np



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The whole idea of using avatars here on 2+2 to force sites to lower their rake kind of reminds me of a campaign I started as a 12-year-old raising awareness about the brutal slaying of cute baby seals. Nice intention, but utterly futile. I doubt that these avatars would make it past the screening process at Stars.

Like it or not, this is a free economy. Even if the sites had formed a cartel in order to charge rake at an outrageous rate we couldn't do anything about it since the market isn't regulated. So in my opinion we only have the following viable options:

• Stop playing. This is the best choice if due to the rake you can't win, or you lose more than you gain in entertainment value.
• Start our own server with a reasonable rake structure (probably unfeasible due to high start-up cost).
• Convince the sites that it is in their best interest to lower the rake (which I'm not sure it is).
• Just accept it like it is, work on our game, and continue to beat it.

I guess the difference between an idealist and a pragmatist is 20 years.

My goal is only to get something going. To get people thinking, talking and trying to think about possible solutions. For them to realize how absurdly high it is at this point. The amount of rake I payed in 2010 is far more than what they would spend on advertising/support/bandwidth/whatever relevant to me.

damn cool thank you!

Mii

Agree, this awareness is aimed at the wrong crowd thus futile, and would be hypercritical to still play on stars and have this avatar, surely you'll only be proving the rake isn't too high if you're still giving them your business.


This is when online poker dies

There is discussion thread of a community run poker site

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...munity-938389/

Ludicrous, they're a business.

My moneys on this, do what you all do best....

http://oraculations.blogspot.com/upl...oap-739194.jpg

Many people on this site are involved with affiliates or the sites themselves. Drop the rake and these individuals stand to lose large amounts of money.

Growth last year was greater than 100%.
Growth this year is -3%.

Not only are the sites no longer seeing any growth, they're losing the players they do have.

Again I suspect you'll try to blame deposit/withdrawal problems or some such issue, certainly anything but the rake. But the fact is this is a world wide phenomenon. While I'm sure US players still make up a huge percentage of the internet poker market, its unlikely payment issues for one segment of the market resulted in growth going from 100% to -3%.

Players are quitting poker because they no longer earn money, or in the case of recreational players because they lose their money too fast. And why is that? Edges have been rapidly decreasing, but the rake has only been increasing. Again taking my example of $25PLO. You need to earn 2 buyins every 1000 hands to BREAK EVEN. At a 6-max table the site is raking 12 buyins off the table every 1000 hands. When the site is raking off 120bb/100 its going to kill the games. And well what do you know.. the games are dying. Wonder why?

No, it's just a personal decision. If you quit, what do you care about what happens on online poker?

What's the point of playing rake-free against a bunch of knowledgeable people? You gotta realize that the rake pays for the publicity that brings in the fish.

It has been suggested that it is in the sites' interest to lower the rake, in terms of a long term business decision. If this is in fact true then we need to convince them.

Doubt this will do anything but woteva I'll use it for a few days.

Quitting does f*** all, you know how many emails i sent to fulltilt and how long i boy-cotted that site for? And they literally couldn't have giving less of a f***. And when bad players leave cos its so difficult and over-raked, that's RIP online poker. Players shafted and sites got away with billions. If they fleece it for enough money why do they care if they kill it eventually?


As for the community run site, they seem a smart enthusiastic bunch, and doubt they'll just blindly run into the same problems as paynorake and wsex.

The only thing that will convince a company to give up millions is if it can make billions from it. Email, complain, inform do all you want. At the end of the day it's all about the best business decision that makes the most for the company.

To the naysayers: yes, everyone knows that it's an uphill battle. However you way underestimate how a cause can gain momentum. Barry Greenstein said "LOL Donkaments" on national television in exchange for a donation to his favorite charity. Imagine someone like him instead saying "rake is too damn high".

What would happen if dozens of people wore anti-rake t-shirts at the WSOP? Some of them would inevitably get on television, and Lon and Norm would be forced to explain it for millions of watching poker fans.

You also underestimate the influence of 2+2. A huge portion of internet players are aware of this site, and/or visit and browse it regularly, and/or have contact with people who are on this site. If a meme like "Rake is too damn high" were to catch on in a big way, even the casual players and donators would be exposed to it. I know people that will drive 20 minutes out of their way to save a few cents on gas. People don't like getting ripped off, even for seemingly-insignificant amounts.

And the ultimate point is that there really isn't anything to lose by trying.

With a lower rake, the sites could have stopped a decent amount of that decline. I don't think they see it that way. Instead the whole industry is turning against rakeback, which means higher rake for regs.

Gotta be done..

[IMG][/IMG]

Rake at 4 or 4.5% would be great

FYP

I agree but how can you follow that with this in your very next post?

You can't have it all ways. If lowering rake will bring in more players that ultimately will increase profits then affiliates and sites would do it. If lowering rake reduces overall profit then they won't.

Growth at past levels was never sustainable.

Look at what rake has done, it's going to censor the good stuff!


NSFW

what can we do?
the sites wont say "these guys are right lets cut the rake"
we have to act

I was thinking some more about this today. While I think a player strike would raise awareness and get the site's attention, the grinders who play for a living would just play more to make up for the lost time, which is obviously understandable. Also, I really hope the community-run, rake free poker room happens, but I'm not getting my hopes up. So what options do we have then, besides an actual strike where a ton of us simply don't play at all until the sites lower the rake (an actual strike), which isn't going to happen? I think the answer is Lee Jones. Cake, if they could finally get their software perfected, would be the perfect ally in getting the rake lower, or having a site where we could play for a reduced rake. That site sucks right now, and can't be making that much money. So what if we at 2+2 and all around the poker community pledged that we would play a certain % of our monthly volume at Cake (or a new skin or something) where the rake was 2% max? How could they say no to thousands of grinders willing to move to their site and put in a lot of volume? This way, the players don't suffer lost earnings, we get our lower rake, and get to say FU to the big evil online rooms who charge massive rake.
gogogogo

1. We need to create and prepare a site with low rake with good software and support.
2. Someone on here needs to somehow make the November Nine, where this new low-rake sites patch at the table, win, and then invest a bunch of that money into the site.

Basically it's going to take somebody with a bunch of money to burn to really make any changes.
So if there is a multi-millionaire on these boards who happens to care enough about the rake to invest a bunch of his/her money to start this venture, we are all set!

Truly the hottest girl I have ever seen

If there is way to much profit, just get into this business yourself. Oh wait, land of the free, etc.

like the idea. avatars are cool - but I am sticking with my boy Magnum.

but say you have a rake free site how will you employ a decent amount of staff to respond to customer emails in a timely manner (FTP make millions and every day there is someone complaining about their response time) - security staff to prevent multi-accounting/credit card fraud/colluders - programmers to combat bots etc...

if you had a rake free site would it be full of botters/colluders and when you email the site it takes 24 days for a response because of a cut price customer service crew. and how long till it would fold due to the weight of fake credit card deposits take it down along with all of your money in the accounts

I have worked in statistical fraud detection for a while now and I can say that fraud detection programs that online retailers have to run do not come cheap, require constant maintenance and upgrading -- think about how much a company like paypal pays per year to minimise their exposure to fraud

You obviously think a majority of 2p2'ers are winning players LOL


It doesn't seem most of you are willing to quit playing, so another alternative could be to organize everyone to play at one site for a period of time, thus abandoning others. Then move on to another site. The site's will see the drop in revenue. Then we can hope that one intelligent site who appreciates the increase in revenue will do something to keep those players, such as reducing rake. You might want to have everyone email support a form letter to explicitly let them know that they are receiving extra play this week because you've boycotted another site and tell them that their good fortune is only short term and that you'll move on within a week.

If you can convince one site to do this, it should spark the competition necessary to shake the industry.

"Rake free" is obviously a buzz-word. What we actually want is "low rake" or at least "fair rake".