Usually they're sitting there for the majority of the night/morning/afternoon with little to no action.

The market is speaking on this; players are not playing non-Beast/BBJ tables when given the choice.

I don't think the Beast/BBJ tables aren't going away any time soon.

It's not really a fair choice though.

Firstly, JP tables show at the top of the lists, with the regular non-JP tables at the bottom. Fish probably aren't going to spend much time trying to find a table, especially when they don't know how much rake they are contributing to the BBJ/Beast.

Secondly, the players putting in the majority of the volume, and playing the majority of the time, are the ones benefiting from the BBJ/Beast, and thus they play on the JP tables. So those tables are going to be running more frequently due to those players playing often.

So, even if players would rather play non-JP, they still want to go where there is action and where the fish are playing, which is the JP tables. Rather than sitting at the non-JP tables where it takes a while for players to sit, and most of the players are going to be other regs/semi-regs that know about the BBJ/Beast drop and don't want to pay it.

I LOVE how the new software no longer shows the little money pile of rake.

Anybody else notice that?

They changed this to ensure this.

Blatantly deceptive imho.



Zy

Of course you're right - it isn't fair, for all the reasons you mentioned.

However, this is the game that Winning is giving us and from their logic, they see full tables at the BBJ section and assume all is well and will not budge from their position in offering said tables.

They would probably argue their interpretation is that the rec players like the BBJ. So from their point of view as much as the regular player is giving the recreation player a game to play, the site is giving the regular player the recreation player to potentially win from.

It works the same way in my live casinos (both have a BBJ...when the full rake is collected $6 is coming out of the pot...at $3/$6 - $8/$16 LHE and $2/$3+ SL/NL). The rec players don't care about this extra tax because they might hit that BBJ. The reg players know the odds and would rather play at the lowest rake they can possibly get to help their win rates improve. Without those recreation players though, people are just passing rake between them and the house eventually wins (well...it does if there is not a player willing to have fun and gamble).

Another way to look the market driven idea is to take a look at the macro picture for U.S. players. What are our options right now? People can play where there is no BBJ at all. If people are unhappy with Winning, they can go elsewhere. Bovada....Merge...Revolution...

There's a very good reason Pokerstars and Full Tilt don't have gimmicky jackpots like BBJ or Beast.

If WPN doesn't want to believe the players, they should at least believe the site with the loloverwhelming majority of market share.

What's the reason? Considering U.S. players can't play there any longer...I think that doesn't make a difference.

Before they lost the U.S. market, Pokerstars/Full Tilt developed their player base through aggressive marketing, professional endorsement/branding, and television poker shows so that when people think poker they think of Pokerstars/Full Tilt. Most of the recreational players I play with in the casinos think this way. They don't even know these small sites exist (aside from the fact they wouldn't play there due to their tin foil hat issues).

For those outside the U.S., I bet Pokerstars/Full Tilt is still marketing their product pretty heavily. Party Poker has a show on U.K. television. Since they have reached critical mass, players who now play there will do so out of loyalty, games are there when they need them, and if another site says, "Try us..." they shrug and won't move because why do they need to?

Recreational players know they have a game to gamble, and regular players know they have recreational players to potentially win from.

For U.S. players? We have a very limited set of options. WPN knows it because where are we going to go? U.S. players have no leverage. Besides, who are the ones making complaints about the Beast/BBJ? Regular players who win from the recreational players and withdraw more than they deposit.

Plus, if the BBJ was dropped (maybe the Beast, I'm not sure), I'd also posit that the recreational player that they are marketing to, would probably leave. Their traffic would be less and then they would be smaller than they are already. They were very small at one point in the past (been playing there off and on since 2008...when they had 3D avatars and the buy-in for a $25NL game was $5). The mergers increased their size for sure, and I'm not going to make the fallacy by writing that the BBJ increased their size. However, they aren't going to do anything that disrupts their current marketing strategy.

I'm not a fan of the Beast/BBJ...but there are only two places I would consider playing online at right now due to cashout issues and WPN is one of them.

Because it eats away at the fish way quicker? You want the casual players to stick around as long as their bankroll can withstand, and triple raking them is not a way to do it.

Games are going to die out if their marketing can't keep bringing in new players faster than they are busting out with their triple rake.

Plus the jackpots really only benefit the regs. The extra rake is just being given to the players that aren't going anywhere.

all the beast does is garauntee that there will be 10-15 accounts with multiple people playing on them at low stakes

the bbj is understandable, it really does ensure more fish deposit and play. but the beast doesn't do anything except tilt winning regs. because grinders dont need this incentive to grind... give them some rakeback, give them 1 fish per table or so and they grind and create rake for the site.

This is easily the worst part about the beast. Think of how much money fish put into the beast. Fish usually don't auto re-buy, so by the time you stack them their stack is much smaller than it would have otherwise been.

So any "benefit" that regs are seen, is mostly mitigated by the fact that fish are getting eaten alive by the beast before the regs can get their money.

It's taking money from the fish and giving it to the regs. If you (the site) want to reward the regs for volume it should come out of your pocket, not the player base that you rely on to keep coming back.

Can you imagine if Pokerstars had a VIP system where instead of simply giving extra money to high volume players, they rake everyone extra and give that money to the high volume players? The fish wouldn't play there, the regs would be playing mostly against regs, and the games would die out very quickly.

Again, there's a reason the biggest site in the world is the biggest site in the world. They are meeting consumer demand better than any other site. Take notes.

they dont really give it to the high volume players... they give it to the highest volume player and then everyone else gets back less than 100% to pay for it

The Beast is too top heavy for sure.

Well, I just reviewed my sessions for this month, which has been a loss at $50NL. I don't mind admitting that it's mostly due to a combination of bad play and some experimentation with playing a style outside my comfort zone, so I'm not deluding myself.

This month I really stunk.

Why write this here?

I figured out the rake without the extra $.25 taken out of the pots that I won...turns out that I would be breaking right about even.

I just accepted it was bad...but not this bad...

My intentions were to play devil's advocate but I can no longer do so. Next month I have to play elsewhere.

I am Dult,why say me a bot?

You throw this out there like it's what every site should be shooting for. Lest you've forgotten, the largest US facing poker sites were shut down to Americans. As an online player since 2002 I can say that I have played on software and used sites that had far inferior products and support (Paradise, Absolute, Cake to name a few) than BCP/WPN. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but it's the best we've got and is clearly getting better.

You are bot owner,why not?
even if you do not use bots, what prevents you to invite two friends, teaching them simple strategy to play the top 10% and nits postflop.
Each one of you must play 20/3 hours a day is pretty easy...
It is a simple strategy to press 500 000 fold and earn 12k in the race.

What is most amazing poker room policy on this issue, they support the game in a few people with the same account,Bot owners or people with no life sitting on stimulants adding even more prizes in this race (daily and weekly races).

Most unfair that in fact I pay to beast jackpot from each pot and this money goes Dult and his "friends"/ bots/amphetamine zombie which in fact do not even play poker.(as 2 teams of 11 monkeys and a soccer ball does not go football)

Not all sites, just ones that want to garner huge player pools.

I don't get the relevance of your second sentence. It sounds like an excuse for WPN's ineptitude. Just because it's the best we have doesn't mean it isn't miles away from being a good poker site. It's certainly light years behind consumer demand.

This and the money they add is likely just gonna go to the top as well.

So are you going to state that only one person plays that account Dult?
One superhuman :P

It is interesting that your volume dropped off sharply last month after cellar door said you were being investigated.

I've checked out WPN, and played some freerolls on America's Cardroom.

I won't play cash games with such large jackpot rakes. I'll probably end up using my little freeroll money on tournaments, just because I don't care much about the few bucks I have and b/c playing .01/.02 means even if I get really positive variance... I make what, a few bucks?

But say I win a tournament. I'd then have a couple hundred dollars. On any site that didn't have such a crazy rake for "The Beast" I'd probably try to grind cash games. On this site, that's just not gonna happen. I'm OK with a BBJ, even though it's not my preference, but two JP rakes? With one being so top heavy it's ridiculous? That's just not good.

They should def. get rid of "The Beast." For one, it's confusing. I doubt a rec player understands it that well, and if they do, they're immediately going to recognize that it's eating up their cash. The BBJ is good for recreational players, I suppose, but The Beast is just weird. Think about it from a recreational gambler's perspective. They want a chance at winning big. That's why BBJ appeals to them. They might strike it huge for little cost. The Beast just doesn't follow that formula. There's no way it's getting them more business than it's costing.

I think that if you made the Beast less top heavy more people would accept it. If you're not in the top 17 or so, you get less than 1k and the payouts drop significantly.

If it were less top heavy, then I agree it would probably be more accepted.

Also, it seems site Reps have claimed that every one that gets paid a Beast amount contributes less to the Beast than what they are getting paid. That is, everyone making it high enough to get paid is actually profiting from the Beast. It doesn't feel that way at all. But if that is indeed the case, they should consider putting an additional stat into the page (or make it available elsewhere) showing how much each person contributed to the Beast for the month. So we can actually see how much we are contributing versus how much we are getting paid back.

I haven't been able to find a PT4 stat, or learn how to make one, that could accurately keep track of how much money I'm contributing to the beast each month. Is that possible? What sort of filtering should I do if I want to see how much I'm paying per month to the Beast (assume I'm playing on JP tables)?

just filter for hands you won after seeing a flop and multiply the total No. by the beast rake for that stake.

If it was less top heavy it would pretty much be people getting back what they put in minus 10%. That's why it's such a stupid promo. Either a few people get everyone else's money or a lot of people get their own money minus the 10% fee. Either way the house is making scummy money at no benefit to the players.

Makes sense. Wish they would scrap this crap.