GGPoker is the big one, services almost everything but US (lol btw), accepts crypto. It's also the softest by a magnitude.

Every site that segregated their player pools fell into insignificance, that's just a fact. Even the apps (Bros, PPP etc.) are bigger now than the biggest legacy sites, and those are really sketchy. No one cares about John Smith, fk that cnt, what we do want is Li Xiu, Eduardo Sanchez and Nguyen Nguyen. And they, by necessity, know how crypto works.

I understand why US players think online poker is dead. But the fact is, the party is roaring, you're just not allowed in because you smell of "freedom".

That Party died was inevitable - they even refused to service Hungarian players, and they are allowed EVERYWHERE else, they are the benchmark for this kinda thing.

I'm not in the US. I'm in the UK. I have been limited (due to KYC) to £1500 per month on Stars. I was banned from GG for no reason, I am assuming bumhunting, but prior to that was limited to $1200 per month - but even if I wasnt banned and had decent deposit methods/limts, it's very well documented that the rake is an absoulte killer for anything but the highest stakes to the point where it's unbeatable for midstakes (2/5+), there's many threads about this + recent sightings and confirmation of superusers at many diff stakes. Coinpoker is pathetically low traffic, WPN is full of bots. I do not trust the apps or unregulated sites such as Coin/WPN for that matter really. You tell me where else. I would love to find somewhere I can play to show me that online poker isnt dead. I have played online for like 20 years, and of those 20, 10-12 were spent as a pro where I profited over 7figs, if I am finding it hard to find somewhere I doubt many others can find it, live cash games are fine but it's slow and not an ideal thing to do for 40-50 hours a week when you have other commitments and a family.

Your names of ideal players did make me laugh and is factual, the ideal fish has changed in demographic so I agree with you there, wish I could play against them.

It's insane how many players there are on GG tournaments. The $15 Wednesday mystery bounty has a $200k gtd and I think it hit nearly $250k yesterday. The current equivalent featured tournament on Pokerstars is a $22 bounty with a $15k gtd. Meanwhile Party pokers biggest tournament of the week is a $110 buy in with $100k gtd on Sunday which often has an overlay.

Somehow GG seem to have more tournament traffic now than when I first started playing on Pokerstars in 2016.

Well yeah, I also had to move to keep playing, turns out your government sucks, that doesn't mean it's dead though. NLHE cash online might be, but other games have died before (LHE was the biggest game on Party ~2005 lol) and it was too predatory anyways. Gotta stay flexible. Tournaments right now have 5% rake thanks to 50% RB flat and no PVI. It's insane how profitable they are.

In fact, more people play now than back when the $3.50+R had a $60k Gtd. and player numbers are rising rapidly with the Asian market flooding in. China alone has 3x the potential market of Europe and the US combined. Add India, Korea, the SEA countries. All getting richer, legislation loosening, not tightening, and relatively uneducated pokerwise.

Even back then you had to split action between Party, Stars and FTP. Now, GG is pretty much enough to sustain yourself - and when GG inevitably dies, someone else will step up.

Basically what I'm saying is: You are as a player what Party was as a site - legacy, unable to adjust, going extinct.

The point still stands: as a publicly traded company, they had a strong motivation to not operate illegally.

I'll buy it for $3.50

The point may stand, but the chronology and motivation which you stated is incorrect.

Let's not start a price war guys