I have friends on both sides. Some of the people I talk with most aren't in the cartel. Some are but aren't happy, and then there are those who are in it and enjoy it. Please don't auto assume bias when there is no evidence to support that.

Yes, I am trying to soften the word. If you mention the word cartel to the average person, the first thought that pops into their head are people killing each other. I think that warrants softening. I'm sure the first person to use the word cartel thought it was a cool sounding word, "scarface bro" or something, and it stuck.

It's not all that important, but those are my thoughts.

If you're arguing a technical definition, that's fine, but not all that relevant when a vast majority of people will think something totally different when the word is brought up. I'm arguing realistically here, it doesn't fit.

However I am sure its an economics term. Judging from a quick glance at wikipedia, Americans might have a more negative association with the word for historical reasons.

chicagory is making pretty good job at explaining everything regarding the cartel philosophy so all I can do is agree.. hopefully people stop missconcepting the idea some day :/

ppl forget that even if there was no cartel, the same thing would have happened naturally, (actually u could say the cartel came naturally because of the crappy situation) because lobbies were getting really ridiculous with a lot of bad regs and big wait lists. I was at a point of getting 5-8 games/hr on pokerstars 200-300s. And its not anything I could do to fix it all by myself. Its just that natural way of how the game has developed. Remove these groups, who cares, everyone will keep sitting bad regs from now on after realizing how +ev it is when all working together, so all your effort to disregard cartels is pretty useless. And no its not unethical or anything, its common sense, why would I let a bad reg take my fish? why would any good reg do this?

chicagory, i checked in a dictionary and it seems that the word always has the same meaning as in the languages i know better, which is strictly an economic term. i don't think the usage of terms should be dictated by public opinion, if you want to express yourself understandably you should stick to the definition of terms. in this case, the word cartel clearly describes the collusion between competitors, it is in no way related to mafialike structures by its origin.

Blame the Mexicans and Colombians for making people associate the word cartel with mafioso connotations.

My main point is that the more you expand your argument, the more you accurately describe a cartel. What you are doing is akin to rebranding; this is something that is collusive by nature and the general public probably wouldnt react positively if they heard about it so you are trying to soften the term without changing the meaning. Cartel has a negative connotation for a reason, and that reason is because cartel-like behavior in real business is illegal.

If you want to argue that it is bad for the game to let people know about the cartels, then that is fine. If the guys in the cartels want to feel better about what they are doing, then that is fine. But to say the word is a bad choice because it carries a negative connotation is simply missing the point. It carries that connotation for a reason. If behavior perfectly fits a negative word, then that behavior is very likely negative.

Cartels are perfectly rational from an economic standpoint, my entire argument is that none of the people involved [or even those who arent involved] want to admit that what they are doing is behavior not allowed in regulated industries and are merely trying to rebrand their image to save face.

This a sponsored forum that profits mostly from husng professionals and from aspiring husng professionals. I think changing away from a word with very negative connotation in order to not scare away people would be totally reasonable.

Nothing going on is similar to unethical business practices. It's incredibly annoying for anyone who's not in, sure, but it's not unethical. Your post is the very reason we need to change the word, because your automatic reaction when you see the word cartel is that something illegal is going on.

How do you make the distinction between a good reg and a bad reg?

If taxi-drivers tried something like this it would be illegal. I dont think the comparison between the real world and the pokerworld is very fair tho.

but if the market is saturated by too many taxi drivers, then if the real good taxi drivers can form a group and aggressively take the customers from the few that are not in the group, and not apply the same behaviour amongst each other. also they get to say who is a good taxi driver and who is bad, so this is a fair system and there won't be any corruption, because it is self regulated, right?

guys do u understand, that many recs at this level aren't complete beginners and many of them read forums? how are they gonna feel about games when they browse this forum and everywhere they read how cartels are at every stake. They dont even have to read the whole thing, just like the feeling that cartel is forming and esp. the wording cartel, they will thought like wow something shady going on i dont want to get robbed by internet scam etc.

Separate financial interests are coming together to prevent outside interests from profiting in their market. That is illegal in any regulated industry in nearly any modern day economy. It isnt merely similar to unethical business practices, it is exactly the same except it isnt illegal in poker.

You can argue all you want about what connotation you would prefer your group to have but it doesnt change the fact that it operates as a cartel. Find any reasonable definition of cartel and tell me what aspect of it you disagree with.

Changing the word doesnt change the underlying practices. I am sorry that your practices align so perfectly with a word you all so clearly hate.

I agree that there's no point comparing this to the real world. We're not even businesses, we're players in a game. And fish aren't our customers, they're our competitors.

But imagine if anyone who wanted to could become a taxi driver. All the best taxi drivers would continue working but get less customers, and many people would start driving taxis for a few quick bucks, even though they are not always good drivers or well intentioned.

So all the good taxi drivers form a company, regulate who is allowed to be a taxi driver, and strongly discourage/make it impossible for people to drive with unlicensed drivers. Unethical right

taxi drivers could even form a queue outside of the airport, which is the best site to pick up customers, and have an understanding with the airport whereby no taxis from other companies are allowed to lineup.

cartels are fobidden in the economy. if they make a taxi cartel it will be closed. if someone other wants to make a cartel it will be closed, so u r wrong.
if the taxi cartel kicks all bad driver, then they increase the prizes, because they dont have competitors, then u r happy too, right? because this was necessarilly, the markt was saturated.

You probably don't want to try to lawyer this one because you are just way too off base here.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cartel

: a written agreement between belligerent nations
We are not belligerent nor are we nations

: a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices
I'd argue that we are certainly not commercial and obviously not industrial. The goal is also not to limit competition, anyone who is more skilled than the players in the cartel will not be harmed by this long term, and anyone who wants to play a husng still can just as easily. In fact there have been far more games played at 200s ever since the cartel started. The goal is to limit how often weak play other weak players, an element which has been part of husngs since their inception.

: a combination of political groups for common action
This is a kind of catch-all. Cartel can be used widely, so it's difficult to say the husngs groups are not a cartel, but this is far enough from the general understanding of the phrase that there is no point referring to it this way when introducing the concept.

Related Words: association, guild, organization, union

Any of these would be more true to the nature of the groups (and being in a guild would be awesome)

Taken from the encyclopedia:
Because cartels restrict competition and result in higher prices for consumers, they are outlawed in some countries.

A key element is that they result in higher prices. If it does not affect the customers then it is no different from being a company except we do not share profits.

Again, this is exactly why the word needs to be changed. Please explain to me what the difference between a taxi company and a taxi cartel is in your example?

People will be coming in here under the assumption that something unethical is going on and it's pretty hard to convince anyone that a 'cartel' is not unethical.

The main point is that we are players in a competitive game and not running a business.

So lets stop with all the terrible analogies and if someone thinks the word cartel should change they should explain why we should not treat poker as a competitive game.

ChuckNorris- cartels are not forbidden in the economy. They exist all over the world, legal and illegal.

A pretty big example is OPEC.

Western governments advocating free trade are basically all hypocrites. The only thing is just some economies are "freer" than others.

I agree. If some random group of taxi-drivers in a country where taxi-driving is unregulated decided to from a cartel like that (Company would clearly not be the correct word) and tell the other drivers: From now on you are not allowed to drive a taxi anymore! If we see you in the line we will work as a group together to push you out if it. If you want to become part of our group, well, too bad thats impossible unless maybe if you pay us a lot of money or if you can drive so well that it is becomes to hard for us to push you out of the line. But good luck trying! In the unlikely event we decide you are a good enough taxi-driver to be inside our group tho , no1 will care anymore how well you can drive! As long as you keep helping to push the new taxi drivers out of line we will protect you forever!

I would consider that unethical ye

^
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/13/53...-turns-violent

This analogy is really bad. For one, what poker "cartels" do does not prevent people outside of the cartels from playing poker at whatever stake they choose to play.

Ibav is making a pretty strong case for why it's ethical to have these groups.

I think its hillarious that the term Cartel/Mafia or whatever is even being mentioned in the same breath as a online poker player and even worse you are debating it

i think the question is too obvious that its hard to answer but... you play them, then judge, actually many people still play against other ppl between cartel members

honestly ill just stop posting here as its obviously useless as some people just want to see bad things in the air and theres nothing I can do to change their view.

Imo, the so named "cartels" (groups that have ALWAYS existed since beginning of poker, btw), is probably the best thing that could have happened to HUSNGs. It had some very worrying lack of competitivy reaching the point of huNL, which is absolutely dead because of this.