I know plenty of players who have an infinite bankroll because they don't play above their means and have a constant source of monthy income but I am still looking for the game where one guy ends up with all the money and the house gets zero rake. I think the unicorns and easter bunny play at that game.

Then isn't the next logical conclusions

Conclusion 5: No limit holdem has more variance and action hands than limit hold'em. Therefore:

Conclusion 6: Site and casinos would make more money if they only offered limit hold'em.

Conclusion 7: The exponential growth of nlh poker from the "moneymaker" effect has actual hurt sites and casinos ability to maximize rake.

That's a statement rather than a conclusion

fyp.

That's true, and that's why Limit poker was the primary game to be spread at all casinos and online rooms in the early days. Indeed, there's an article written by Ed Miller (or David Sklansky) many years ago where he writes that NLHE won't ever be sustainable because of precisely these reasons.

The solution (from a card room management point of view) was to introduce buy-in caps of 100bb (or more or less in some situations) to mitigate this factor.


fyp.

Obviously, earning 50% of $50k is worse than earning 10% of $1million.

That is, while the percentage profit (as a percentage of money deposited) has dropped, obviously the market has substantially grown as a result of the ability to play no limit hold'em and big tournaments.

Take, for example, any big online poker tournament - it runs as an attractive marketing technique, and because lots of players want that sort of thing. If you offer players what they want, that will serve to build a good business. I have no knowledge of any details on this, but I would think that the total cost of operating a large online tournament would be much greater than the rake generated from it alone. The value in things like FTOPS, Sunday Million, etc., is that players play other stuff as well.

Just to clarify, my 50% and 10% figures in my post above are just made up figures to make a point. I don't know what the 'real' figures are.

What are you talking about? The U.S. doesn't have jurisdiction to prosecute Russ Hamilton (although, I would bet is poker was "legal" in the U.S., they would be more creative in establishing jurisdiction) for crimes he committed in another country. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission has no authority to prosecute a crime and their finding of clear and convincing evidence is meaningless. Where he lives has nothing to do with the failure of him to be charged with a crime.

Crap, I agree with everything you just wrote, even that my first conclusion wasn't a conclusion. So can we agree that the sites benefit of "action hands" from an "action game" i.e., NLH and it has increased the size of the pie that the sites get to churn?

Therefore, action hands do make sites more money.

US citizen, located in US, steals money from another US citizen, who is also located in the US. You don't think a US court would assert jurisdiction here?

You don't seem to understand what inifinite means. I understand what you are saying, but extremely large is not the same as infinite.

But lets assume that there is a finite number that someone earns that is big enough to keep depositing funds at least as fast as they lose them at the tables. This figure is going to be extremely large for anything but the micros right? So action hands would only be effective at the very low micros as most people do not earn the very large sums of money that would make the same true at higher stakes.

FWIW I think at 2NL or something, you could be right, action hands may indeed increase overall rake (not saying it's true, it's just a possibility). But then the reward for rigging at these stakes would be extremely small, so what's the point?

I don't really understand this, unless you are talking about overlays of the prize pool. How would a large buy in MTT of say 10,000 players cost more than a micro stakes MTT of 10,000 players. Clearly if the micro rake is .10c x 10,000 and the large buy in is say $20 rake x 10,000 how can the larger buy in one cost more than it takes to run the tourney, unless you are saying that smaller tourneys are run at a huge loss! The only thing I can see being different is maybe a bit of advertising that may have been done for the big buy in tournies. I know this isn't really a "online is rigged" point but I would be interested in the answer.

'cause you need to pay a huge x% of money in deposit processing fees

Ok, I find it quite hard to believe that the site makes no money on a big tournament. So your saying the rake they charge doesn't cover their processing costs? They charge pretty much the same % as a b+m casino for larger tournament. Makes you wonder why sites don't just offer cash games then as they seem to be raking in bundles at these.

You don't have any experience of getting a 'buzz' out of an action hand? You can't expect people to take that statement seriously?

I play poker around 35 hours a week and although we are taught to remove emotions from the game as much as possible and although I have had, I think, 5 royal flushes and been dealt aces perhaps tens of thousands of times, there is still a buzz there when I am involved in an 'action hand.'

You could ask any big-name professional and I'm sure they'd tell you the same. You might be telling the truth that you personally are robotic and emotionless enough in your poker play, that you don't feel this buzz - fair play to you if that's true - but if you're saying you don't think this buzz exists in general, then you are either lying or deluded.

Action hands are what people enjoy, remember and what makes players keep
returning to play poker. Not hands where you fold Q, 6 or where you pair the board, bet and your opponent folds.

It's obvious from personal experience and listening to other players that this is the case, but if you didn't believe this you only need look at the type of hands that sites use in adverts to see that what I'm saying is true. It's all pocket aces, flushes and big pots, as these are clearly what draw players in.

In terms of 'coolers,' as someone who plays professionally, they don't make me play any more or any less. I play a certain number of games in a week, at a game I believe I can beat and I hope is fair, so suffering a 'cooler' has no effect on my volume of play.

In terms of your average player, as I have explained previously, studies have shown the 'buzz' you get from losing at gambling to be incredibly similar to the buzz from winning. I can't remember the exact percentage, but it was upwards of 90% and it was due to the same chemicals being released in the brain for both. So, I think your average poker player doesn't think, 'Oh my kings got beat by aces, I should stop,' rather, 'I had kings, it was so unlucky someone had the one hand that could beat me, look at the size of pot I can win next time with kings.'

Infact, the phenomenon of continuing to play after a bad beat or cooler and to throw even more money about after such a hand, is so common that it has it's own word, 'tilt,' in poker vocabulary.

There may be some players who are put-off by action hands and coolers, or who have the sense to walk away after one, but I think TV adverts and statistics show that the vast majority of players remember the excitement of betting and raising an opponent, the excitement of having a strong hand (despite the fact it actually lost,) and the size of pot that they could win next time and this makes them return to play more poker, whether that be immediately or another time.

So, I'll use a similar angle you used yourself when you compared limit and no-limit holdem. Less action hands would mean the site made a bigger percentage on each $100 deposited, (in cash games.) However, more action hands mean that there are far more $100s being deposited.

Like you said yourself, making 50% of $50k is worse than making 10% of $1million.

Most of the hard core grinders stack their tables so they do not even see the results of their all ins, and many do not even bother to check how they are doing winning/losing wise until the end of the day or week.

Casual players and emotional players may get a buzz, but as you can see from those in this thread they tend to get paranoid and frustrated when they happen and that has more of a tendency to slow their play (unless they are degens chasing losses, who will spew all their money fast regardless).

Non-action hands is how the site can rig it to make money if they like in cash games, and of course innovations like Rush Poker make many, many times more than any risky rig would generate. In tournament games they do not even need to do it as they can change the structure or as Tilt did add multiple buy ins (with rake).

The only riggies who saw the light were the 3 we worked with from this thread that actually got into emotionless grinding and realized how silly their riggie beliefs were once they escaped the emotional short term and paranoia which trapped them. One posted in this thread after but riggies (who previously embraced him) ignored his posts on his experience.

U.S citizen located in U.S. drug dealer #1 steals money from U.S. citizen drug dealer #2, who is located in the U.S., U.S. court does nothing. Law enforcement does nothing.

U.S. citizen kills French citizen on Spanish soil. U.S. does not assert jurisdiction.

Poker players are like drug dealers to law enforcement and the courts. It’s BS, but its the current state of affairs. And crimes over the internet are interesting jurisdictional issues, like we saw with the Wikileaks guy (as are extradition laws for alleged sex crimes in some countries).

And to all you America-bashing posters, expecially from you were born in 1920 or generational offspring of race eliminating, high-saluting nationals Western Europeans with a superiority complex of world wide destruction or you are cheese-loving, gray goose drinking, cunnilingous expert who won't let our planes land to rescue CIVILIAN hostages from a middle eastern terrorist because they don't want to upset the Pan Am bomber's financial backer and who's, despite claiming to be the world’s greatest chefs, greatest inroad into American cuisine is a fried freaking potato, I say "KISS MY ASS!""

And ... breath ...

How do you not love cheese?

I know exactly what you mean Monteroy. Its like being a porn loving, internet poker player who does not understand crap about computers, computer science or advanced math but has seen them revolutionize commerce, killed bookstores and eliminated more jobs than any other invention in history, but who can't seems to communicate to a person who makes good points about multiple rate structures and Rush poker, but is too condescending to ever think that in an industry where companies that operate primarily in the U.S., choose in their best interests to set up in locations, where drug and arms dealers hide their money and the owners don't travel back to the U.S. for fear of criminal prosecution that perhaps, given the history of mob-owned or, even better - royalty-owned, casinos, may use advanced computer programming to cheat the uninformed masses that have allowed cards to be replaced by databits so we or they, don't have to get dressed and leave their basement.

I don't care how fast your HEM, database-mining math mind works, it boggles my mind how vehemently you oppose the possibility that a crime isn't being committed where method, opportunity, greed and lack of accountability intersect on any graph. After all, these sites aren't owned by smut peddlers or anything. And, you have Wiki backing you up...

I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, but its those god damned rigged automatic shufflers that two outed me last night. How that mother****ing machine let that guy hit his three high (yeah thats 3 high) flush on the river after pushing all in on the turn.... doomswitched again.

^ And no wrap-around from behind, huh? Disgusting!

Entschuldigung!

I am a firm believer in crime when it makes sense in terms of motive, whether for practical reasons or desperation reasons (ie drug user stealing something). Understand I reject 50+ stake applications a week including gems like

PLEASE PLEASE JUST STAKE ME FOR ONE DAY, ILL START AT ANYTHING! LET ME PROVE TO YOU GUYS THAT I AM WORTHY.

Trust me, I know people will angle shoot anything they possibly can, I used to do it all the time with the years of casino bonus whoring, so I appreciate that all systems have people who analyze them deeply and find any flaw to jump on it in seconds.

Look at all the times Stars has had bugs like heads up matches not requiring people to have money to pay for a rematch. Know what happened? People swarmed on them like ants on a lollipop or Wiki on a batch of riggies.

If the software was flawed in any of the ways riggies here claim then it would be exploited by a ton of people for a lot of money, but that has yet to happen (no riggies ever exploit what they believe for profit). Add to that that riggies insist on concentrating on rigs that would not even make the company money and I sit there and have to chuckle because at least the rig should do that.

Riggies are 9/11 conspiracy guys except some think the US government will save them instead of believing they are behind it (which would be the case once US legislation happens).

Riggies can believe all they like, and I did enjoy your extremely long paranoid ramble (which I realize was a good part your genuine beliefs and a little bit of shill mocking which is cool), but in the end all we have is a ton of noise about mystical powers doing evil things without a shred of evidence to back it, which is why riggies beliefs are more akin to a religion than anything else.

I am not trying to convert you, I get what you are. I just like making fun of it once in a while in a thread created for just that.


Regarding Wiki backing me up, all I can say is that if you believe that then that shows just how flawed your ability to reason is, or you have no memory of some of my exchanges with him. Wiki is a "douche nerd" and why more riggies avoid simply calling him that and ignoring him baffles me. It is as if riggies always choose the wrong path.

All the best.

The courts and police wouldn't be involved because they only know about the theft if it gets reported to them, and most drug dealers are smart enough to know that if your money was obtained illegally, you don't go telling the cops.

Not everyone's that smart, though.

Damn, the Isle of Man is a drug dealing/producing hub! I'm taking the missus there for a weekend break, she will be shocked. Perhaps I'd better switch the booking to Malta, oh no, internet poker based there as well, another well known drug haven.

You really help support the stereotype that Americans don't know $hit about anywhere outside the US.

And by your calculation, I must wear a bowler hat, eat fish n chips every night and of course know the person you know from some obscure village (cos it's so small here, we all know each other, in fact we are all related)

Poor old Monty.

It's his time of the month again (already?) and whenever that happens he just can't control the sad obsession he has with me.

Monty, perhaps you should do some of that cod psychology you're so fond of on yourself. This little obsession can't be doing you any good.

BTW, have you tried the HRT as I suggested? It might help you control your little bitchfests.

Or would you rather just let those hormones take control - you could start some of that teenage trash talk that you seem to thing impresses someone.

Cool story, bro!

(See what I did there?)