I wonder if they even understand how important sample size is to winrates. My guess is no, since most players don't even understand it.

Unbelievable.... say goodbye to all of your big players raking you 100's of thousands a year.


This sort of thing should never take place. Completely takes the skill advantage (things people who have played for a living have put in long hard hours of study to gain for years) completely out of the picture. The end result would be poker no longer being profitable even for the best... Just a joke really.. not sure if party is serious.

I dont play on party due to living in the "land of the free" U.S. but this seems to a current trend among online sites as another semi big brand for US players has started segragating player pools.
This isnt good for the future of online play.Just imagine walking into a casino and heading for a table ,When a floorman comes over and says "sorry,you cant play with those guys cuz youre too good"...WTF,this is just ridiculous,seriously.
Regs already go out of their way to avoid other regs,now its going to be a mission just to sit and play soon.

I thought about this a few days ago. Seems like a good idea for the site to be honest if they implement it well. Obviously bad news for winning regs.

The breakeven regs that put in massive volume will still be raking them a tonne, whilst the players that are bad for the poker economy are ousted.

The only thing they do need to do is filter out the 10 biggest winners and 10 biggest losers from each player, so that people can't abuse this by chipdumping.

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This is probably terrible news in general, as there seems a lot of underhanded ways that people can abuse this. Buying accounts from fish for example. Running big groups of chip dumping etc.

Anything that encourages scummy or underhanded behaviour just to survive, is a terrible notion.

aggreed

Guys I won about 60K playing on Party over the years and haven't played since the day they booted off the Americans, beyond getting money on my account and spinning it up. I can see tables with 52 hands an hour no table averages but a table like that must have to limit the hands an hour. So maybe the way they grade players only goes back so many months. This seems to be a more heavier handed version of Essence. All I know the site will become similar to low level live poker....

what a f joke this site is, beyond unreal.

inb4 they introduce segregated mtts.

The problem is that this system will ruin party. Variance is over 100's of thousands of hands, you can not have players dipping in and out of segregated pools with variance. It's crazy being judged by how good you play and then punishing you for it. It completely destroys the essence of the game.

There are so many other ways they could boost the ecology. And it starts with making players feel comfortable. What they don't realize is that there are basically a few different types of players. Rec players that are just doing it for fun, are decent, but overall lose and they will continue to play with whom ever so long as they don't feel abused. AKA sitout scum etc.

Complete whales whom have money and just want to have fun and again, as long as the games display ethical behaviour and are fun they will continue to play.

And other players starting out with the hopes of getting better, these are the players that this strategy might benefit, but it isn't even good for them.

We all had to learn from somewhere, we all have equal opportunity in this game. Some choose to get better some don't. You cannot punish people for having the ambition and desire to improve. It is crazy and destroys the methodology of poker. Party needs to focus on taking unethical behavior out the game, make the environment fun, and let the weaker players decide on there own if they want to improve or not. The games will be better than ever for players and party, if party could just do some simple things.

Banning Huds would be a better solution.

Are they telling the fish that they are doing this or do they not want to highlight the fact that they are non-winners and thus not saying anything?

huds arent as huge as you probably think, if you do not mass table too hard. recreational players usually dont.

i have played a lot of sessions both with and without HUD and if you have tags/notes on regs, the difference isnt that big imo. and i play quite a lot of tables.

I ve had some experience with Party this past year. This is a poorly run company. This is just another ****ty decision on the heels of countless ****ty decisions.

Let's think how this will work. PP separated people based on their skill level. For the sake of the argument, let's assume that this separation has been fair and there's no variance involved.

However, if you segregate previous losers playing other losers, this doesn't mean that all of them will keep losing. Some of the previous losers will actually be winners among losers. Presumably, as soon as they establish their bona fides, they will be transferred to the winners group where presumably, they will get deboned promptly.

So, Party must hope that this way, it's going to get more rake?

A similar dynamic should probably develop among the winner's group. Even among the reg group, they will be some exceptional players who can beat other strong players. These players will continue thriving as much as before. But all the same, the previous winners who would become winners will not accept treading water and moving between levels while not making money. Most winners don't play casually, they play for a living. So, those players are probably going to leave the site or try finding ways to bypass the system.

If regs of average skill leave the site however, this is going to leave a hole however. Either games will empty or moderately competent losers will go to the winner group only to face exceptional regs where they will get their asses handed to them. Or alternatively, you will have even more aggressive bumhunting and unstable equilibria of play.

One has to wonder. Is the gain from gaining so much more rake from casual players so much larger than the rake losses from departing regs?

I really can't say for certain how this will play out.

I will say this however. As a tourney player, who's disgusted by bum hunting, I can't understand why sites allow players to choose tables and sits. Have each player choose a buy in level and a table type and randomly assign seats to them. Then put limits on how many times you can move within a certain time frame. That would surely put to an end to bumhunting and it will be fair to all, casual players and regs alike. Your chances of finding strong or poor opposition will be the same as everyone else's so there won't be the need to bumhunt precisely because other people are bumhunting.

You mean bingo, casino and blackjack which PartyPoker already offers?? Party has forgotten that winning grinders is an important part of a poker ecosystem. All the Palladium VIPs that will switch to PokerStars Supernova will result in much lower revenue for Party. It reminds me of an underground poker club that doesn't like to see any players beating the rake regularly, so the scummy owner cheats the regs to lower their win rate, but the regs take their rake to competitors and the club dies.

This happens in real life. At B&M rooms, the better players get known and avoided.

This happens in bridge, chess and backgammon tournaments. Should the championship level players compete against the novices?

Did a few of you clowns say that this is "worse than Russ Hamilton looking at his opponent's hole cards"? SMFH

I hope Party Poker realizes that offering a $10 cap on heads up sng rake is the opposite way of encouraging growth, low edge and plenty of fun for recreational.

Right under their noses is an incredibly popular and high raking format of play where the ability to make money in the long run motivates players and the ability for any player to win in the short term further motivates many others.

Hyper turbo heads up sngs. Add them Party, at the correct rake, don't cap high stakes rake at $10 and over rake low stakes (you end up creating high edge high stakes games where casuals lose their money very fast for very little rake and your low stakes are populated like that of a 10-20th largest site).

If I am up overall on Party because of MTTs but a lifetime loser in cash games which player pool would I be put in?

Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE playing at Party Poker

Have to wait until someone figures out the mystical 'formula' for segregation.

Or until a PP employee leaks it to a friend...

I suspect that this is exactly what's going on. IIRC, bwin.party makes most of their profits from casino/sportsbetting and they may have concluded that they can sacrifice their poker profits to increase their profits from casino/sportsbetting. I doubt this change will increase their poker revenue--they're going to lose grinders and have lower game liquidity.

seems like a poor choice, especially given the fact that they didn't let players know beforehand.

Duh, the better players gets to sit with the newbies and tourists in a B&M room. With PartyPoker's sneaky new scam, you only get seated in the room full of other sharks and cannot even see any of your favourite fish in the other room. Instead of being able to make a living off the fish, you only get to play against regs with similar win rates and you all lose to the rake. As long as there is another casino where you can access all the fish, you should obviously play there instead.

So glad I moved from Party to FTP at the start of the year.

This is insane, they didnt even notify people?

How long has this been going on?

Will they notify an improved and now winning fish once he gets moved to the unbeatable reg pool?

Just mind blowing

If that's the case, one has to wonder why the hell they merged with a poker site so as to offer the breadth and width of gambling options.

Agree so hard to all of this. And a site should do things like have happy hours where if you win with 72o you get paid the pot the site or any other number of things to encourage a bit more crazy gambling.

I also think "first in must limp" rule helps promote more of a gambling environment.

Number one biggest thing to do is eliminate number of tables. 4 is a great number. There are several sites, a small stakes grinding pro can just have 4 tables going on several sites if they really need to.