+1

whoever goes to the meeting plz bring this up cuz what that sexyangeline dude is doing is just disgusting...

The aggressive and unacceptable stalking by "sexyangeline", plus bumhunting, ratholing, shortstacking, jesus-seating scripts, camping, multi-accounting and other detrimental behaviors are symptoms of a larger problem. The internet poker ecosystem is out of balance. The ratio of predators-to-recreational players (with money) is not sustainable. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic will not help. We do not need more nits. We do not need more pros.

There is a solution. It is to restore PokerStars to one or more U.S. states (where there is an abundance of recreational players with disposable income), preferably where it will provide a leveraged and contagious impact on other states. It will take a coordinated effort. That means U.S. players, international players, and PokerStars management. We can't fight each other if we want to succeed.

Please read my post at http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...55&postcount=4 and when you vote for a representative, look at the bottom of the alphabetical ballot for VP$IP

OMGClayDol did a good job last time. I'm also sure that he will address this specific point which is a very serious problem. I will encourage the SSFR forum guys to give our vote.

@OMGClayDol: I will direct you to the forums links concerning this issue.

im not sure if this has already been done or prepared but whoever is running the voting thread this time should try to clearly state the rules before the voting starts. i realize oversights happen but there should be an effort to make things clear as possible

-what happens if someone withdraws?
-is it going to be a live poll?
-any qualifications to vote? (ie new accounts)
-etc

.

No further volunteers or nominations will be accepted.

It looks like we will be voting between:

Chuck Bass
Czar Chasm
Dabs
MurderbyNumbers234
OMGClayDol
Shane Stewart
VP$IP

I would remind the candidates to post in the "CV" thread, to provide information to assist others in choosing for whom to vote, and that their PS SNs must be included. (If they have posted already, and not included their PS SN, they must post again to state their PS SN. I may be obliged to remove their names from the voting process without this.)

Stars already is doing a TONNE of work in trying to get Stars back into the States and I believe is already making progress, us telling them we think bringing back online poker in the states is just stating the obvious. The only reason it isn't there is because of DOJ etc, not a choice of Stars.

And thanks for the support MeleaB

May the best two candidates represent us.

(but hopefully not more of the same)

That's still not really seeing the forest through the trees. Skilled players are unable to play one another because of the profit system put in place by the sites - rake. That system is 100% unnecessary and could be replaced by more sustainable systems. Rake also results in a conflict of interest between the sites and players. The sites view every penny taken out of the games by winning players as a penny they've lost that could have been raked. Winning players are the enemy. Their ideal games are games where nobody wins anything and everybody gets slowly ground down to 0 by rake alone. Not coincidentally that is the state the current games are approaching - and is also a reason why online poker recently reached it's lowest point in more than half a decade. Those games are not fun to play in.

Alternative profit models, such as has been mentioned a tax on withdrawals in excess of deposits, are vastly more sustainable. Rake basically creates a countdown on exactly how long a game can last. Low stakes PLO is raked at rates of up to, and in some cases exceeding, 20bb/100. At a 6-max game that is 120bb/100 being raked off the table. In other words if 6 completely even players sit down with 100bb at one of these tables, every single penny will have been raked off that table - all 600bb, in 500 hands. Given the introduction if speed deal tables we're talking a bit more than an hour for every penny to be gone and now needing to be replaced by new deposits. That's absurd.

Perhaps even more importantly alternative profit models can immediately align the site and player interests. The sites win when players win, literally.

The obvious downside here is Stars isn't going to do this, they're not going to even consider it. If you mention discussing it I have 0 doubt they'll dismiss it out of hand - perhaps with some token gestures of stating you have some great points and they're seriously considering this but really need to work the numbers or some such. The same response they would have given you two years ago, the same response they'll give you until the day they shutdown. You're talking to a company with a monopoly on a market - all be it a dying market - but a market all the same. What they want to do is small incremental changes to increase their profit margins. I'm sure they agree with VPIP that the way forward isn't creating more sustainable games but, like a parasite, seeking out a new hosts with their completely unsustainable goals.

Ultimately you need a system where players don't need enormous edges to play against one another. Edges will continue to decrease and poker is a game where skilled players stick around, unskilled ones leave. Rake isn't that system. You can deal with that today, deal with it tomorrow, or bank on pipe dreams.

If you threw the players of today back to 2005 online poker would be dead or dying shortly thereafter. The number of skilled players today is enormous. If we define skilled to simply mean a player that can separate a very unskilled player from his funds, there are undoubtedly millions. People weren't just blindly depositing in 2005, there were stories left and right of people making millions playing - everybody had that friend who won a lot playing online poker. The games were fun and your money tended to go a reasonably long way if you put even a token effort into learning the game since potential edges relative to rake were huge. That couldn't be further from the truth today. The US market is not only likely a pipe dream, it's a complete mirage.

About a year ago, I wrote:

But I agree that Stars probably would not like the idea, and of course some players are not comfortable with it either. The main point is to consider all the possibilities, in light of the current situation.

Did anyone ever ask Phil Galfond to go to these meetings?

First off a time charge is fairly silly when online it would be trivial to implement a completely fair flat bb/100 charge. The sites could even transparently charge it as a part of the big blind. Eg let's say you want to charge players 5bb/100 to play a certain game. When its their big blind players would pay the normal bb + a fee of ( 5 / (100/number_of_players)). The fee is easy to understand - you pay 5bb for every hundred hands you play - period. It would also scale automatically for short handed play, etc. Finally it would also be negligible looking amount. If you wanted you could even split it between the sb and bb although that does introduce certain angle shooting possibilities.

Such a system would be vastly improved for casual players. Stars likes to claim they want to take care of their casual depositing players but go look at the figures Steve linked to. In particular these data:

The results are as follows:

Annual Volume	#players	Hands	Won (bb/100)	Won+Rakeback	Rakefree Winnings
1 -- 323	38k	3.0M	-68.4	-65.5	-49.9
323 -- 779	6k	3.0M	-33.9	-31.1	-15.8
779 -- 1384	3k	3.0M	-26.4	-23.8	-9.3
1385 -- 2257	1704	3.0M	-21.5	-19.0	-5.3
2258 -- 3596	1057	3.0M	-19.5	-17.2	-4.0
3597 -- 5301	694	3.0M	-15.2	-13.0	-0.6
5304 -- 7944	470	3.0M	-11.8	-9.8	1.5
7948 -- 12k	306	3.0M	-10.7	-8.8	1.6
12k -- 17k	205	3.0M	-6.1	-4.2	5.7
18k -- 26k	140	3.0M	-4.5	-2.7	6.2
26k -- 38k	94	3.0M	-1.6	0.2	8.5
38k -- 52k	67	3.0M	-0.3	1.7	10.0
53k -- 69k	50	3.0M	0.0	2.0	10.0
69k -- 91k	38	3.0M	-0.8	1.7	9.2
92k-- 132k	27	3.0M	0.0	3.6	9.4
133k -- 212k	18	3.1M	0.2	4.2	9.6
216k -- 672k	15	5.0M	-0.9	2.9	7.8

We can assume players who have an annual volume of 1-323 are casual players for the most part. Look at the rake they paid:

(-49.9) - (-68.4) = average rake paid of 18.5bb/100

Now look at the players who played 216k+ hands per year, who we can assume are regulars:

(7.8) - (-0.9) = average rake paid of 8.7bb/100

Keep in mind this is all data from one stake. Stars effectively charges casuals more than 200% as much rake as regulars. Oh and they get basically nothing back due to the system of rakeback, as mentioned. Looking at effective rake is absurd. Casuals end up paying more than 500% more rake than regulars. Great way to get those supposedly "high value players" to stick around! Bring this analysis down to microstakes, where most casual money enters the games, and the figures would be even more absurd. If Stars really views casuals as the lifeline of their business then the old saying "Don't bite the hand that feeds." seems rather apt.

In any case even the flat rate per 100 system has a major flaw. It once again discourages skilled players from competing. When you're paying a substantial fee to a third party per hand you play - many, if not most, people are going to try to maximize what they get per hand. In online poker that translates to bum hunting. A system like a tax on net winnings has none of these problems and benefits casuals even more than flat rake would. But once again I imagine this is mental masturbation. These meetings aren't about things like this. But I'm sure Stars presentation on their amazingly novel idea of selectively linking poker accounts with facebook/twitter/etc will just knock you off your feet!

The great irony is that half the people that oppose this type of chat feel it's ok to use seating scripts. Personally I think both this chat and SS's accomplishes the exact same thing but everyone is against this chat because it doesn't serve their bottom line. SS's and this chat accomplishes the exact same thing. He's just going about it in a more direct manner.

As far as I'm concerned until seating scripts are gone he should have every right to do this, provided he's not personally offensive to the player. I don't like it either... but at least it's consistent with Stars's position to predatory behaviour.

I could be wrong about this but pretty sure that isn't true, the overwhelming % of players are against seating scripts. Is there any particular reason you said that?, because I may have missed something. This isn't meant in a sarcastic or rude way btw just in case it seemed like it.
That being said, a lot of the people who would prefer scripts to be banned are now using them given that others are and it isn't being banned so they feel it's an unfair disadvantage if they don't too.

I'm glad that the trend is more people today are not liking seating scripts as much as they were say 1 year ago (at least in theory, perhaps not in practice). But to call out an individual player when Pstars has failed to stop the exact same thing is a little wrong. He's just being more honest with the recreational then many on here are.

While I agree with most of your first paragraph the second paragraph doesn't sound like a solution as much as a way to keep the ship afloat a little while longer. What happens when those new players are introduced and eaten by all the predators at the same rate as before? A new market being introduced is just a short term fix if it's introduced to this current online climate.

The solution in my opinion is to tackle the issues you outlined in your original paragraph. Also, I believe that there needs to be a major overhaul in the rakeback/VIP program. It's a short term money grab for pokerstars and mass tabling regs but it doesn't promote a good model for the sustainability of the poker ecosystem as you guys call it.

The changes that need to be made need to be made for the better of the casual players, not the regs. Those are the ones failing to play poker at the same rate as from some years back. Sure some of it has to due with the decline in poker popularity as a whole but a lot of it probably has to do with current experience that they receive while at the online tables.

The experience probably feel boring to them. The environment is non social and probably feels robotic to them, as if they are playing similar copies of the same player. After awhile it probably feels unwinnable to them. They probably feel cheated and start making excuses as to why they cannot win or just feel like it's a lost cause for them to play online poker on Pokerstars. Why not go to their local casino or just find another hobby?

idk, I'm not them, but I think we as poker players who make a living from them should start thinking of their needs first before our immediate ones if we still want to be playing online poker in three or four years time.

Relentless stalking and seating scripts are both forms of "eating our young". And if the system allows it, people will do it, especially in an environment where there are relatively few recreational players.

These are computers that we play poker on, so there are always technical solutions. But there is no clear consensus on whether the recreational player's bankroll should be somewhat protected and prolonged (and therefore more likely to be raked), or considered fair game for stalking, scripting, and other forms of advantage play.

I don't think it's a solution at all either, i.e. that's to say if/when Stars is back in the States it's not going to stop any of those issues listed in the first paragraph. Just thought posting my initial reply was enough so I didn't even mention that.

There is a tremendous pent up demand for internet poker in the U.S. And most of those players prefer PokerStars. When there are options to play other than moving to another country, it will be enough to change the dynamics of the game from what they are now. The term Maniac might once again be seen in these forums.

No one is questioning that people in the USA want to play poker, and there are weaker players from there.. However you are making the assumption that it will make the games softer (not saying this isn't true, but you assuming it is definitely true is very ignorant) but more importantly even if the games got softer and/or more weaker players were introduced to the games it isn't going to stop "bumhunting, ratholing, shortstacking, jesus-seating scripts, camping, multi-accounting" (quoted from your post).

People are GREEDY, if they can increase their bottom line from x to y, they will do it even if x is very high. If games become softer and people make more, the offenders will want to make EVEN more and still do all of these things if they are.

Finally, and this is the point to begin with, all of this is irrelveant because Stars already wants to re-enter the US, is in the process of doing so, and most likely has spent infinite money for legal costs etc trying to do so, and we (both 2p2 and potential player reps) certainly don't need to tell them to bring poker back to the States.

Please don't waste your (and our) time pushing this if you get selected....

http://www.pokertableratings.com/top-countries

These numbers are pre rakeback, so countries like Russia and the Ukraine are winners.
Rake is not the only problem that threatens our ecosystem;


It would be much better if we had less losers. The 38K people bringing in the money are in the long run more important than those 215 East Europeans taking it out.

Can you explain what you mean by the last paragraph?

Also what you quoted me on was literally the least important thing I said, main point from the beginning was his post was redundant because a) it's not news or a new idea to bring the US market back and b) it wouldn't stop the problems he mentioned.

"eating our young" ... as long as the rec is at a table with only regs he gets eaten.
It doesn't matter if he's playing normal regs or bumhunters.(he gets eaten a bit faster if he's invited to play HU obviously)
Actually since regs complain that bumhunters are not as good as they are the "young" would get "eaten" faster if the bumhunters wouldn't sit the fish first.

This "protect the young" can also give stars the excuse to segregate based on skill like party did. How else can you protect the young ?

Honestly, I don't think a good solution exists except for the rake reduction like Do It Right says.
But that won't happen anytime soon. Also I don't get why Do It Right is still posting stuff like that while refusing to be a candidate despite the support he gets.
So actually there's no solution right now, as bad as it is it's still the best it can be.
The only improvement is the 40bb rathole solution that is hopefully going to be implemented soon. If it works things might be a bit better, right now I can't really play my normal game most of the time because I have to "adjust" to them and play nitty and also table select.
Maybe there are others like me and the predatory system will be slightly less once this happens assuming the solution works and they don't multi-account or whatever to get around it.

That we should start treating the fish as kings and not the "sharks". Between quotes, because most of them are actually losing players. Real sharks suffer from them too, they can never bring in the same volume as those (semi) bots, that take away most of the profits and kill most of the fish.

If we restrict that multitabling (you can still play as many tables as you like, but not on all the tables) the 38K players would win more hands and lose more money, that goes into the poker economy.

Similarly we could have HUD free and New to the Game tables and everything else we can think of to protect them and keep them playing. We can really no longer afford to lose too many fish.