sorry late to the party...

cliffs as far as i understand: old buyer pulls out, new one comes in, news next week?

about right?

(are we already at the "this is a smokescreen from Bitar" level?)

i really dont think theyll suddenly charge outrageous amounts of rake...

theres also still a few other sites options if it gets out of hand.

(also 2p2 is pretty elite @ sitting out tables in protest, among other things)

Well based on other companies...say if 888poker just published they make 21M per Q that's 7M a month, and according to poker scout Stars is about 10 times bigger...so would say Stars make 60-80M a month, so yeah good 700-950M per year...

Merely giving an example, we all know they had more than 1k players. How much rake did FTP get from a 50k pot? $3, how much from a $50 pot? $3. So keep the massive player base owed little money, lose the VERY small player base owed a lot of $ still generate a similar amount of rake. Have a great night. Hope you get all your FTP $ back too.

A competitive market would be unlikely to create any dynamics that would benefit player more than having a trusted company at the top.

It's not like Stars is going to increase rake once they own FTP or that FTP under Tapie would've been likely to decrease it.

The rake is going to get out of hand and u know this. Where else u going to play Merge or Party Poker? I honestly think the rake is going to be absurd and that is the thing that concerns me. Is there even going to be rakeback now? I am just trying to be realistic here.

WSJ is no LA Times.

PokerStars In Talks To Buy Full Tilt Poker

Oscar

Just my 2 cents here - wouldn't it make more sense to just run strong with 1 brand (Stars) and drop FTP altogether? For all the good its software might be, it's a stained and tainted brand name that will forever be associated with corruption and bad business.

Surely a solid % of players had accounts on both sites... Offer to pay the FTP balance directly into their Stars' accounts and thus retain the players, engender loyalty, etc.

Software - check
Player payback engendering loyalty/retention - check
Green light to enter U.S. market - check

But what on Earth do they stand to gain by keeping the Full Tilt Brand name?

Any thoughts?

The fact that Kevmode is mr. negative today is the biggest mind**** I've ever seen.

You're failing miserably. How much do you think rake is going to increase/rewards are going to fall? Post some numbers and I'm sure you'll have no shortage of willing side bettors.

A white knight swooped in out of nowhere to give us bags of money and you're complaining about the mud on his boots.

Kevmode, as much as I usually agree with you, I have to disagree here. Stars paid out their US players within two weeks of black friday, which in terms of treating players goes, is pretty damn good.

Because, as we can see from this thread, FTP had/have loyal customers that want to play on that platform. If it were me I'd like to keep my customers happy.

According to the WSJ:

this lol.

This theory aint gonna fly to those handing out licences...

I wanted FTP and STars to be completely separate so that there could be a good balance of competition that benefits online poker. FTP and Stars were always trying to top each other buy coming up with new ideas like Super turbos, rush poker, super stack mtts and big Sunday mtts and different forms of cash games. Also things like run it twice and being able to make a deal at a final table were huge steps for online poker and this was possible because of the lvl of competition between Stars and FTP. Without the competition online poker won't be what it used to be and there may be a lack of new ideas and the players won't be getting what they deserve and online poker might not become as great. Competition is great for business and this is one of my concerns. Don't get me wrong I am truly excited about the news and this is a great thing for the players but I am not popping bottles of champagne.

Let me get this straight: after months of "next week we'll close the deal" "the deal is 90% through", now we find out that was all bull**** and tapie didn't actually buy FTP, and PS is trying to do what he didn't?
I'm sorry, but I see at least 6 more months of "next weeks".
Hope I'm wrong though. I had some cheeseburger moneyz on FTP.

or those handing out spelling tests.

Avoiding brand blindness.

Example: Nissan - Infiniti
Another Example: Toyota - Scion
Another: Pepsi - Gatorade

The two products are VASTLY different. Full tilt catered to a completely different player base, there were loyal players on both, and some that used both. Thus, those loyal, will still stay loyal, regardless.

Just because I drink both, can you kill Gatorade's brand and just call it "Pepsi Hydration"?

Nope... I wouldn't go for it. We want options, if you kill it, you delete options, and that kills loyalty.

More importantly - why would you want to destroy the name that some people may immediately associate with? Seems more beneficial to acquire it and use transfer of authority to benefit from both.

The developed brand.

Close to 100% of people I talk to that aren't in the poker world have no clue what happened, why it happened, or what is going on with online poker. Now ask them if they know Full Tilt Poker...

Sad to say, but people are sheep.

WSJ has a paywall and most of that article is hidden.
To read it all go to : http://news.google.com/
Paste the headline in the search box : PokerStars In Talks To Buy Full Tilt Poker
Then the full article is available from the link in the search results.

I totally agree with you, in any business Monopoly is bad. But right now people are more focused on getting their money back. Short-sighted maybe...

If the rake gets out of hand and they significantly reduce the number of promotions, some people (like myself) will naturally stop playing there, no matter how big the player traffic is. Believe me, there are other sites I can play on, ainec. And as more and more people start to drop out, the player pool (which was what would have been keeping PS a monopoly in the first place) is also going to start shrinking and PS will, once again, be forced to reduce the rake/increase bonuses to regain/keep their players.

Businesses don't just stop trying to provide what their customers want when they win a certain amount of market share. If they did, i.e. if Stars raises the rake and stops thinking of new ideas, it won't take long until somebody figures out how to not only compete with them but beat them.