Can't answer your first question. Generally we only out who is behind a gimmick if a scam or fraud is involved, so no.

I thought it was important for the context of the discussion that the OP is not a new user to these forums.

dear forum readers,

what do "recreational player" and "regular" actually mean?

recreational player = losing player, regular = winning player, no matter how you look at it this is the definition

now, when making any suggestions and arguments just replace "reg" with "winning" and "recreational" with "losing" and see just how hypocritical and scummy this whole discussion is

It is important, thanks.

it breaks natural game flow. You think the guy doesnt see that some players come home for a moment and leave house in a button clicking time? That some of them spent more time than all others altogether? When they "think" 20 secs on small blind to fold? it would irritate even Jesus
there are no losing regs? cmon

RECpoker.com is what you are looking for

they would be classified as recreational players

regular = withdraws > deposits

recreational = deposits > withdraws

this is what they actually mean by these terms, "reg" doesn't necessarily refer to someone who plays a lot

What are the exact issues you want to solve with this?

From these solutions it looks to me like you have no clue what the problem is with online poker and why the game is drying up.

Maybe you should first identify the problem and then explain why your solutions solve it.

What you are proposing seems to make playing online miserable. At least thats how i would feel about these changes. You seem to want to dictate my behavior. I don't understand how any of what you are proposing is going to make people play more online poker.

Again. I agree with you that online poker is broken, its just not that we need to make playing online poker less fun but more fun for both regs and recreational players (IMHO).

To me the issue is simple: online poker is not a skill game anymore but essentially a slot machine for all but the best players. That is what we have to fix.

Looks like it was a trap to see if anyone would agree

i don't agree with anything this OP presented and im a REC player.

Is the reason REC players are not flocking to these sites do more to the fact that online poker has been shutdown to Americans? And some RECs are actually unwilling to deposit on essentially "renegade" sites. Oh and you can TMS................

They should just add 3 anonymous cash game tables to every stakes available. So then players who feel like they being targeted as a fish can go to these tables as a anonymous player.

Hi owner of bovada

Okay what do you suggest. Right now for about $9.99 I can run just about any type of background check on anyone, with just a name and city, state.

Thanks for the responses. I am curious as to how you are defining a REC player. Not many REC players that I am looking at is aware of HUDs, Sharkscope, HH, and multitabling. I'm looking more at people who play less than 10 hours a week with little to game analysis or study. The typical home gamer who is a novice or plays less than 10 hours a week.

How about this

You define for me a REG and a REC in terms of

1- Hours of play per week
2- Amount of experience
3- Income derived from online play
4- Knowledge of online tools

Just because you play recreationally doesn't mean your a donk.

Just because you play regularly doesn't mean your not a donk.

Why is it no longer a game of skill? How would you fix it?

Nothing gets by you. But, I'm not talking about donks and degens. You have this huge market of poker players- REC players, homegamers, weekend players. Not the typical 2+2er. In fact, he probably never even heard of 2+2.

Your mission is to get this person to play on YOUR site. Would these rules be attractive to a REC? What rules would be most appealing to attract that player. Now, I'm not asking what rules would attract a sophisticated, high stakes, baller like yourself. More of a REC player........

Why?

My definition would be

A recreational player (rec) plays for entertainment and the chance of winning. Most but not all are net depositing players.

A reg - is a player who plays poker primarily to make money and relies in part or in full on the income poker brings them. Most regs are withdrawing players but some are currently failing in their income goal and are in fact losing players.

The whole real name requirement you've suggested is probably about the worst thing for attracting recreational players. The last thing your average rec is going to want is for is friends/family to be able to PTR/ Sharkscope him and see how much money he's lost.

that would be the "normal" definition of those words

here we are considering the poker "economy", and there are only 2 categories of players: those who win (withdraw) and those who lose (deposit)

this guy chose to call the winners "regs" and losers "recs", you can name them whatever you want, in the end there are only these 2 kinds of players and these are the 2 categories of players we are talking about

Money would seem to be a good motivator - scrap higher rewards for higher volume and offer rewards in a range of formats to losing players instead. Targeted deposit bonuses, T dollars, cash straight in to their account, clearable bonuses ..bad beat refunds/jackpots..all sorts of things.

The change in incentives for regs would also help - They would be incentivised to play fewer tables more profitably as volume is no longer the earner , it would incentivise pros into moving up in stakes and /or skill level not encourage multitable grinding the fish to death at even paltry buy in levels.

How is a rec player playing ten hrs a week or less better for a site than a grinder playing 40 plus? Seems to me they should do the opposite and cater to the reg...

I'll stick with normal thanks. The groups winners and losers exist in their own right and have their own clear definition (if you ignore time period and those changing group over time as you seem to have done).

Rec is an entirely different group in marketing terms - some sites market themselves through their incentives and the like to regs, volume play is rewarded. Others target new players, rec players, players opting for a social recreational experience not the best VIP programme. These less frequent, occasional players do matter to sites regardless of whether they are losers, break even or winners primarily because the number of potential occasional players is vastly greater than the number of likely or supportable full time pro grinders.

Now for sites it matters not if a player is winning or losing so long as they continue to play. It is a pretty useless marketing definition to just go winner/loser.