totally understand, that you cant give details, but you mean this blitzpoker-thing or do you mean a new lobby and so on?

DN jumping on the bandwagon

Because people play heads up for the intense adjustment game and all of it goes out the window if you do it the rush way.

im just saying thats its lot easier to vote for changes if u made a fortune by playing the biggest online losing player of all time . i wouldnt mind if player allow to change screennames every month and if PTR shuts down . but something like anno tables are made up for bots or Collusions .

My thought was have Rush for HU. I didn't think much further than that lol. Obviously it would take away the dynamics of HU, but 6max rush had no real dynamics either. Yes it takes away the niceness of the game, but it defeats bumhunters, and allows good regs to beat up bad regs. Everybody will have an equal opportunity to play vs the fish atleast. I might even start playing HU if this happened. I don't play any headsup, ever, due to the current HU climate. I'm sure alot of other 6max regs feel the same way.

So true. +1 Bro.

These two really agree alot

regarding screen name changes, i dont think there is really that much of a demand for this. There are/were a number of sites which essentially offer this in one form or another (party/cake), and you dont see everyone flocking to them. Overall, the vast majority of players prefer that online poker matches live poker as much as possible and recognising who you are playing against and building up a history with them is one aspect that recreational players and regulars alike want. Therefore i dont think screen names changes is a solution for the datamining sites. The battle against the datamining sites will probably be an ongoing battle unless regulation comes in and bans them, in which case you will probably get small companies/indivuduals selling mining hh illegally and them selling them privately. But then at least this way, it will not be as available to the masses.

I cant be certain but i think a while back (maybe a year or two ago), some of the changes that PG is asking for such as koth were being discussed on places such as 2p2. And Daniel Negreaunu also stated that he agreed that things like many ppl sitting out at tables both 6max and hu were bad. If i remember correctly, he took these issues to pokerstars, who have seemingly not done muc about it, showing probably that any changes will be detrimental to their business as most people do not want these changes.

isnt negreanu using stats who are recorded by pokerstars to exploit other players at the big game ? btw i think negranu is one of those so called recreational players galfond wants to stay in the game

Party Poker is the #2 site in the world...Cake is a piece of crap site, nobody plays there b/c the site sucks

People are "flocking to sites" where they 1) feel safe with their bankroll 2) has marketing to attract fish

The current environment is not as simple as saying, "Site X offers Features 1, 2, and 3 and nobody plays there!"

I don't see why Pokerstars hasn't asked Gandolf to join the team yet. He seems like a great candidate.

read to about page 5. sorry if its already been discussed, but

It looks like the +'s of a "must move" system are that it eliminates bum-hunting which will provide more action. Players will have to rely on the luck of the draw as to where they're seated.

The -'s are that regs lose their ability to seat-select. They would probably get seated at a random table, see that its no good, and then just leave. Or they would simply migrate to a site that allows seat selection.

What if the site had a global seating queue that randomly seats people as its "main" option. This would be a big shiny button that's very prominent and very convenient. Just push the button to get randomly seated at the next available table.
There would also be an option to select your seat. This option would be less prominent and slightly less convenient. If anyone wants to use this option they are free to do so, but most recreational players and even some multi-tabling regs would just choose to use the auto-seat button.

some ideas:

1) if poker sites really want to get the games juicier than ever, and attract way more fish, they need to take the approach that casinos take. that means having a live video feed of a hot girl talking to the customers. im not talking about a sleazy stripper... i mean a sophisticated girl who is dressed properly who can talk about a range of topics. somebody that talks back to txt chat.

in reality, a video stream of a girl would probably be answering txt chat to hundreds of players. maybe the more you lose at poker, the more you get to talk to the girl. or maybe it should be rake based? i dunno.

2) anybody that wants to start multiple headsup tables needs to pay a fee of 10bigblinds? or anytime somebody sits at your HU table, and you refuse action, you must pay them 10bigblinds? I can imagine some really spewy play resulting from this due to the juiced up pot.

its all well thought out, except one thing.
if there would be screenname changes every 2 month, you MUST be able to keep handwritten notes.
otherwise poker would be ******ed and everyone would just play their shoe and never have to change gears.
but if you can keep notes, you can just write the old screenname in the notes,
and if you see the player with a new screenname and the old one in the notes, its pointless.
its better to ban/shut down PTR and other tracking sites, or heavily promote mandatory opt-out option to all players somehow...
last but not least, anon-tables are completely impracticable. period.

This is true that one factor doesnt represent the whole picture. However, i dont think its too much of a stretch to imagine that if sites offered sn changes, the recreational players will be saying stuff like "its not real poker because you cant build a history with the players like you can live and thats why i cant win".

fwiw, i do agree that basically everyone (even those who use it) would prefer datamining sites did not exist, but i dont think sn changes is the way to go about it.

lol. also implement strip poker?

someone will just set up a site that doesnt do this and thats where the biggest volume of players will be.

i hope you realise there is a massive jump between what i suggested, and strip poker.

imo you are wrong. maybe REGS might be attracted to a site where they can sit out vs anybody and open up 20 tables...but fish dont care about that. not to mention alot of regs wont trust some new site anyway.

I'm a rec player who hardly ever plays. One thing that would encourage me to play is a site provided HUD, just the basic stats over the last X hands. Currently I feel I'd be at a big disadvantage if I played, but can't be bothered with the effort of setting everything up, so I just don't play.

the fact that regs arent attracted is key. although recreational players are key to the existence of a poker site, the regs are also essential it seems. basically, you need a room full of games running at all stakes and game types so that recreational players feel that whenever they want to play some online poker, a wide range of games will be readily available to them. This is what the regs provide, and hence you need to satisfy them just as much as anyone else.

First of: Thank you Mr. Galfond for putting your mind to work for the greater good of the game.

As to your ideas, i am a low stakes player and usually have no problems finding games but already encounter the problem he is referring to in 50nl HU.

Now I really hate the idea of must move games. I really think this screws up the games a lot. A must move puts all the regs at one table and benefits only those that must absolutely have full tables all the time. Now of course if I was Phil Ivey i would love that concepts. All the big stacks at my table at the end of the day.

I think most of the problems discussed can be solved with one simple solution:

A simple "Global Waiting" list.

This is how it works:

For any game you can sign up somewhere to play (of course if you want to play several tables you can do that several times).

When you are matched you get seated at your table. If you don't like your table you can quit the table and start over. If there are enough players for a new table a new table is created.
BTW: This is the same way it works in a live casino.

Alternative we can add some rules such as:

- you have to post right away
- you have to play one round (if you quit blinds will get taken away from you and put in next pot as ante)

For HU there needs to be another possibility to play someone specific for one or more tables. PG idea is one possibility.

But the key to me is that the global waiting list would eliminate most of what PG is complaining about.

I agree with him. Even at the FR tables at 20nl bummhunting is a big problem. All the regs are trying to get on the tables with the fish and waiting list are sooo long.

fwiw, i doubt you are at that much of a disadvantage (if any) if you are only playing 1 or 2 tables. and also i think the advantage of huds is way overestimated by those who dont use them or know what they really are. If you look at guys like durrr/pa/ivey etc guys who dont mass table crazy like a nanonoko they seem to get on just fine without a hud.

+1000!!!!1
Make it an available feature directly at the site so everybody has access to it, everybody knows whats going on, and nobody is at a disadvantage going in.
Would take a lot of the perceived shadyness of HUDs away.
Most fish wont care to use it anyway, but they wouldnt feel cheated by the regulars and it would help the credibility and integrity of onlinepoker in general.
Great idea, make this happen!!!