It isn't a perfect metric to be sure, but just seems to be to be the best one I can think of. If others can think of some, I would love to know what they are thinking.

This is how I check it too, except usually around midnight, not midday. There used to be 200+ nl cashgames going on at that time every night but now it peaks around 170. I do feel like it's recovered slightly from when everyone was freaking out about WorldPay, but not by much.

Summer is always a bad time for online poker, but now that WSOP is over things should tick upwards a bit. It's best in winter when nobody wants to go outside.

Definitely true (Summer) for most online entities. For poker WSOP + Summer = Doubly so

Hey, maybe Global will just tell us how business is going? How many tables are running compared to before? Maybe they'll just be up front about what is happening?


(Jk)

This. This right here.

That is why I play live or not at all for the time being. Speaking generally about all online sites available to US players: The bull****, the vagueness, the server crashes/platform freezing, paypal allowed!, woops actually nevermind no its not!, how many bots are there? Idk!, are people cramming into the same sngs to collude? Idk!, are people tanking at mtt tables to coast to money? Seems like it!, where's the fish? Idk!, why are the sites so ****ing shady and unwilling to be upfront about anything? Why would the disallowing of credit cards not be addressed before or during the change? Why is Ignition unlicensed? Why does a 4 year old maintain their software?

It's a ****ing disaster zone. A never ending string of uncertainty, misdirection or downright deception, and incompetence. I'm choosing to build a baseball betting model instead in my free time at home. I'm not dealing with this.

I think there are two kinds of poker players. Gamblers and gamers. Both can be great at the game. But I think the more you fall into the gambler category, the more willing you are to put up with the nonsesene, vagueness and incompetency.
Gamers IMO tend to demand more structure, accountability from providers.
Example would be fantasy sports... I've played since the mid 90s... and never once had a problem with payout. Never suspected a site of cheating. Collusion is usually obvious, etc. Sites are responsive, regulated, etc.

Online poker operates in this other-worldy place where we're trusting 3rd part companies to verify RNGs, trusting that funds are segregated with very little proof. Accepting when a company refuses to offer us downloadable hand histories or searchable stats. Accepting when a company refuses to let us see how other players at their sites perform.

Like you said, so much of this is done in the dark... in an inudstry well-known for fraud. You're going to have x-amount of people here who are willing to jump to their defesne regardless, and you can speculate why that is. My feeling is that most gamblers are short-term thinkers... and it's about taking down a score today. ("My win rate is good... so nothing else matters.") It's an easy trap to fall into. But, we all should have learned from Black Friday that a better goal would have been a highly regulated, transparent... sustainable model to build trust and longevity.

Look at ACR and Global right now. They're a ****ing mess. Imagine if your bank... or hospital was run like this.

So, as long as the mindset remains... "**** you you're just a fish" when someone brings up conversation about viability or transparency, this is what we get. Global lying to us about payment processing, and ACR's software crashing every 15 minutes.

The community can't agree to come together to put pressure on the companies... because short term greed is too powerful. (Forest for the trees.)

But I digress... all of this recent garbage has seemed to affect things at the tables. But, i noticed a traffic decline and a reg-heavier feel at smaller stakes developing for some time now.

I don't have a good sense of how many more or less players are on GP now from before but I do know I never have problems finding a cash table to join.

Regarding the post title - I think the player population is extremely weak at cash games and there's plenty of money to be made here. I'd say they're are way more spewy players than nits.

Today's number, 193 (an hour before the tourney)

Today's number 204 (after tourney had started)

Today's number 178 (half hour before tourney start)

Things might be looking better low cash. Last few sessions i've sat with all fresh new players. I instasmile when i open a table and i have no notes.

+1

Just last night, somebody was cursing vulgarity at a “VIP fun player” for calling loose and winning a stack.

Don’t be that guy.

1. That player is called a "fish", not this nonsense "VIP fun player" term
2. Do you think that fish are these ultra sensitive people (presumably all adults) who can't withstand some profane text?
3. Do you think that most fish are gonna see "you play too loose" or any other comment like that coming from some guy they just stacked and take it as serious advice that deserves thought, and not just some reg getting tilted?
4. VULGARITY. Oh no. My virgin ears!!!!

In my online poker experience, which is vast, many fish ENJOY the banter, tilting, ****-talking, etc., largely because it reminds them of home games and live games where this happens all the time. And I have NEVER ONCE heard, in game chat or on 2p2, some fish talking about how he's quitting because people are mean to him in chat.

Back in the day there was a massive whale on PokerStars who enjoyed limit hold 'em and high stakes nl SnGs. This is a well-known guy who has lost >5milly playing online poker. I played thousands of LHE hands with this guy. We would play these 6max games, and invariably when he would sit out, all the regs would snap sit out as well. I would curse at the regnits bumhunting in the chat and would almost always remain sitting in.

The whale clearly appreciated my PROFANE chat to the point where we became friendly and he'd give me action in spots where he wouldn't give action to others. And sometimes he'd have a choice of which game to jump in and he seemed to find his way to my table more often than not.

Another big-time fish who often tilted in chat told me straight up that he appreciated a winning player like myself would also tilt in chat and use cuss words and etc. We would get in these games where we'd start talking **** and the game opened up and then EVERYONE started talking **** and getting emotional and we'd create these awesome loose action games out of thin air, thanks largely to me.

Two legit whales clearly appreciated the tilt chat, even when it was PROFANE. And again, I have yet to ever see the opposite, where some fish complains about mean language.

Congrats, you are my first ignore on 2+2. I listen to all the crazies, but between this and your riggie BS, you don’t get even a read anymore.

This guy must have me confused with somebody else. What riggie BS? I've been dunking on rig-tards for a decade. I also haven't posted in the RNG thread in a long time.

In any case, stellar job arguing against all of my points, which were backed up with actual anecdotes and a genuine attempt to understand who poker fish are as people.

This robert_utk guy has some insanely deplorable posts on politics, so I'mma guess he's pretty stupid, which would explain his refusal to even ATTEMPT to argue with me on the actual merits of the discussion.

Didn't find the posts on politics yet, but my man has a whole lot of posts about 10nl.

Buddy, you should strongly consider listening to people who have accomplished 500x what you have in a field when those people are talking about a subject within that field. You might even learn something.

Or, you can continue to toil away in anonymity playing a bunch of 16 year olds who stole their mom's debit card. Choose your own adventure!

Cash tables are **** now.

You've got the ****ty RNG to deal with to begin with and the sustained "variance" it provides. But now you're surrounded with 100% full stack regs playing 9 tables each. It's basically the same 50 players and bots at every table.

Place is a ****ing mess, and yes... many of us are just done playing there. Cashing out profit... you know, assuming that's even possible at this point.

But just to make the shills happy, we'll stick around here and discuss our experience.

A robust part of this industry consist of those that cannot compete that linger on the rails complaining about pretty much everything. Shills tend not to mind, because a small portion of those lurkers find themselves back at the tables eventually, and most of them continue to lose and go back to their whine position on the rail.

Kind of weird that you think anyone else is upset about this process. Sure, it can be a bit eye rolling, but it is just part of the ecosystem at work. The benefit to people like you is that you get that emotional rush from whining, which is no real harm to anyone else. In the end, people like you are essentially a component of the food that feeds the industry, so continue with what you are doing and appreciate your role.

All the best.

Can someone call 911, I see a dead guy two posts above.

r/murderedbywords

lol

This will probably surprise you, as you've demonstrated thoroughly that you're a fish, but some of those full stack regs are bad players as well. Once again, a large %age of any online player pool are regfish.

I've been playing a good amount of 200 and 400nl, and despite the fact that I'm a splashy fish that's only played maybe 10k nl cash hands in my life, I can still recognize that these games are soft as hell, especially if you play multiple stakes. If you think these games are tough (or even possibly unbeatable, according to you), you're straight up bad at poker.

I feel like 200-400 nl on Global is probably roughly as soft as 25 or 50nl on Stars pre-Black Friday or some nanostakes today (minus rake considerations). If anybody played those games, let me know if my guesses are correct.

Yo I'm thinking bout moving up to 200nl. Are the games soft at that stake? Are there a lot of tough regs? Who are the best ones?