its only a zero sum game if you consider stars a player in said game

its a zero sum less rake game

Whats the ratio of Steves to SNEs?

I can predict some will reply that SNE's will keep playing, putting in more volume and thereby causing more pots and thus more rake. But not if the SNE is losing money, he only continues in order to withdraw. Steve, in the example, as a rec donk, if he wins may also keep playing but is less likely to withdraw and more likely to move up stakes and pay more rake.

The site wants everyone to lose because where is the money going, it's all going to rake. Some will at least win in the short term and what will they do, withdraw=bad for site, keep playing and lose=good for site. I just don't see how it matters who is "paying rake".

Yes, perhaps it would be better to say, "a zero sum situation".

I guess the rake is affecting the player that wins the pot. ie, the player would be winning a bigger pot if it wasn't raked.

It doesn't matter how it is worded. Pokerstars needs players, to play pots, so they can rake those pots.

As for Amaya's decision to increase rake, it's like simple supply and demand. Would you rather sell 100 T-shirts for $1 profit, or 1 T-shirt for $150 profit?

PokerStars is a multi-billion dollar company. I'm sure they had multiple valuations of how their rake increase was going to affect their net profits. If they felt that the positives of their rake increase (price increase) outweigh the negatives (players no longer playing on PS), then it is a smart business decision, from their point of view.

...the rake increase obviously stinks for the players. Similar to the 1 person that is willing to pay $150 for the T-shirt...I'm sure he would rather just pay $1 for the T-shirt, but the T-shirt company knows that the way for them to make the most profit is to price the T-shirt at $150.

I agree with Phil Galfond. The biggest problem for this industry is that there are zero legitimate competitors for PokerStars/Amaya. It's a monopoly, and customers are totally at the mercy of the company. If another company could emerge as a viable competitor to PS/Amaya, that would lead to much better situations for the players/customers (whether it is a rake decrease, promos, etc etc)

its an effective monopoly now but give it 3 years, i think they went too far

i would crack a bottle of champagne and reopen/reread these threads just to rub it in if amayas uncautious rake hikes lead to a not so distant future where stars has <50% market share

Does it matter to the company what happens to the money after it's won? Situation 1) it goes back into play, situation 2) it gets withdrawn.

I still don't see how profitable grinders are good for the site. Their profits *and* the rake "they pay" ultimately come from the deposits of bad losing players. The source of the companies profits and the grinders profits is the same, the bad losing player. If the company can push out the winning grinder that leaves more money for the company.

I know there are other considerations but am I wrong with this analysis?

Have you closed/momentarily stopped reading these threads yet?

Ok, so it's a bit ridiculous to see "winners" as an evil. Winners are a fact of the game. Winners have always existed and will always exist (unless the rake becomes too high). Just as there have always been losers. That is a fact of the poker economy.

The only possible way of edging out winners, is increasing the rake high enough so that it is impossible to turn a profit.

All you have then is a lot of losers.

There are only a few motivations for depositing. Expecting to make a return (whether realistic or not), and for recreation/wanting to gamble are about all of them. Naturally if the game was unwinnable you would lose a lot of traffic, and newer players who are looking to move up and derive some benefit from the game will be discouraged from doing so.

The site derives it money from rake generated, it is in their interest to have as many people play each other at any time. It is an unfortunate coincidence that winners also take money out of the economy, but it is an unavoidable reality in a sustainable poker environment.

I would like to ask a question about the rake, is the rake-back the same for each sne in %?
And do they get rake-back once a month or once a week?
And how much % rake-back do the get?
Does the rake-back difference if you play higher stakes.

And i am asking these questions because i don't play on-line, i only play live[for fun]
and to be honest on-line poker is boring/ irritating for me and i don't have the patience for it, i can play 36 hr live but not 2 hours on-line, and i play because i love poker, not for a living, and aldo i am a winning player over 27 years of playing, i don't need the money i win and can afford a losing streak[like pokerstars i separate my poker-roll from my other money]

And because i was thinking, is a consistently winning player not only playing with his rake-back and only taking money from the other players but not from pokerstars, so disrespectfully spoken a leech?, and if there are more and more of these players are they not killing the game?, like yesterday for instance on full-tilt there where about 20 players sitting out on the 100/200 somebody wrote on hsdb, is that good for the game? makes anonymous tables sound good, but it seems to be dangerous and/or easier to cheat and/or to discover cheating.

You're ignoring the fact that dead money causes pots to be played. If all the fish withdrew and everyone on stars was playing to win how many pots would be played? If 100 fish started playing 100/200 how many new pots would be played that aren't played now?

I don't think there's a one liner answer to those questions.

I don't think there's a one liner answer to those questions, I get your point though.

It's true, they don't want long term winners but if they must exist then the site wants them to win as little as possible, obv. How to achieve this?

They could just ban them. Then they will go to some other site and cut into that sites profits, good.

This is music to any poker sites ears.

Players playing to gamble don't care if the game is unwinnable in the long term, they just want to enjoy the thrill of running hot, etc. The players who will only play if they win are the players the site wants to get rid of.

100% of the rake and 100% of reg grinders profits ultimately comes from losing players. The losing players don't play more hands because of the presence of reg grinders. Pokerstars wants you to go to another site so you can cut into that sites profits.

There will still be winners and what will they do with the money. The players Amaya intends to keep are more likely to move up a limit than to withdraw. Still, some will withdraw. You can't win'em all and they will likely redeposit. So we'll have gambly players moving up to higher and higher limits and such players still wont care much about the rake. Amaya might make it 5% cap instead of a $5 cap, so $1000 on a $20,000 pot. Now there is some serious profit.

They should replace Daniel with Gus.

what's he down the last few years like 20 mil? im sure he cares about the rake.

Yea but is this 20 million after or before rake-back, and how reliable are those numbers?
Because there are people that think that the hsdb numbers for instance are not that reliable.

And if this number is before rake-back then it is going to be a very different number, and if you count all those months of sponsor money he got and extract that from the 20 million, then the number keeps getting smaller, at least the amount that he really lost out of his own pocket.

But he i don't think we ever going to know the real number that he lost, and i don't think gus is losing any sleep over it anymore, if he ever did that is.

Pretty ****ing sure he's down like ~15 mil. There has been some speculation over whether or not he is sharing his account with wealthy businessmen/celebrities whom wish to remain anonymous online, but that has yet to be substantiated.

What is clear, however, is the Hansen's account has lost an extraordinary amount of money over the past few years, and he is consistently amongst the biggest losers in mixed games over Amaya Stars and Amaya Tilt Poker.

He had, in the past, made considerable amounts of money on the tournament poker-circuit, and from various investments.

There's a pretty solid chance that Hansen ha lost millions online over the past few years, and it is apparent that he had the resources to sustain such losses.

The bolded above is key -- a "rec" player wants to gamble, and part of that is he wants to FEEL like he is gambling aka having FUN, having an emotionally fun EXPERIENCE in his body and brain.

But online poker is no longer that fun gambling experience for those valuable recs (before Sit&Spin, etc... I sadly admit).


IMO a whole lotta folks esp. on 2+2 have misunderstood comments (from DNegs and others) about "winners are bad" etc. It's not the fact that winners are bad for winning -- it's the WAY those winning players are playing online (especially in cash games) that is "bad".

Or more clearly, it makes for a bad experience for the "rec" players. And thus it's bad for the site (because those bad experiences start to add up and the rec players decide to gamble in a -EV house game that at least can sometimes FEEL FUN.



Since virtually all sites allow for 12+ tabling there is a mathematical basis for choosing a playing style that is insanely tight (to squeak out a small but semi-consistent profit at each table) ... but this playing style is B.O.R.I.N.G. for the rec players to compete against.

Look at it from their POV; it's not even a competition. It doesn't feel like a game, it feels like "man vs machine" like you're playing against a formulaic bot army. Fold fold fold fold fold raise-from-LP, one caller, bet+fold OTF. Or fold fold fold raise re-raise [fold/4betAllIn]. Lather rinse repeat EFF THIS.


Speaking from experience, when a "rec" is just one-tabling HUD-free on his mobile app or desktop computer for a half hour session during lunch or whatever, and during that entire session almost nobody else at his FULLRING cashgame table is gambling as evidenced talking in chat (other than to swear/namecall @ a donk who called really bad but hit sick to win a biggish pot off a "reg") and almost always folding preflop (so most hands are HU to the flop and end there with a single bet+fold ... or a showdown happens displaying the "reg" has yet another "top 5% hand" :sigh: ) OR they are 3betting virtually optimally against the LAGgiest of players ... well it is not just boring for the rec, it doesn't FEEL like "poker" anymore -- and sadly the more smarts-challenged amongst those recs starts feeling like "online poker is rigged" because otherwise how could he keep facing all those high pocket pairs and AceKing? (Every. Damn. Hand.) And (again, speaking from what I witness) they tell everyone around them (both the boring/foldfest AND the rigged theories) at the LIVE cash game / micro-MTT tables. Every chance they get. (But they also tell folks how much fun the new 3handed Winner Takes All game is! Yes, sadly, I've witnessed THAT a few times already too.)



I never thought I would be one to say it, but the only options other than increasing rake to discourage the rakeback grinders is... reducing the max # of tables (or allowing for anonymous tables and/or frequent name changes to discourage the HUDbotting ... but neither of those is ever gonna happen @ Stars obv.)

I personally play almost entirely live $1/2 nl now, or else play on my Android @ Stars .01/.02 nl (fullring WITH ANTES to ensure the loosest possible action) as "practice" for live -- but even at those lowest of stakes -- even with antes -- it is WAY nittier than live at 100x the stakes! That's what online poker has turned into for those of us NOT willing (or able) to grind 12+ tables at <15% vpip (if not <10%). Poker is still fun for the non-pros, if it's live poker. But only if (for reasons I mentioned above).


...okay, flame away, rakeback grinders...

wow. never realized this. you can be super elite and still be a loser. id be pissed over this.

what happened after the 5th about players blocked and future action?

i strongly disagree with gambling standing for recreation. it's a misleading lie. the only reason people gamble is a 'smell' of money. unhappy recreational players lie to themselves when blame regulars for their losses. they pretend to play fo fun. if they loved poker they would play it on play money or nanolimits to afford losses. but instead they gamble putting whole deposit on the table. even in a level field of players there is a high posibility to lose your stack due to bad beat or cooler. so the only way we can make recr. player experience last longer is to teach them basics of moneymanagement and explain why it is important not to put all money on the table.

Damn I thought this was a new thing set for 2 days time...

Lets all do cash outs on Nov 5th!!

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