Preferring games not be anonymous does not mean you prefer that people are allowed to use HUDs. I've seen a few people suggest this. I think the ideal site would effectively enforce a ban on all 3rd party software at the tables for every stake and game type while providing downloadable hand histories with your opponents named.

cashing out and rubbing it on my tittays is much more satisfying, no matter who got stacked. poker is a job to some, and an ego thing to others.

This.

Also I don't get why everyone is pulling out that false pretense: ano tables = omfg I will get scammed for my whole roll
It's just wrong.

Yeah that's true. But it's kind of difficult to enforce a ban like this.
It's possible but the methods they had to use would prolly repel a lot of people

I do think it's reasonable to be careful as the combination of botting/colluding is the most serious threat to online poker.

however, given the information Phil has shared regarding the availability of hand histories post play I think alot of people are using the botting/collusion argument to support their views re: anon/non anon poker.

yo I agree of course. Both needs to be stopped. But it's kinda odd how some people insist on revealing those criminals themselves.
Like they themselves cought a dozen colluders on their own already and had pokerstars/partypoker remove them from the player pool.

Colluders being outed by players is kinda rare. Most of them get cought by the site itself (if they get caught at all).
And I wouldn't bet that sites always notify the player base about this and paying them the money they got scammed out of.
Probably most of the time they will just freeze the funds of the colluders and keep them for themselves.

https://www.runitonce.eu/news/3-just...-20-16_1-three

I had great expectations for RIO Poker and I'm happy to see that Phil and his team will exceed them.

Zone/Zoom/Rush poker (a la Bovada).
50-100BBs, no rathole timer.
4 Zone table max (a la Bovada.)

Cliffs: Be like Bovada but with 36%+ Dealt Rakeback and frequent reload bonuses (a la Intertops)
(1 time?)

P.S. **** HUDs

Dealt rakeback would be terrible for the games. Zero chance of that ever being implemented.

Just offer HUNL and we gucci

He is still alive?

Glad to see the auto seat feature being used and 100bb stack buy ins is fantastic.

Galfond should be going in the direction of short stack as apposed to forcing people to play with 100bb. The fish money won't last long, they will lose more $ faster than normal & their playing experience will be terrible. I couldn't tell you the last time i saw a recreational player with 100bb or more. Galfond should've reduced the bb's to 40-50 & cap it & i bet you the recreationals would enjoy that game way more & the regs would still have an edge & still alot of playability postflop.

even though i wont be able to play on phil's site i like where he is heading .

those changes should be made long ago by every major poker operator

imo online poker should be treated like all competitive online games where those who give players equal opportunity of rising through the ranks are also the most popular. simple as that.

I really like that he is putting so much thought into this.
Having a clean user experience could indeed prove to be a huge edge over competitors. Not only because of the playability but because nowadays, especially due to apple products, many people are used to UI's like this to the point, where they are appalled by everything that takes 3 sec to "get it".

This is exactly right. In the modern game, 100bb should not be spread imo, or atleast it should not be the default game that you expect most to play.
Forcing fun players to play 100bb stacks means they will get slaughtered. I also personally think that most fun players do not enjoy very deep stacked poker as much in the online cash game environment (different from live cash / tourneys - most pots contested hu, raise sizes are reasonable etc.). I think spreading 50bb cap, or 40bb cap would be a great standard.

Also "just play" does not get into the important detail of how you will manage players that sit up and down searching for better games.

100bb poker is probably staying because (1) it keeps the pro winrates higher, keeping the dream alive which is one of PG's goals. (2) more rake. 100 hands per hour raking 100bb games > 100 hands per hour raking 50bb games. There is the question of "how much value are the recs getting" though.


The problem you mentioned won't be a problem because of anon tables. How long will it take you to figure out that a table is tough? If the player on BTN has three bet your CO open for the last four orbits does that mean it's a tough reg or someone 3betting J2o?
Also they have to wait for the BB to come to them, or post. The cost is less hands per hour, or paying more money blind. So they could "table select" but by deviating from GTO they punish themselves.

I think this is basically right. Look at poker-based gambling in Asia, which is booming. Games like 6+ holdem ("shortdeck"), chinese poker (13, 8, 6 card variants), open face (many variants), etc. are getting a lot of action.

To create a site that can survive requires new thinking. In the modern game, fun players need a LOT of help - they can't even book 1 winning session in 10. This is the reality that we are facing, and ignoring that would be fatal. A site cannot survive without bridging this gap considerably.

The elephant in the room is the format. NLH is just straight up a bad game by modern standards. In 6max, you should fold a vast majority of hands, and if you don't you will get picked off. PLO is a little better as equities obviously run closer, but still runs into the same flaws. A game where you should fold anywhere near ~75% of the time (then wait for the hand to end) is obviously boring virtually by definition. It should be like, 0%. It's comfortable for regs to play these games based on study/habit, so I tend to think they push them too much as what poker "should" be. And yes it's true that a lot of fun players like these games.

However imo more games (especially simplifying ones) should be explored, such as bomb holdem where you must call preflop (so everyone goes to the flop every hand for 1bb). What about those 9 card plo flips where you discard some cards every street? Those are just BS examples off the top of my head but the point is the same, start rapidly prototyping real gambling games that create more gamble and allow you to play more hands, and find stuff people actually want to gamble on. If the development team was good (big IF), the framework would be such that implementing new variants can be done on a weekly basis. People will gamble in all sorts of bull**** if it's fun, look at casinos that create new table games all the time and get action. IMO this is a playable niche that you can run with.

The other thing to fix is the seating. Basically, you should be able to show/prioritize your interest in games, and queue for them. Forcing people to use the queue/interest system (with blind queues kind of like spin and gos) would create more action as people will show interest to start games that wouldn't normally start. Say you like PLO more than NLH but there aren't any PLO games running. But if you were indicating your interest, then the system could know there are a lot of players interested in PLO and start a new game once enough people were interested. Under the traditional system, you need regulars to start games, so recs don't play what they really want if the tables aren't there, and it's very inefficient. [Btw, I'm not talking about an interest list system that you can renege, I'm talking about binding action - indicating interest that binds you to paying at least one round of blinds, or entering the sng etc.]

I would also be doing very aggressive loss rebates / deposit bonuses, basically net depositors should get huge kickbacks and be treated like royalty. Probably most games should be cap stakes (can lose max 50bb or whatever.) Also there should be a max of say, 4 tables per player (or maybe the max depends on the table type.)

I could go on all day but it's been 15 mins, I'll just end here.

In live poker, the buy-in cap often increases as stakes rise. For example, if Poker Atlas is to be believed, the Bicycle Casino in LA has max buy-ins of $60 at 1/2, $300 at 2/3, $1000 at 5/5, and uncapped at 5/10. Start out with as little as 20bb (which some live California poker rooms have as the max buy-in in their smallest NL games) when you play 0.01/0.02 and gradually increase the max until you allow 100bb at maybe 0.50/1 or 1/2 and more than that at some other point and uncapped at the nosebleed high stakes.

Live poker is also 10000000x easier & fish don't care about bb's because of it, players are going in with 1pair for 200-300bb's, we see it all the time on tv poker where as in the online realm this isn't even close to a reality.

1. 50bb cap
2. eliminate 9-6max & make it 3-4max
3. All zoom
4. Reduce rake
5. No rakeback, rather just have fun elements to the game like bomb pots & things of this nature which stirs action


For a new pokersite to succeed you have to bridge the gap to where the recreationals can still have fun & the regs can still have an edge & win money.

Playing 50 BB deep is a cake walk for regs, and recs will get stacked constantly. How hard is it to commit your stack with top pair when the pot is 20BB and you have 40BB behind? Not hard.

Now if a rec has 90 BB behind and pot is 20BB, more skill is required for a reg, but the skill for the rec is largely unchanged. Understanding how recs stack off 100BB deep is more difficult than 50BB shoveling.

Finally, there are lots of regs that think 50BB Holdem is mostly solved. They are mistaken, but still are +EV with their methods.

Cash game Holdem is just not a friendly format for recreational players in general. It is about perfect for tournaments though.

50 bb poker would make it hard to be rake at the micros. You'd have to chop rake in half. #thedreamisdead

With every update I become less and less excited about the site Started out super hyped when the site was announced originally. I had pictured a site that had the old integrity,security, and players best interest at mind that stars prior to Amayas ownership had, while at the same time trying to innovate with improvements in some areas (such as the dynamic avatar idea). Instead it seems like they are taking bits and pieces of failed concepts from other small sites and adding their own flavour to it that seems like some of the ideas they are going with hurt regs and some are hurting fun players. IE. no huds, anonymous pools, no table selection, 100bb forced buy-ins etc. It's like amayas approach of protecting the recs and treating the playerbase like idiots who are unable to choose what is in their best interest but with a slightly more positive twist on it (no anouncements of phil giving us 0% rakeback and massive rake in every game format).

It's to the point of I am not even sure what playerbase Phil is hoping to attract to the site, unless his goal is not to compete with the other big sites and to just have a small niche player pool that are devoted to anonymous 100bb limited tables with no huds.

some random thoughts on announced plans -

I think recs as much as regs want to know who they are playing vs and be able to develop a history with other players at their stake (wether it be strategical or just wanting to win buyins off that reg they recognize) as well as not being allowed to gamble or deposit a buyin or two and fire at high stakes , they are forced to drop to a lower stake than they want to play so they can buy in for 100bb which I think is likely to make them more and more bored of poker. It's just another approach to treating the playerbase like idiots and as phil says in his post enforcing some sort of 'bankroll management' on fun players. Hint- they don't want a bankroll management they want to spin it up or at least gamble and have fun.

Even on another note - every rec is not neccessarily wanting to fire their roll off at higher stakes, some want to minimize their $ risk and buy in for 50bb-75bb and maybe play a bit more aggressive, instead everyone is forced to nit it up with their full stack.

I think anonymous tables will lower the amount of reg battling as well because instead of on a typical sites regs maybe wanting to battle to prove themselves vs a reg at a higher stake they will not know who is who so I think they are much less likely to take a risk playing stakes they are not used to.
Also, If someone sits at an anonymous table and feels it is super nitty and has no choice to choose another table theyll just go to a different website.

Security wise-

I think the only playerbase that has an advantage on anonymous tables is 1) crushers who play a gto based style that isn't based on reads or player types/spots 2) bots who can remain even more hidden than on sites with screen names such as stars because players cannot help police or find anything fishey and unless you have a huge staff team and/or scripts running to do background checks on every single account on the sites every move there will be a lot of rampant botting.

Collusion is easier as well because you do not have a name to report off of and if the site is not a massive success having 3-4 tables at a certain stake is going to mean it is very easy for a group of colluders to sit at the same time until they can verify stacksizes at their tables and know they are now hidden on the same table together and free to collude however they choose.


just my rambled 2 cents, either way I think it will ultimately be great for the poker community if this site succeeds and a big detriment if it fails as it means it will most definitely kill any future attempts by pro players to make a poker site and typically poker players have players interest in mind more than shareholders .

Eliminate micros & make it small stakes & above then. 25 or 50nl+ with 50bb capped & rake will have to be reduced either way. If Galfond doesn't significantly reduce rake then will any of us really deposit there? Are you really going to deposit $ to a website which will have mostly pros with similar rakeback that you're use to only to support Galfond?