Party Rep, and Jeffrey Haas, I want to say a few things and hope you are able to read them in entirety as the most valuable points I have to say will be at the end . Some things Regs won't agree on, some they will, but I just have a few thoughts on the poker industry.

As we all know it has been in decline for a long time. A lot of that is mainly due to legislation problems across the globe, especially in the USA, further, it is in decline due to natural progression, where players naturally progress in skill level and the playing field becomes more polarized where at this point regulars do not want to play other regulars and recreational players feel intimidated by the predatory nature of the modern games. And thirdly, because of bad publicity such as the Full Tilt debacle, Ultimate poker cheating, and Party's segregation. Recreational players do use the internet and they do search and when they find articles such as "Party Rigging the player pool" "Fish are segregated at party" Etc, they do not know what to make of these things, and therefore online poker receives further blows to its reputation.

That all said, I think the way the poker companies are handling these pressure is mostly poorly. The main reason for this is because the people responsible for making poker related decisions, although they may understand the game of poker, and see statistics for poker on their site, they do not understand what is happening in the poker environment quite like players who have been doing this for years, almost every day and see the entire progression of the online poker world.

As you see a decline in players, new signups, returning players etc, party has decided to cut back in a lot of areas, which essentially is like peeling an onion and each time you cut back you lose more customers, the player base becomes more frustrated and predatory and again the onion will be peeled until eventually poker dies right out.

Now here are some BOLD things I think party could do to even out this predatory nature, make the experience better and less hostile for both recreational players and regs a like, and return party poker to being an innovative, fun, and growing site.

1) Sit out 1 table, sit out all table button. I've said it so many times I'm sick of hearing myself say it, but I think given how the games are going, it is mandatory, and will completely change the Ora of the site.

2) Fun things for Recreational players, things that make their hearts beat with excitement. For example, the Bad Beat Jackpot. I am not sure why you removed it, and I am sure a lot of regulars hate it, but given party's approach is for a recreational focus, I think it is a big one. Recreational players love those things. In my opinion it should be changed though to make hitting it easier (like quad 2's +, or even top FH+) which in turn means smaller payouts. But if a recreational player see's the BBJ getting hit more often, or is on a table that it hits, it will greatly improve the positive excitement they would feel or remember from their experiences at the table. I can remember the days of BBJ and the excitement every recreational player would feel seeing that number turning and asking what it was and how to hit it. Inherently recreational players are mostly gamblers, so why not add a hint of fun gamble to the games?

3) Fourth and finally, to continue balancing the acidic nature of the player pool, I think Party should somehow devise ways to reward the "ethical regulars" poker players from the "unethical regulars." It is the unethical ones that are killing the poker atmosphere and only leeching from the games, so to reward them equally is not doing anyone any favors. Ideas to re balance, while, rewarding players that start tables, maybe offer rake free startup tables so if only two players are playing HU on a 6max table to start a table they pay no rake during this time, or they receive a % of RB back for playing during this time. I believe you need ways to drive regulars to want to play other regulars. Right now they just don't do it, and you have scum like messi_ that come around and ruin it even more by sitting out everywhere waiting. If you could offer some incentives for regulars to play each not only will you have more games going more often, you will have the ability to make some profits off these games from regulars, that just don't run at the moment. Even if you just took a very small % of rake for while tables were half empty or such at least you would have games running, and be making some money instead of having table after table sitting out. I also think you should punish the unethical players in a similarly creative way.

^ and don't charge a scammy 10% 'admin fee' on the BBJ

the bad beat jackpot is a profit rape, you would need a sick amount of fish increase to make up for it

plz dont even talk about this, party might go full ****** and listen

if you remove the admin fee and make it easy enough to hit as YSS said, a BBJ doesn't have to be -EV at all. could dynamically alter the winning criteria as a function as prizepool.

agree with everything else YSS posted too btw, wasn't intending to derail from more important suggestions

quick shoutout to Yordan at vip support for a Big 30th bday on friday! HAppY BirtHdaY!!

+1

+2

+3

Please respond to these matters Rep.

+1
Again an articulate and informed poster once again proposes a way forward, lets just hope they listen.
Reintroducing the BBJP would be a good idea, imo. Gives an added incentive for the recreational player to log on if there is a juicy jackpot to be won.

Very well said YouSureSir. Pls respond, Party reps.

there is a one big flaw in this way of thinking. There was a reason why they get rid off bbj. It causes fish to play higher stakes to try to hit the jackpot and overall jackpot was making them less money cause fish instead of slowly bleading its bankroll on nl10-nl25 was playing nl50+ to try to hit the jackpot so overall their rake to deposit ratio was worse.

I would prefer something along the lines of stars milestone hands promotions. Way better idea and would increase amount of fish almost the same. Would sacrifice some rakeback for that myself.

Well, it is December, and we have no promotions whatsoever. You guys remember how December was always a great month for promotions on Party... and this week, Party Rep is not showing up, not only because they cannot answer our pressing ethical questions, but they have nothing to offer, during this upcoming Holidays, to keep our minds off what has happened this year (or to simply offer rakeback, like normal sites do).

Party Rep, can we expect some reg friendly better promotions anytime soon?

verry nice post sir
+123456557

I think it's pretty clear that we can't. Party have been pretty forthcoming in letting us know that they don't want professional regs on the site. I think it extremely unlikely that there will ever be another promotion that appeals to regs.

It's just embarrassing in general for poker players as a group the way some of you guys go on and on begging and whining. Where is your dignity?

(1) It was just this year they were caught secretly testing game rigging techniques such as segregation algorithms. They gave us their word (which is worth less than sh*t now) that this segregation has recently been lifted, but even this was only done because the system was being predictably exploited by multi-accounting cheaters (something else that was predicted by many players from the first day we outed the secret "tests" party was conducting.....of course they ignored us).

(2)They're also well known for outright theft of funds confiscated from fraudulent accounts (in other words they removed money from honest players who had won this money playing legitimate hands with these accounts). Somehow you're responsible if you end up playing a hand with a fraudulently funded account, not their security team who let the account onto the network. Get in a large pot with over 50% equity with one of these players. (A) win the hand, party steals the money from you and keeps it when they detect the fraud (B) lose the hand, Party still steals the money as it's confiscated from the closed account balance.

(3) They have a reputation for changing VIP programs and bonus structures with insufficient notice and most recently no notice whatsoever (in other words they pulled a bait and switch, promising x% rb deals then changing the deal after regs had already grinded up months of points). How many hundreds of thousands of dollars did they steal from their "VIP" players from this one move alone? If they don't give players enough time to reevaluate new VIP program details, it's just fraud. They pull players in with one offer, then change the deal after players are already thousands of dollars committed.

(4) new increased withdrawal fees with no notice........

(5) beta testing their new software on the regs still desperate enough to be grinding here after 1-4. Lets face it, the guys still pumping rake into Party at this point will put up with pretty much anything, so why not beta test their new software before officially launching it in Jersey. Never mind giving a nice promotion or prop pay for the service, we'll just tell them it's the official release. Of course there was pages of crying, whining and begging, but many of you continued on, lubed up your arses and took another stiffy.

(6) I'm tired of typing. Any newbs thinking of playing here just skim through this sad thread.

If you've made the decision to just continue on and take it, then at least do so with some form of dignity in quiet shame.

I've heard from one of the players at WSOP that Borgata and PP share.
I understand that if it is so it's gonna be like some offshore sites has different sites but work under same network and players in fact play on the same site just different names. Am I right about offshore sites ,though? Is that possible that it is how it works with PP and Borgata Poker?

PartyPoker NJ and Borgata NJ share players pool.

"Offshore PartyPoker" does not share with US sites.

hi ebffs!

ebffs telling the truth

you guys should just stop whining and just rake

wise words by ebffs as well as omnishakira imo

very well saif yousuresir. Exactly my thoughts.

One thing Party could also implement is something like chat bubbles. Its impossible to read the chat in combination with the dealer messages when you are multitabling. I think fish would enjoy a nice chat (its nothing I would want to have from a grinder's perspective ofc).

Hello YouSureSir,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions. I appreciate that, as does my team.

I agree with much of what you write. We're spending a lot of time these days working on ways to improve our game ecology by making the poker experience we provide more attractive to all our 'regs', 'recs' and new players. There are many challenges with this, as you are clearly aware, but we have some good ideas and now the challenge is implementing them.

One quick point about the Missions & Achievements that many people on 2p2 are quick to deride: new players, a small portion of 'recs', and a smaller portion of 'regs', are really engaging with them in a meaningful manner. They have made the game more enjoyable for them, and they are playing more hands over more days as a result. We now need to make better M&A in order to make them attractive to more players.

In respect to your specific ideas:

I agree this is a good approach. I'm curious to hear from you and others if there are any good reasons for NOT having sit-out functionality work this way?

I don't know why it was removed, as we haven't discussed it. I'll find out, and either follow-up here or ask Paul to in his weekly update.

FYI that your third point seems to have mysteriously disappeared.

As for your fourth, there's some good ideas here. I'll refer them to our PRM guys to look at. Thank you.

While I'm here, some responses to other recent posts:

Thank you for sending previously. Could you please re-send and ask Support to send to my attention?

We are working on diagnosing this issue and developing a solution. We still require your help with this. As Paul wrote a few weeks ago:

Software Lag:

We are continuing to actively investigate the software lag. I would like to extend thanks to those who have assisted us by providing the requested local files. Those players still experiencing issues are invited to send the following files to our Customer Services department via info@partypoker.com

All files are located at C:\Programs\PartyGaming\PartyPoker

• OCLCards_FilterState.txt
• <playername>_pst_flts.txt
• usertab1.txt
• usertab2.txt

It would also be beneficial if you could provide us with:

1. Your screen/account name.
2. The date and time the last issue occurred.
3. The number of tables and tournament lobbies which were open / being played at the time.
4. The time elapsed since you started playing (session time).
5. Details of any third party tools you were using at the time.
6. What other programs you were running at this time.

We’ll use this information to test our software in a similar setting to try and reproduce the issues – which will then allow us to diagnose and correct them.

My apologies for Party Rep not showing up in this thread this week, as I asked him to focus on NJ topics. He will return this coming week.

As for having "no promotions whatsoever", today is probably the busiest day of the last 6 months on partypoker.com. I count 6x events with more than 1K players, and more cash game tables & SNGs running than I have seen in a while. We even made the guarantee on the $5K PLO8 - for the first time!

So I guess this is a difference in perspective: I think we create more value for the poker community playing on our site by bringing lots of new players and 'recs' to participate in events like 'PokerFest: Micro Turbo Edition', and you think we create more value by offering the 'regs' more rakeback. I don't mean to infer that we don't want the 'regs' to play, or that we won't have some more friendly promotions for our grinders, but as YouSureSir said (to paraphrase) we need to make the game more fun, and more attractive, to new and recreational players if we want to have any hope of growing the game.

I did speak at length last night with a player from 2p2 about what 'regs' are looking for, and he gave some great feedback. This is something we are going to work on.

1. Segregating player pools with protected tables was not rigging the game.
2. If you think our games are rigged, you should complain to our regulators and not (only) on 2p2. Our regulators have the power to shut us down if we are not offering a fair game.
3. Our games are not rigged.
4. The segregation has been lifted, and we are not testing anything at this time. We're still talking about the best way to implement something that will have the desired effect, and we'll openly communicate when we're ready to trial or implement it.
5. If you want to discuss issues, please keep the conversation civil.

This is a complex topic. I am wary of over-simplifying, but also don't want to skip this point or defer my answer. So I'll respond in brief with some nominal simplification (please excuse that), and can ask our fraud team to provide a more detailed answer if required.

The main point to make is that a fraudulent account will typically have been funded by someone who makes a deposit and then reverses or cancels the payment afterwards. That payment is then charged-back to us (the payment processor takes back whatever money they initially sent us) and we then need to remove the funds previously credited to that player's account because they don't exist as anything other than breadcrumbs (we will also close the account, and take some other actions). If the funds are still in the player's account, then it's a straightforward matter - we cancel the deposit. If the funds are in some other players' accounts, after the depositing player played and lost, we then take the funds from the players who won those funds. This is unfortunate in most cases, but necessary in order for us to minimize the harm that this fraudulent activity causes to our players and our own business. We do not benefit at all from this, and regret that it sometimes causes badwill and aggravation to honest players who win in these circumstances. We put a lot of effort into stopping these things from happening, such as requiring identification from players, and will continue investing in this area and taking action against fraudsters.

I have previously acknowledged that we have been terrible at communications for some time. Were we within our rights to make changes to our VIP program & withdrawal fees with no notice to players? Yes. Should we have done it that way? No. Definitely not. Will we substantially improve our communications in the future? Yes.

We are reviewing our VIP program and bonus structures, and we will provide notice in respect to what changes will occur and when. Nothing has been decided yet, and nothing will be implemented until next year. More details on this to follow once we have clarity.

Thank you wodka for this suggestion! It's a good idea.

Cheers,

Jeffrey

I highly doubt you can find anyone here to not agree with "sit out 1 = sit out all" rule. If so, the chances are they're the reason for this rule to be implemented....

Anyway; I hope you're going to answer to the rest of the questions also... Selective support kinda sucks.

Segregating player pools with protected tables was not rigging the game.

Of course its rigging the game LOL wtf. It's no better than rigging the card to favor fish. You rig players into having stronger opponent which make them more likely to lose just like an hypothetical card rig that would give the underdog a slightly better chance to win than what mathematic would say.

You're just dancing around the rules and making it legally rigged. Of course you wont get shutdown lol. It was def rigging, modifying, alterning the game normal experience. There's no question about it but you did it legally. g00d j0b

However, there is a difference between not telling anyone that you rigged your games and lying to everyone telling them your game isnt rigged anymore when it's in fact still rigged.
I dont think party would straight up lie about such a big matter so I believe you when you say that youre game isnt rigged anymore.



I have previously acknowledged that we have been terrible at communications for some time.

Wow thanks, then I forgive you for the 1200$ you stole from me and the millions you stole from your VIPs.


Were we within our rights to make changes to our VIP program & withdrawal fees with no notice to players? Yes. Should we have done it that way? No.

Who the **** cares LOL. you rob us for millions then u say sorry we should have done it in another way *then never talk about it anymore and keeps the mirrions*

Can I say sorry to party for a million dollar too ? If so i will write my letter right now. good job for legally robbing us because putting the word legal in front of rob or in front of anything for that matter is always fine right

We are reviewing our VIP program and bonus structures, and we will provide notice in respect to what changes will occur and when. Nothing has been decided yet, and nothing will be implemented until next year. More details on this to follow once we have clarity.


Your bonus and VIP system is broken, you should fix it tomorrow. You cant ask someone to rake 50000$ for a 15k bonus and then ask him to rake another 50000$ in 6 months. It is utter broken and you should fix it right now, not in march. Can you just act like human beings and just give the 15000$ when someone rake 50k, not a bonus, just cash. Same for all your bonus

Anyway prepare for the worse guys. If you have lot of point, spend them.

I wonder why you guys still play on party ? can i know why im just curious. Unless you play like 2 times a month then whatever. Im talking to the players who invest serious amount of time on party.

answer please i wont bite you, youre victims of a scam and i wonder why u guys stay there ? Im really curious maybe you have a point i dunno.
Party poker has the worst vip system on the whole internet internet the best bonus is worth 15% which is silver vip on pokerstars and it enslaves you into an endless grind because you always have a nice chunk of points left when youre done with a bonus. They're not even the softest site around and their software is cheap and buggy. so I dunno, enlight me