There is an argument, actually two of them.

A) The only way we as players can police the games against cheaters is to have a large database of hands to refer to. We can do it under the table, with large number of regs combining hands. It can be done by 3rd parties. However, knowing that PLAYER_A plays 23 hours a day and wins at 12bb/100 probably tells you something. Knowing that PLAYER_B wins at 35bb/100 over a 300k sample tells you something else. Also, tracking sites could look for trends of people playing at the same table and might be able to spot some forms of collusion. You can trust the poker sites to police the game. Not all of us do. If it is impossible to verify that the games are fair, how do you trust but verify?

B) There is a sense of competition among people on the leader boards. I know a number of people who are motivated by "I want to be the best 5/T player this month." Since bad players don't even know about this stuff, there could be some good for both the sites and players to have people competing for honors. The railtards get it for the high stakes games, but even down to the micros you have people competing to be the best.

Generally, I share the sentiment that tracking has been a negative. At least the tracking sites are currently public. If you drove them underground, I suspect that someone will scrape video, interpret results, and have a non-public pay-for-play version. To say that there is zero benefit is silly. It is possible (or even likely) that the benefits outweigh the positives. However, even if you did all you could to stop them, would you just be in a situation where a few people have the information and no one else does? Be careful what you wish for, imo.

Not to mention anyone who figueres to not be a favourite in the game will quit anyway because it drains your BR even faster sitting in a - EV game that you already paid for . Why do you even need to be told this?

please enlighten me how anyone would be able to sit out at a table for 30 minutes or so if it cost them 1BB/5 minutes. That would be 6BB's of sunk costs which will cut into most pros enough to make them play or leave.

Dude youre wrong. This does not make sitting out- EV. Once rake is paid for 5 mins everyone is playing a 0 sum game for the next 5 minutes.

There is no incentive to keep playing because you have paid rake for your next 5 minutes unless you figuere to be a favourite in the game.

This is especially true these days because it's a lot easier than before to spot who has a clue and who doesn't. What is "bad" in someone's play has been increasingly specific and difficult to do but there are plenty of varied but still very solid approaches to the game now. Most people are aware of most of these and how they are constructed.

This is the main reason why some of the solutions suggested, like anonymous tables and SN Changes, might help in the short-term but in the end will do nothing to really "fix" the games in a complete way, which is hard to define to begin with and likely impossible to do. In the end, once someone "feels" like they are being outplayed or evenly matched there are usually plenty of reasons to find to vacate the premise unless you are either a.feeling confident or b.willing to face a strong challenge. Usually, most players these days advocate a "survival" approach to poker, and this is because edges have become thinner and thinner. I don't think it's just a question of honor or "balls", but I think I am headed off-topic..

My point is that to bypass the overall psychology in players' minds will require much more than just a simple structure change.

IMO what should be done with the 'global waitlist' idea is something that has been done with online gaming consoles (Xbox Live, PSN, etc) with the system of matchmaking, this is where you select your game, stake and then hit go! The system randomly puts you into a RANDOMLY SELECTED GAME with RANDOMLY SELECTED OPPONENTS. That way the system is fair and you are just as likely to be playing against reg's as you are fish.

This cant work. Im too tired to explain why.

This couldn't be further from the truth. If HS pros understood the poker economy in even the slightest degree they would realize that an economy flows from point A to B to C, etc.

With all due respect to Phil, his extremely long post on HS issues without a single mention of the main root of the problem clearly demonstrates he does not understand the poker economy.

Every issue Galfond discusses is based on there not being enough resources (money) in the system. How many of these issues would exist to the extent they do now if there were tons of fish at high stakes?

It is such a well understood basic psychological principle it is laughable to even be discussing it: take any group of people, cut back their resources, and watch the fighting begin.

The ironic thing is online poker will not dry up as long as regulation doesn't bury it.

Gambling, prostitution, and alcohol have been around since the beginning of human history and you are not getting rid of them.

It is not a matter of there not being any money, it is a matter of mismanagement of those resources. The lower stakes are being cannibalized and HS players, who have the largest voice in the community, are almost completely silent on the issue.

Just look at Galfond's original blog post.

First off I'm not even a heads up player so I don't really have a dog in this fight. I know what I'm about to say will get flamed pretty hard but I would just like to see whats best for the long term health of Ipoker, in all facets of the game, to prevail.

In my opinion professional heads up bumhunters need to stop believing they're professional heads up poker players. They are not! They're professional patienteers. They sit and wait, and wait, and wait for somebody that meets a base line of poker incompetence to stumble past and snatch em up. These people deserve zero consideration imo of how to structure the heads up environment as they contribute zero to it. They are basically parasites leeching off of the heads up environment while at the same time killing it.

Once this becomes excepted then maybe the heads up community can get together and iron out some solutions and figure out a way to make the games enjoyable and sustainable for both regulars and recreational players alike.

Until then every sane voice/suggestion that comes along will get **** on by the ever growing population of opinions that only care about the short sighted view of their own bottom line.

Break out your bumhunting pitchforks. . .

Yes it can't. Works in casinos as well. Would also work hu.

Think about the chart that PG posted of the Pokerstars lobby.

Let's assume 20 hu players sit and wait, two actually play.

If we have a wait list the this would create 10 additional games, sit everybody in and everybody post their blinds. Now if people start quitting they will have to play at least one hand or forfeit their blinds.

Essentially u gonna have to decide whether to play or not, but u can't sit around. Yet u have enough freedom to quit certain players.

This could be increased by forcing a certain amount of blinds to be played (if u quit opponent gets ur blinds, in bigger games they become antes)

This would make exploitation by seat selection. Impossible.

So global wait list are a solution.

KOTH is not. Must move is also not a solution.

KOTH only benefits the top players, as they would keep the seats and force everybody away. This cannot ever ever ever happen. In a KOTH I could never play HU ever. HU is not my main game and I am somewhat of a fish.

Must move ist just not made for online. All that is needed is the wait list ( which is part of must move) but we do need to reseat players all the time from one table to another. That makes no sense. MUst move only makes sense when there are 2-3 tables and the only purpose in poker is to have full tables.

To make the games more enjoyable for the avg player, we need to increase the percentage of winners. More winner= more players that will keep on playing.

This can be achieved by replacing rake with tax on winnings. There are many players that are slight losers or even decent losers would become winners. Since the tax is %tage of winnings you'd still be a winner and don't have to quit. This would help the poker Econ tremendously.

It would also make the whole distribution of what we pay to site fairer. Today low stakes pay more in rake than high stakes. the tax would reverse that. The fish would pay nothing the mediocre player a little and the sharks much. He who benefits more has to pay more. Simple concept right?

Of course this is gonna suck for the big sharks, but the point is to help the fish.

The third problem is sit out bum hunting which can be solved which break instead of sit out.

You cannot sit out of a game, you can only take a break on all your games, and only a certain amount of breaks within a timeframe.

If you lose con, fall asleep ect you get put on a break automatically or removed from all games.


So three simple solutions to all the problems addressed by PH.

i dont think poker table ratings is a good idea. I do enjoy looking up stats of players but when you come across a losing player so many people flame and insult that player. If that losing player were to look up their own stats they would see all the comments that were made about them and may incline them not to play anymore.

The rake system isn't the problem, only the percentage of the rake taken at certain stakes.

What you are suggesting is a complete rework of the system, but increasing rake back (cheaper than reducing rake) only requires adjusting a percentage within the existing program.

KISS <-- General reference, not directed at you.

As soon as you make seat and table selection impossible you have killed online poker. Congratz.

Yes, this is a good way to combat the sitting out issue at 6max/fullring. Since most players who are interested in sitting out once a fish sits out are multitablers, this is a solid method of prevention.

You are right. This would be a huge change for the sites. However reducing rake is not gonna happen as it would cut into the profit, however u gonna do it be it thru rakeback or whatever.

Instead I am proposing to pay the same amount to the poker sites, but take it only from players who win (take a %-tage of the winnings) Sort of like winners have to give a share share to the site.

This would double or tripple the amount of winners in the game and thus players would stay in the game. This in turn would lead to a healthier poker economy. With rake the house basically eats players up if they not win enough. Sharks also eat players up. I am talking about eliminating one of the party that get eat the of the fish.

love it and agree with you!

This is just an opinion. Please explain.


The only thing getting rid of table selection prevents is the opportunity of sharks to feed of fish and increase their already existing advantage. The seat selection would be randomized and everybody would still have the opportunity to leave from positions that are undesirable.

Since what we are trying to do is to make the game better for the fish this is good. There also is no way of helping the fish without hurting the shark. So we have to take something away from the shark in order to help the fish.

So Rush/Blitz poker will kill online poker?

This

Bumhunters are nothing but parasites sucking life from the site, in the form of recreational players who wont play because the HU lobby is full. Full of 60 tables with the same 4 players occupying 60 seats, and no one sitting down with them. Do you HU bumhunting morons really think that being obviously sat in 20 tables increases your chances of having a fish sit with you? Ridiculous.

So that was your rant.

What system will solve the problem?

Somebody kind of hinted at a good point: Why not make it exactly the same as live poker?

- There is one global list per stake
- At a table, you can request seat change priority to move seats when a seat is available
- You can request a table change, but only every so often
- If you get up from the game outside of those rules, you must wait X amount of time to play any game at that stake

This gives users some control over where they sit, but limited. They're primary decision becomes "Do I want to play in this game, or not play poker right now?"

BatsShadow: see my comments

- There is one global list per stake: OK, what I am proposing >> global wait list
- At a table, you can request seat change priority to move seats when a seat is available: Possible, but defeats the purpose of protecting the fish >> i think we should not do it.
- You can request a table change, but only every so often: OK, is same as getting a new table (you could just go on the list again and quit the table when seat is available = functionality not needed, but ok)
- If you get up from the game outside of those rules, you must wait X amount of time to play any game at that stake: No! We are playing several tables online vs. live. Leaving a table must be ok, adding or removing tables must be allowed.

So in summary: things have to be different live and online, but all is solved with one extremely simply wait list that you can be on up to the table limit.

You assume that PG cares about the 'poker economy' when you have no real proof of this. He has made enough money to retire unless he has spent it on junk to never have to play ever again in his life and still be able to go about what he want to do without the need of a job. The changes he wants to have made are to move money up the ladder to him, this is out of self interest and not the interest of some community of grinders. He does not believe the game will be around much longer and simply want to squeeze out the last drops before he abandon ship for something else.

As soon as the winnings drop below a certain level it is idiotic for anyone to keep playing for money since the money they make will be so low that they would be making more at a minimum wage job and most people will at this time leave the tables and do something else. As it look now in the world economy it isn't long until we reach this point. Internet poker will still be around after this, but there will be no real way for anyone to make a living as easy as they do today.

You reference to "Gambling, prostitution, and alcohol" make me question if you are of age to register at sites. While these phenomenons has been around for some time; the gambler, prostitute and drunk has not fared well from this. They are on the loosing end of these activities and the house, pimp or producer is the one who shows a profit. If you want to earn money in the future on online poker you do much better to start your own site then to gamble on a site.

When it comes to the HS pros they have only one interest, that is to have a steady flow of money to their stakes. They could care less about how a casual player feel about it and even less about what the feeders who move the money upstream feel. They are looking out for their own backs and have seen the HS games become scarce and dry up in some cases. They understand that the poker boom is over and are looking at leaving, this blog post was only made by PG to get the last dollars from the sites before he retires.

This debate has already been had to death, Galfond really needs to read through this thread since most of the points he brings up have already been addressed for the most part: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...format-692236/

The only reason it's becoming such a big issue in more recent years is because a bubbled poker market has popped/peaked and as it's beginning to decline the sharks at the top are running out of fish to eat and want to eat other sharks but are basically frustrated they don't have the option to. Basically just people fighting over bread crumbs and wanting to implement new rules to inject some more air back in the bubble.

Implementing these changes won't do anything to derail the downward trajectory of the poker economy. Trying to force bumhunters who are adamant about not playing without an edge to play you will not make them do so. The end result will just be the same situation as what you have now except with the profits going to the top players instead. There are capped tables on other sites like prima for HU and regs don't fight for seats or battle each other. KOTH as some action creator is simply another myth similar to "will ____ winning the main event cause another poker boom?".

The other aspect many regs who are "for" KotH overlook is that if middle range regs above their stakes get bumped down, then everyone not in the top % of poker gets bumped down and is taking a pay cut. Being pumped about KotH being implemented as a top 1/2nl reg will be quite disappointing when you find yourself on a massive downswing and forced to work your way up from $50nl instead because all the MSNL mediocre regs are now occupying your tables.