Can we get some HU cash players to tell us how much they pay in rake per, on average?

How do you meassure their rake to compare it with us? Rake per winnings in BB? And then say 100 BB = 1 BI?

Please don't get rid of the deep HU SNGs. I <3 them very much.

Sorry, I meant to type "rake per 100 hands." Rake in bb per 100 would also be acceptable, and then we could convert it to cash at different stakes and see it compares.

Depending on the structure, SNGs can go on for like 30-150+ hands. If you're playing $100+5 reg speeds and your average game lasts 80 hands, you're paying $6.25 per 100 hands, on average. At $200+10, that would be $12.5 per 100 hands.

Let's get some numbers from people with HEM, and see how much rake the cash guys pay and how many hands the average SNG is for turbos and regular speeds. I feel like most of my games at the turbos have been 30-40 hands long, but I'm not sure as I don't have HEM/PT3. Even as much as 60 (which seems a bit high, really) hands per game at the turbos would mean $8.33/100 hands at the $110+5 games.

I never realized how huge the rake is HU.

this is a very very very good post. FTPDoug, please read this.

i would add one more idea. it would be cool to have the option to change stakes in a rematch with an opponent. say you are playing someone for $55+2.50 if you both want to rematch for 110+5 instead, you should be able to do that without having to move to another table and hope that your opponent follows you.

And don't forget that each player is paying rake, so double the amounts and you have FTP's cut: $16.66/100h using a rather large estimate of 60h/game at the $110+5 games.