Agree they both were selling more rake is net better than the alternative. But DN appears to have went farther in how this was done.

Also agree, that no one has anything to apologize for. We are all exposed almost continuously as adults; and vast majority have developed at least a minimal ability to recognize this and the general underlying motivations of the marketers. Even telemarketers are humans and deserve to be treated as such. Just because they for some reason got the shitty job does not make them shitty people (although some could be.)

Also agree the idea maybe sound, but the implementation sucked. I don't think any of us have the data to make any certain judgements on that.

Daniel’s “more rake is better” was simply his “you can’t handle the truth” moment

But other than that DNegs and Josem are probably saying about the same thing

There was just probably a general outline to follow, increased rake doesn’t necessarily mean reduced profitability.

The good and moral poker pros know what investment is and that its good for the game. We just felt the changes/investments weren't good long term.

But if they believed the changes were bad for the game and they were saying they were good for the game, from a pro player perspective we would call that immoral right?

Yes so you can have high rake but low effective rake. What the policies were, and you could scrutinize the truth of this, were increased rake and increased effective rake but sold as increased rake and decreased effective rake.

In other words, the pros were arguing to the sites that the changes weren't what they were being sold as...players weren't complain that they were paying rake. They were literally saying we know paying rake towards brining players can lower effective rake, but thats not what these changes are geared towards.

Just as a simple example, to increase rake for pro players and give that rake to habitual depositors in the form of slot machine pulls.

Correct, it’s not like they were charging $10 for a bottle of water after a hurricane

When it was said and done I think they still had lowest rake or at least one of lowest

But I will conceded it was probably a net negative in the end. But it was always a sinking ship once you hit 2011

How do you know what they believed? In theory I definitely think it’s possible that enticing a bunch of “slot pullers” can in fact make the games better. It’s even possible that they did and helped slow the decline.

But nothing the reps did was even remotely close to immoral. Not in the same universe with true immoral acts. This would be the case even if you had the ability to read minds and know what they were thinking.

Let’s save immoral for price gouging during a tragedy or knowingly putting people in harms way. Stuff like that

That's what I meant to say yes, and we should be discussing the comparison between the two. This is great stuff.

That is the axiom that we highlighted. That sites should run to optimize the long term profitability of the games (as if a central bank should operate serve the long-term needs of the users of the currency it issues).

But we don't have anything to suggest that this axiom applies. I think what players were accusing the marketing plan of showing was that the poker brand was being turned into casino games. So from the sites perspective, without that axiom, the real laffer consideration is how many poker players can they convince that the changes don't equate to moving the effective rake into jackpot game territory.

I still feel you aren't familiar with the changes we are referring to. It's kinda of weird to suggest that the guy tasked by the site to market these changes to the players, was allowed to go rogue and say things that the site didn't believe in or something. The players were accusing pokerstars of A and Dnegs as selling to them A. I don't think you really are arguing against that. It COULD be different but there is a history of threads you can read through (I cited some of the sentiments).

Josem signed a letter to the players selling A.

The players felt that A was bad for the longevity of the game. They still generally do. No one has argued otherwise.

Josem says he never believed in policies that were bad for the game, and never showed support for Dnegs sentiments.

This is where nuances in language matter. That telemarketers are humans and deserve to be treated as such I agree with, and I would like to invite you into those that I think should be a part of defining what moral poker is because of that sentiment. But that sentiment doesn't relieve the telemarketer of the immorality of their job. So we can use maybe not morality as our word but 'shittyness'.

But I think shitty poker is not as a mature choice to describe things as moral poker. So moral poker refers to something here ie immoral poker players just do shitty things for the game rather than making them shitty people perhaps.

Moral players act otherwise. We really HAVE to leave ourselves with a lexicon that can say this.


There can be different authorities for definitions I don't know if you mean to use this one:



I would think it not controversial to suggest that if we happen to agree that if players were knowing spreading information that hurt other players bottom lines then this would fit under the definitions above. But more importantly I wish us to have in our lexicon an ability to point out such changes that are a net negative to the pros and call such changes 'immoral' (perhaps different than the definition you use.)

There were other ambassadors for the game/site as well. And I make a conjecture that their incomes came solely from promoting losing games as skilled games (the shuffling is fair but the rake is so high that even the winners don't win etc.) rather than playing in profitable games themselves. I want to be able to refer to that type of player without sounding overly dramatic how u reference the word.

So I chose 'moral poker'.

I just want us to be clear on what Dnegs argued...

He said that if you take the extra rake and promo money from the pros and give it to the jackpot players eventually the pros will leave and the jack pot players will be happy because they will win more.

At the time when this went down there were 2p2 accounts typing in caps "POKER SITES DON'T OWE YOU A LIVING LOL!!!!!"

In moral poker the better players expect to profit over time, otherwise where is the money going?

There was nothing in the market campaign or talks with players (remember we chose and sent 3 players reps) about profitability from the players view. This is the players laffer curve.

This community has never tried to get together to analyze and optimize this. What the ideal rake should be, from the players view, was never discussed.

I only theorized about it alone.

So where exactly was Stars compared with others on rake after this immoral increase? Yes, they are called ambassadors but everyone knows they work for the site.

Sorry, I can’t seem to muster any outrage over this. After crackdowns in USA online poker was always domed

Ya me neither, well not the furred eyebrow type of outrage. There was an archetype of players here that were with ansky in his angst but also a smaller amount of us that wanted a more reasonable approach. Ansky only started caring when the changes directly affected him but other groups had already had negative changes introduced to their pools (iirc plo had the significant complaint first.) After appearing on the joey's podcast him and a couple others were 'selected' to fly to pokerstars island to discuss the changes. It's as if ansky drank the special poker stars kool aid as he came back in silence.

It's worse that the group didn't do anything for the discussion, they stamped out the small organic group that was having serious dialogue about what WOULD be the optimal rake and rakeback programs from the players views.

It's really bargaining at a disadvantage when you can't even define optimal as the group.

Just because one subject might be tangentially related or relevant to another doesn't mean it's helpful to take a thread off on a lengthy tangent about it.

Like, what are we at here - probably a 50+ post derail because it's super-important to you to convince people that Daniel and Josem tried to sell people on "more rake is better" in a thread about GG's Poker Integrity Council. Seriously??

You'd think that after all the accounts you've had here, you'd finally develop a little self-awareness and recognize when it's time to let a derail go and move on.

Its the hole cards.

The relevance is that its the same statistical methods to determine cheaters and profitability. Sites don't release data publicly that allows players to determine either. Players haven't learned to consider that you could define and compare profitability if it were otherwise. This would cause rake as a % to fluctuate to stabilize inter-site effective rake. In other words higher % rake sites would have softer fields and lower % rake sites would have harder fields. (whereas traditionally you might have had a monopoly site that could have higher % rake and harder fields)

This is the new line of observation its VERY relevant to determining who is cheating.

I wasn't asking you to explain the relevance; I understand how the issues are linked. None of that changes the fact that you turned this into a 50+ post derail about Negreanu and Josem. That's the thing about most derails - there's usually a way to link them to the original topic, since they form organically, but that doesn't make them any less disruptive to a thread. But I didn't really expect you to acknowledge this, because you've always considered your own thoughts on your pet topics to be too important to not be shared wherever you think they belong.

Anyway, it seems at least one mod agreed, so now you've got your own thread for this topic. Enjoy!

OBJECTION: Assumes facts not in evidence.*


*Once you provide evidence that profitability was not created for winning players, you may make your above assertion. But not until then.

congrats jbouton on your very own thread!

needed that one, take it for the team

All things jbouton go in here

Its such a strange thing, but I have never been one to call accounts here shills for sites iirc. Maybe its just some posters jump in with lack of context I assume they have.

I'm not making a claim, or that claim, in regard to what I can back up. This isn't about my claim. We are observing stars claim. They claimed that increasing rake % and effective rake (ie decreasing rewards to skilled players) would foster profitability in the game.

I posted a letter with the claims/sentiments and there are more examples of this specific agenda.

You called me out for something we are meaning to call out stars for here.

MY claim that I can back up, is that from the players view its impossible prove stars claim wrong if it was. I conjecture from that claim that I can back up, that stars knew the players couldn't prove the claim was untrue.

So do you continue to call me out for something I am not guilty of but fail to call stars out for doing what you accuse me of?

What you quoted me on is meant to be an inference. I said it strongly.

So what exactly is your goal here? For the paid spokesperson of a company to apologize for a potentially false claim he made many years ago? If that’s the case it might be easier for you to try to contact him on social media.

After that, what’s the next step? Are we going after the Geico gecko because you couldn’t save 15% or more on car insurance?

Were you there? Were you playing mttsng? Can't remember...

Well there is a subtle observation point that all sites can see. Mason alludes to it. Josem exhibited it when he proved nio nio could see hole cards.

In poker we use the GTO equilibrium as a basis for natural decisions, but equally as important it is really seen as a basis for all adjustments as well (although he seems to have no recollection of anything):

In regard to the 'bargaining game' between players and sites. The sites have the GTO strat and the players haven't collectively understood it even exists. To understand such a 'line' exists as a community changes the nature of the dialogue and the 'bargaining strength'. It lowers effective rake as a natural outcome.

The players need to illuminate this line in dialogue in order to properly address cheating and the profitability (or not) of the games.

jbouton, this quote is from the (now) 1st post ITT.

"this all reminds me of the times when dnegs and josem were selling to the players the idea that higher rake is better for the games and more profitable for the players of 2p2."

You specifically make a claim here that josem was selling the idea that higher rake is better. You have NEVER demostrated veracity of this claim and yes it is a claim it is made by you and you can spin it all you want but those are the facts. Now if you have proven this claim.

Additionally, it has been shown that it is possible that in some cases higher rake could be better for players (and the house).

BTW, I am completely confident, PS COULD demonstrate circumstances that its rake increase would benefit the players. Even more important, they certainly could show from before the rake increase occurred how they thought it would be good for the players. Were they right or wrong, they likely could make a solid case for one of those also. But the reality is there is zero motivation for them to do this 10 years ago much less now. They don't owe you, me or anyone at 2p2 justification for their rake practices nor their marketing.

We discussed how my claim in this regard needed to be restated. So I reconstruct it as...

1)Pokerstars made changes to the game in tandem with a board and clear marketing strategy and these changes were wildly unfavored by the players and called out for being negative for the longevity.
2)Daniel Negreanu as the head player liaison for the marketing strategy explicitly explained to 2p2 players that higher rake games leads to more profitable games (because the good players leave etc).
3) Josem was the communication rep between the site and the players and was also apart of this marketing team and was tasked with smoothing the over the communication for the same changes.

I believe these are all accepted fact. Please refer to numbers if something isn't.

Where was this shown and not stated without evidence like you just called me out for?

Your language is strange here. Are you saying that poker stars could create a model in which an increase in rake % would actually benefit the players depending on what is done with the rake (thats agreeable, so could we)? Are you saying that an increase in rake NECESSARILY corresponds with benefiting the players? Are you saying that the rake increase we are referring to DID in fact benefit the players and ps knows this but just want share the truth of it?


I honestly don't know what kind of a player type isn't concerned about where the rake is going and being used and feels that its non of their business as a customer of the site.

But I did predict with my model, that as the rake % and effective rake increase and the more knowledgeable players leave because of it, the less ability the community will have to intelligently discuss these things.

We need the ability to be able to scrutinize the effects of different site policies so we can collectively discuss which policies favor the sites in a zero sum relationship to the players, which policies are the opposite, and which can be NOT zero sum.

Does anyone here mean to argue that RIO poker could dig itself out of its hole simply by raising rake? And if that doesn't work then raise it more on behalf of the benefit of the players? How high until RIO poker has liquid games?

There is no way to discuss this if we believe that any time its brought up it should be shut down with:

I just want to open dialogue and work through the game theory. I'm not demanding anything from sites.

I really don't understand the point of a poker player saying this? Why should we not want to discuss what is ideal anyways, even if we are owed only a bad experience?

Jbouton, I think you are conflating the furled eyebrows over VIP changes with rake changes. They occurred separately and are different issues

But yeah if it’s just rake differences and still within noms (or lowest) then yeah I second getting outraged is silly

Maybe their increased marketing will help or maybe it’s just a lie. But whatever, eat it.

I'm being a little loose but I do have it all summarized and documented on a blog. I'm sort of referring to an agenda that happened over time. There were 2 player boycott attempts that iirc span between the times you differentiate between. Ansky ignored the first one and then furred his eyebrows on the 2nd. We were making progress with a small group that was being very reasonable and a mod here came in I believe and picked 3 out of a hat and one was ansky and none were us (thats from memory so take with a grain of salt). My point is I trolled and criticized him the whole way after that. He was clueless and yet spoke on behalf of the players.

Are you able to see the line I mean to illuminate Scotch? A player that says "They don't owe you, me or anyone at 2p2 justification for their rake practices nor their marketing." IF they really do play poker (its harder to understand that they do) they can't see this line. Its not easy and very subtle. But I feel like you are sincere even in spots we don't agree on.

I guess for the players that want to cut off dialogue and declare "SITES DON'T OWE YOU JUSTIFICATION FOR PRACTICES OR MARKETING' I have a few questions....

1) Is it morally good/bad/neutral for a player to convince other players a site is profitable to play on if that player KNOWNS its not? (so maybe dnegs isn't guilty of this but do we agree at least its not a good thing?)

2)Is it morally good/bad/neutral for sites to offer games as being fair if they are not fair games?

3) Is it acceptable from a players perspective for a site to offer poker games in which there are no players that have a positive expectation no matter how skilled they are?

4) Should we find it strange that we have never talked about these things as a community and there are so many that are ready to demand that we have no right to talk about them?

5) What does a poker player pay the cost of rake in exchange for? <<<< this is my favorite question I hope people here take turns answering

If we see this things as morally fine and perfectly acceptable from the players perspective I really don't know where to go with that. I'd feel like this community is barren of skilled players in a breakeven environment for all. Otherwise I'd like to quantity what the profitability line should sit at from the players view, and from the site view.

(Here morality doesn't refer to the intensity of the act so killing a bug here we might consider immoral even tho its very very much less immoral than murdering a human for no reason)