well, thats what you just did by removing the game

lol - well at least your the first person to make me laugh today ;-)

Like I said it's my personal point of view.

When is FTP going to let (former) high stakes players with large balances withdraw? I was given word I could transfer about 20% of my balance to Stars, but since I recently received a large transfer (from someone now in the same boat as me), I can't withdraw the remaining 80% of my balance, even as a Stars transfer. I have to "use it to play in their cash games and tournaments" which are literally between .2% and 3.3% of the stakes I've played on FTP this year. It's pretty ridiculous to hold my money hostage like that in light of these changes.

Some good changes there, especially like the one lobby per stake feature.
my suggestions would be to get rid of shallow stack tables and to merge 6 and 9 handed Tables to either 7 or 8 max tables. that way you segregate yourself from the offerings of other pokersites.
Also you should only play 4 rush tables at once across all stakes.
I like to play some draw games from time time and do not get why you did not just reduce the stakes offered, like only 3 stakes, 0,20/0,40, 1/2 and 5/10 or sth like that, and why you kept the Sit and goes ?, draw games are not suitable for tournament play in my opinion. so if you want to get rid of all non hold em/ omaha games start with sit and goes imo. would be great to atleast get 8 game back or a different form of mix- game were you just put the popular games in, like 2- 7, 7stud, razz and badugi
And i can not grasp what increasing the micro stakes rake does good for the FT Poker economy, except that the site makes more money and nobody can go up in stakes anymore.

but all in all i like the changes and i am hoping that sth like monthly/ weekly screenname changes will be next on your agenda, and obv ban all 3rd party software except basic huds asap

Thx for reading

thanks for the reply spark, I've been trying out the software and its not completely bumhunt proof, its still somewhat easy to seat select especially if you play 2 or more stakes but yea it does make the process harder

That seems very unfair to me - high stakes players who no longer want to play at FT should be able to withdraw or transfer to Stars.

Is this to do with the 48 hour time thing on inter-site transfers?

EVERYONE needs rakeback.

Unless your main game is 100/200+ NL/PLO and you are playing 1000hands/month and winning 5+bb/100, you might not need it. Or if you are a rich recreational player who just don't care about it.

All the biggest winners (including high stakes players) on stars making tons of efforts to achieve supernova elite every year. It's a fact. And for a reason.

In the bottom line - the best players need it more than the worst recreational players, in my opinion.

I think this new format will create a new form of variance like "seating runbad" if reg tables get as hard as rush (which imo will be the case) then you might as well play rush to put in a bigger "seating sample" and avoid this form of runbad

FYP

A bulk of these changes remove the games that gave the house the smallest % of each pot - high stakes, HU, short handed and bum hunted mixed games. This alone is telling about what the true motive is behind these changes.

It is insulting to our intelligence when you claim that reg:fish ratio will go down on tables being played. We all see that the ratio is worse in zoom poker than the normal games. And these changes are just shy of turning FTP into one one big zoom poker room. You're just hopeful that a bunch of idiot regs are going to fall for this and give in to the ridiculous rake machine you've created - which hey you're probably right about at least in the short run.

The truth is that the games are going to get even tougher for recreational players with these changes. They'll likely get even more discouraged than before and since the game indeed revolves around them you'll see your traffic drop at an even greater rate than before. What a stupid, short sighted cash grab. I am pretty glad that this is going to totally backfire in the long run - you greedy folks deserve that.

Finally, fish already understand what goes on with regards to predatory lobbies. Have you not actually been around live card rooms enough to realize this? A fish will show up and suddenly all the guys in bobby's room stop playing chinese poker against each other and play whatever game he wants. And then magically 20 guys show up on the wait list out of nowhere. And if a big fish wants to join that already existing game... well hey, he magically gets to cut the line and they'll even pull up a 10th chair. The idea that table selection hasn't been (and won't always be) a huge part of poker is a very new one and it is completely insane.

Agreed. Online poker is not easy or fun any more for recreationals. FTP are posturing like politicians being 'tough' by introducing 'solutions' that have been known about for several years. Even IF these changes make the game ever so slightly easier for the recs, it is merely a bandaid on a severed artery.

When I remember playing live I can remember one night at a casino playing live with 4 huge Russian whales. I ended up doing quite well that night, but the reason it sticks in my memory is because of the craziness of some of the pots and bets. You dont get that online because the structure incentivises people to play tight and wait for good spots. Getting in AQ or 99 pre, or stacking off TP on the flop is basically suicide these days at the majority of games/stakes. Online poker encourages people to play 9/8 rather than 43/35. It encourages people from low income countries to become 'regs' and mass table or bumhunt 10NL using HUDs to make a living.

Im not sure how to solve this, but that is the problem with online poker. I think you need to consider ways to encourage action in the games and consider restricting your offering to certain countries.

I used to be a reg on FTP and have probably played over 2 million hands there but have long since left. I was still winning when I left, but the tedious nature of the game bored me even though I was winning. Its no surprise to me that people who dont win find it astoundingly boring.

I now play on a site that only accepts UK players and the games are great. I see many of the same fish returning consistently. Fortunately, my country has enough fish to support a good number of recreational players. But that is not true of every country.

You have reasons for this or no?

I think sites should provide a level playing field as much as possible not choose who gets to play with who or allow players to target specific individuals.

Btw here are some constructive idea for change that actually help improve the ecosystem by making game quality better and providing a better experience for fish.

Lower the # of tables each person can even have open (not just play, but open) to 1-2. This cap should not affect donkaments which already seem healthy. Recs almost never want to play more than this so it doesn't affect them. It automatically lowers the reg:fish ratio because regs simply cannot fill up more tables. It also makes it much harder to bum hunt manually. It'll give all regs internet poker wide an incentive to add an FTP table on the side, giving fish a wider variety of opponents to play (and thus feel less preyed upon).

Ban seating scripts. Tell people that if they are caught using them their accounts will be closed/banned (and funds refunded since it isn't exactly provable). Take other measures to make them harder to use/create such as by randomly changing the data sent to the user once in a while. Sites talk about this like it is impossible to get rid of. And they're probably right that a couple of very smart folks will find a work around, at least for a while. But I am quite sure that it could be *way* better if it wasn't as simple as buying a commonly used one and running it without any downside. Edit: At the very least the seating scrips *will* have to become a hell of a lot less obvious to the fish. If someone is consistently joining jesus seats or tables with fish way faster than a person could manually do then they'll just get banned. Instead the script will have to be programmed to simply not join every time and delay joining by a fair bit randomly etc. That'll make fish feel better.

Make net winners pay all "rake" and get rid of rake. Or at least make some partial change by lowering rake and instituting this. Net winners pay X% of their winnings when they cash out. The extra 5bb/100 or whatever the 100nl fish gets to save will cause him to book more wins. This might seem excessively expensive to winning players but luckily for poker sites they don't really have to care what these people think anyway - people will continue to play there *if there are enough fish*. That is the main thing about your changes that are so shockingly stupid: they will do nothing to increase the number of fish and probably do the opposite.

Get rid of all rake back and instead use that money to entice net losing accounts to come back with special promotions - like matching deposits up to X dollars. Or, you know, actually do some marketing. I cannot think of the last time I actually saw one of your advertisements in the real world - aka not some narrow poker related site.

Yeah it's pretty easy for a 100% rakeback blackcard pro on FT to say you don't need rakeback.

How much do you pay in rake on average per day you play?

Or just a different question; what percentage your net winnings are coming from this rakeback?



The amount of rake pro's pay per day is actually completely ridiculous (you can pay several employees from that), but hey all the power is with the poker sites.

yea I really dont like how they took away the bc pro sponsorship

No this has nothing to do with that. I was originally denied the 20% balance transfer to stars, sent an email to complain, and now am allowed to transfer that 20% to stars, but was told there was no other option for the rest of my money other then to play with the funds on the site.

Which is absurd, I could probably never bust or double the balance at the current stake offerings with any amount of volume.

Yeah I thought it was a great promotion that just had a broken scoring system. It doesn't really fit with the new recreational model but the broken scoring system doomed it to fail from the start when it could have been a really attractive promotion.

That sounds bad to me - would you mind PM'ing me as much detail as you have and I'll raise the issue with management. I can't promise they'll change their minds but if what you've said is accurate I'm definitely on your side here.

i like the changes, i think they are good for poker in the long-term, and i commend FTP for having the balls to do it. it was time someone took a stand.

can`t wait to see what you have in store for us mtt players. personally, i wouldn`t like to see the HS mtts go, but if you think that`s the way to go, so be it.

Why won't you allow us to see who is sitting at a particular stake? It says 18 players at $2/5 NL so I would presume that would be 3 tables of 6 yet we are sitting playing 3 handed. I can only assume that is because a lot of players have opened multiple tables cause there is not enough action. I mean this is just stupid and its a hell of a lot more confusing than a regular lobby if you ask me. There are 4 table offers of $2/5 NL in the lobby and 2 of each have the same name...

In addition why would you not allow 2 people to start a game? Sure some regs may not want to play each other but waiting for 3 would mean some games will almost never start... especially when you can't even see who the 2 players already sitting are.

You say you want to make FTP more like a live poker room where you go to the host and say you want to play X stakes and they find you a seat. Well guess what in a live game you can see who is at the table, you can walk around and see the players. I find it unbelievable that even in rush games you can see the list but I can't find who is playing in the ring games...

Yeah you really should let people see who is playing the stake already.

Wouldn't really solve the hunting issue if you did that though. Someone would code a seating script and we would be back where we started.

sparky, please stop spamming this thread. please. Make your case if you want in a multi quote thread from time to time, but you're literally posting half the posts and you represent FTP so it isn't appreciated. We get it, you represent them and like what they are doing. And I'm not claiming you aren't making an effort to write thoughtful opinions, but your association makes your opinions a lot less objective and regardless, no one is spamming the thread like this. Mutli quote is there for a reason.