This is madness considering how high rake was for those games. Is it really so bad to have a few guys print every year and maybe inspire people to deposit in the first place? How many people deposited because of Ivery, Durr, Isildur etc.

**** GG. The amount of banning of ‘winning’ players for game selecting or having a small win rate or for completely unknown reasons and thus being basically 86’d from playing any online WSOP events (being in Europe) is an absolute disgrace. I hope you succeed… but I hope they don’t give in, and your action moves, and their revenue plummets, because they are scummy beyond belief and should *****.

Pretty much empty lobby, all big names previously sitting now committed to the boycott.

Looks promissing but we might need to wait for some fri-sun night screenshots, imo.

It be so nice if this worked and same thing was possible for all sites and stakes.

Too bad its a dream.

I'd expect GG to wait it out a couple of weeks and see what happens but the risk in doing that is high stakes recs pull their deposits. If you are based in China, you're probably not comfortable having a bunch of money on some foreign platform, particularly when there are no games running. Even worse, if you do any amount of research into why games aren't running and find out it's because they close to doubled the rake, you're even more likely to pull your deposits.

GG wants legitimacy in the poker world, but they have a reputation as the shadiest among the big operators. From dubious, selectively enforced "bum-hunting" bans, the bait-and-switch PVI system, to rake that is 15x+ their competitors in some cases. Just awful. More well known players should speak out against these practices.

Wonder how GG poker defines "bum-hunting" exactly? This really could get way worse for some high stakes pros depending on GG's definition of bum-hunting. Any you high stakes pros try withdrawing yet? Sites so scummy I would be a bit worried if I was a high stakes pro.


Cheers!!!

Browsing the lobby before sitting in is one that I know of. And the obv one jumping tables.

I think your idea of "legitimacy in the poker world" needs some explanation. Legitimacy by whose standard ?

The "poker world" has always had deep fissures in its make up, both online and live. I think you might be more persuasive if you explain what YOU mean by legitimacy/

For example, online poker itself was vociferously condemned by wanna-be providers who felt their hands were tied after Reid 2.0 failed to pass federal licensing into law in the US. Of course that was and is protectionist nonsense, but it was cloaked in a mantle of "legitimacy".

I am certainly no defender of GG, but I would propose that their popularity worldwide, as well as that of other competitors provides a gauge of their "legitimacy" in the estimation of the market of prospective poker players.

GG Poker holds a number of regulatory iicenses to offer poker online. You have a criticism of those regulatory agencies ?

Players' traditional freedom to choose:

With limited exceptions, poker PLAYERS are not prohibited from playing online poker wherever they choose. Would you deny any opportunity to poker players in the US to make their own choices among prospective providers, based upon what State they live in and limit them, AS PLAYERS, to ONLY their State licensed providers ?

(There is a strong argument for that view, but it is not how gaming regulation operates in the United States, which tends to avoid regulating individual choice. I'm just asking if you think that way.)

Those be two obvious ones for sure and the first two I thought of back when I first joined GG and read their no "bum hunting" rules. And while I personally have never exactly bum hunted I never just pick the first open table and sit down. I always browse the lobby and typically always watch a number of hands before sitting just get an idea of how that particular table is playing. So by GG's definition I'm a "bum hunter" and I'll bet most players are by that definition including high stakes pros.

How about stepping down a few levels from your normal playing level/stakes and playing? I'll bet GG defines that as "bum hunting" as well. Which we're all likely guilty of at one time or another for whatever reason. Back when I played 50nl as a rec during the Moneymaker poker boom I had days where I felt like playing but didn't feel like playing 50nl. So I would step down and play either 10nl or 25nl instead.

So glad I never played cash on GG and don't play there at all now. Was considering(last week) going back and trying their full ring cash tables but since this thread and discussion hell no way.


Cheers!!!

Avr0ra's comments about the situation can be found on GipsyTeam.

But what's your take on why GG is doing this in the first place? I don't think it's just to make more money from the rake.

From what I understand, they want to discourage having five regular players sitting at a table with one whale, which will end up bleeding BBs very quickly.

By increasing the rake to 7BB/100, GG is creating a situation in which only the very top players like Linus, Munez, Zas, and Makeboifin can still beat the game for a few BB/100. The other high-stakes regulars at the table who aren't at the same level as these top players will probably end up losing money, and therefore not even attempting to play there.

In this way, GG might end up allowing only the very top players and the whales at their tables. This could create a situation that's even more favorable for the top players, for example, if you have three top players and three whales at a table.

EDIT: Or just to put it in another way, let's say that when some regs are already sitting at the table, the next reg is discouraged from sitting-in. This will naturally keep the correct ratio regs/fish which maintains the game beatable for the reg. If the next reg sits at the table, some regs might be incentivized to leave since with more players the whale will bleed less into them.

Twelve years on 2p2 and waits patiently for this very moment to make a first contribution. If that's not indicative of truth, I don't know what is

Can anyone tell me why nobody mentions party poker in these situations?

As far as I’m aware they have high stakes tables, but nobody plays there. They give 40% rake back, and unlike acr allow deposit and withdrawals by visa.

But hey.. people “don’t like the software” well that’s fine, you can carry on paying. 12bb/100 rake. But at least it will be on software you like!

The recs determine where the games run. GG have access to Asian markets which are very lucrative. Stars pulled out of China and never really pushed hard into those markets despite there being infinite recs ( i.e Pokermaster days). Ideally some operator (maybe 4Poker?) challenge for that market and help make things fairer.

Funny how none of you cared to organise a strike for the mid stakes and lower stakes players who have had to deal with rake this high and higher for years on end. Oh wait, it did not affect your bottom line nor did you care for the growth of players to move up through stakes.

You have allowed GG to do so many shady things in the past, but once again did not care because your bottom line was not affected. Now you’ve allowed them to capture the whole market and the moment they do something that affects your bottom line it’s time to strike? **** off you selfish cucks. Don’t pretend it’s a community thing. It’s literally something that has affected your earnings so now it’s time to speak up. Pathetic

They arent talking about microstake grinders like urself obviously as u have a hundreds options to choose from of where you wanna play. At high stakes where people actually make a living from poker theres not infinite action and for them (and others that aspire to be professional players one day) this is a big problem and not doing anything about it is slowly gonna kill the game we all love

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im sure there are much much more people making a living from low and mid stakes them high stakes fyi

Props to Sammartino for grinding that hard in the past few days

hundreds of options with a far worse rake trap. lower stakes and micro pay up to double 7bb, thats why its so hard to escape but when high stakes have to pay 7bb the world is coming to an end. lol.

`Madness` is rake in any SSNL games in pretty much almost any platform (now vs how it was 5-10 years ago everywhere), besides i guess sites like WPN where u get very limited amount of recs due to that (and few other reasons).
That i would qualify as madness, yes.

I wouldn`t feel too sorry about people who consistently make 100s of thousands and millions of $ quarterly, in past 10-15+ years. Trust me, they`re gonna do fine with or w.o 7bb GG rake games.
Can only imagine how much money they made in these GG games overall in past 2-3 years alone.

Im more than sure GG would rather have 5 extra 1k games running instead of one 5k where rec loses his deposit way faster. Its quite simple math, and they very well know it.

They only rly need these high stakes games for exposure/marketing if u think about it (thats why no actual big names pros (or a lot of them anyways) were actually banned for insanely predatory bumhunting at those nl40-100k games in past 2-3 years, i mean there`s been hundreds and thousands of hours of footage now, where obvious spot busts or leaves and all table breaks instantly, and their policy in 1k or lower games is no bumhunting is allowed or u get almost immediate warning/ban (sometimes for no reason at all btw) - and here nothing ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Dont u see what has been happening there and why?

For as long as they needed marketing from those games, none of those guys in those VIP games were touched rly, even tho it was waaaay more predatory for quite long period of time than any games anywhere online including most predatory ssnl action, LOL. its quite stupid to deny this obvious fact).

These high stakes guys have moved their action to GG back when it was a lot smaller, making sites like Stars etc plummet (i know i know stars are greed/bad etc but its not as scummy as GG nowhere near close), now GG got very very strong in these few years, partially also due to these same HS guys free marketing (while these same players were making tons of $ in the process btw).
Now GG decides to fk them over, and its time to feel sorry for them?
Interesting.
While MSNL or lower across all platforms got but*f*ed in geometrical progression relative to GG getting stronger and stronger (and other sites almost had to adjust and copy this dogsht behavior), AGAIN partially due to all this free marketing from HS games, innerpsy type streams, etc etc.
Yes i know its obv not the only reason, they got rly big due to shady markets, asia, crypto deposit methods, etc etc.
But there are various different weight factors involved in the overall equation that doesnt deny the only most important fact - they are nr1 by far and can do whatever they want now.

They where veeeery shady and scummy before, what do you think will happen now that they`ve became the biggest site online?
Now we need to feel sorry for them HS guys?

Now that they are very far ahead number one, i guess they will get rid (at least partially) of that unnecessary money loss.

In fairness, the rake at small stakes is beatable for a decent clip after taking into account rakeback pretty much everywhere so players have the opportunity to move up.

In the last year, the top 50 grinders in terms of volume at GG 5k+ averaged a winrate <1bb. With the new rake, there is no incentive to play these games.

Has Negreanu commented yet?

Should be the same for the highstakes guys then right? grind rake like the rest of us and stop crying. small stakes is tough to beat for a decent clip unless your elite and run good. we all suffer from the rake trap yet mixgrill and friends strangely did not seem interested in lobbying to help make it easier to move up to high stakes. strange.