I'm going to have a meltdown. Is this industry standard now? What is going on?

Pokerhost

Do we know anyone who was banned from other skins?? I mean there was allegedly the collusion ring that they shutdown.
Opal got his account closed for a couple of days but he got it back (and I would assume he was a big winner there to).

Are you sure it was the network banning players??
I am asking because Equity network has something like "shark tax" so the skin with to many winners would get pretty ****ed up (pretty much the same happened on Ipoker were skins were banning winners because they couldn't balance themselves in terms of regs:fish ratio).
I wouldn't be suprised if it was Pokerhost banning his winning players to avoid the shark tax. there is a reason why Merge network did everything to get rid of Pokerhost....

I'd go so far as to say the majority of big networks have done one thing or another to curtail winning players either openly or behind the scenes. Yes, it's becoming industry standard. The industry is growing, evolving, and most importantly, shrinking. With a shrinking deposit base, winning players aren't valued nearly as much anymore.

Yes, I know a number of players who had accounts closed that played on Full Flush, the network owned flagship skin, as well as from 5Dimes.

Yes, that reason was called "reintegration"


--
Kahn

It absolutely is not industry standard for poker sites to close player accounts and hand out life time bans for winning. Suggesting that this is somehow standard or becoming standard in any way is minimizing the action and just not true.

We can make a list of poker sites that ban players for winning vs a list of sites that dont if there is truly confusion or debate as to what is actually standard if that would help.

It is understood that many sites have done other things to hinder the success of winning players, but to lump all of those other actions in with this action and say, yeah, no big deal, its standard, is very misleading imo.

You're right. People forget that the poker boom, of several years ago, happened because everybody saw players making large amounts of money causing hoards of recreational players to rush in hoping to make money themselves someday. When a network gets rid of winning players they are getting rid of what most draws players to online poker.

If the sites want recreational players they should put stars under the winning players' avatars rather than booting them from the game. The stars would both warn rec players that they are playing against a winning player and give the rec players something to work toward.

There is one thing that puzzles me about the PokerHost email. They say that it is the network that researched the players and banned them. Yet PokerHost just joined the network so the network really shouldn't have the past handhistories on those players. It's of course possible that PokerHost gave them the handhistories but I think that it's more likely that it was actually PokerHost that selected those players out. I think that the Equity Network has some kind of shark tax and these bannings are actually PokerHost's way of saving money. PokerHost has done exactly this in the past.

If affiliates promote sites that ban winning players without warning those players before they sign up, those affiliates should be shunned from the poker community as if they were Howard Lederer or Ray Bitar.

Still no word on PT4 capability?

wait so getting outright banned for winning too much is real? anyone have a ballpark figure for how much you would have to win for this to happen?

No. But apparently just giving the impression that you are a competent winning player, or even perhaps winning on another site, can be grounds for closure and banning according to this poster who claims he signed up, played for three days, then got banned. Its somewhat vague as to the criteria they used but here is the post and explanation they supposedly gave him for closing his account and banning him fwiw.

By using "aggressive play" as a euphemism for "winning player" they are trying to create the impression that some sort of rule was broken. They've carefully chosen that term to keep the finger from being pointed at themselves.

Ive been trying to decipher the message as well. I mentioned the winning on other sites simply because they did mention extensive background checks. Im pretty convinced though that that was just poorly worded on their end and they were just speaking of their review of his play on their site in those three days fwiw.

I one tabled 5/10 less than a thousand hands since the change and won like 1k. Won on poker host before the transition (maybe 3k more). Had only been on the site for a month so no "real" track record of winning as my first check was received 4/17. Still the ban hammer tho.

Up to 5-10nl. But honestly had only played maybe 1k hands? And its not like i was up a ton, maybe 2kish.

I'm banned too. Here the live chat conversation.

Erik: Mr Mullaney, we are truly sorry, we have been informed that your account has been closed by Equity Poker Network as they have reviewed your account and consider you a pro or semi-pro poker player.

patm17: What skin were you playing on?

All this talk is crazy to me...i was real close to taking a chance with FullFlush but cant unless this kind of thing changes. I mean, what u all r saying is if i win consistently, which i would hope and plan to do, ill b banned?? So bizarre...

I'd really like to hear what Sandy Taylor has to say about all of this. If the Equity Network is in fact doing this, and not just PokerHost doing this on its own, then as far as I'm concerned the Equity Network should be shut down.

Poker is a game of skill. If they don't want winning players on their site then they should instead open an online casino and leave poker to people who can accept poker for what it is.

pokerhost

1. Network/ skin names "equity" and "integer" don't attract recreational players. Management should expect more above average players.

2. Why is a site rep on two plus two if they don't want 2p2ers?

3. The network is new, and the player base is small. New players learning about the bans will be put off.

Recreational players and regulars alike won't play if the network doesn't want anyone winning.

4. Giving bans based on small hand samples and $ won is weird.

I would understand if a player won a significant amount over a small sample, and asked to withdraw a large %. 1k hands and 2k profit is not significant.

Sites like this believe in the theory that every deposit is profit and every cashout is loss. They don't realize that you have to play a lot of hands at 5% in order for a deposit to be turned into that poker sites profit. Let alone at higher stakes like 5/10. Say someone deposits just $2000, at 100nl that's 30k+ hands, at 1000nl it's 10k+ hands. Lets say everyone at 1000nl deposits just $2000, they need to play 10000 hands, fish play 70-80 hands an hour 1 tabling, so they'd have to play for over 100 hours just to convert that money. Which for a rec player who might play 5-10 hours a week, ends up taking over 2 months.

So for that money deposited to become profit for the site, they need someone to play more hands than anyone has ever even played on this network. Also, when a site starts taking actions that suggest they view deposits as profits, that doesn't speak well about the way they view/treat your funds.

I understand a new network taking a few precautions in the beginning to protect its small base and promote growth.

If a player dominated the lobby-- sat all the games, a large player balance, frequent cash out requests-- was up significant money--murdering competition and not slowing down over a large sample.

Or if it was a nit mass tabling for bonus purposes.

Then Id understand if the network told the player to return in 6 months. Wait for the player base to grow.

And if at that predetermined time the network said I wasn't VIP eligible but was welcome to come back and play, I would understand.

Here they went 0-60. It's going to have adverse effects on the network. I hope they reconsider their position before it's too late.

Glad I've held off from playing on this network. I mean really, wtf. A recreational player model is one thing but, this... theoretically, there will be no network left, just one player eventually, logging in and scratching their head, as there are no games left to play. Hahaha, not to mention "Equity" as the name of the network, hahahaha.

I probably played about 2,000 hands total on the site. Ran hot obviously, but banning a player for being a winner after 2,000 is just completely absurd.

Banning a plyr for winning period is absurd

My guess is someone (the skin?) is banning bumhunters. That could be what "aggressive" means. It would also explain how the one guy has only played 1k hands. Speculation of course but it would make sense..