this

Phil, I think one of your basic premises is false.

The dream of a well-paying career as a poker pro is not what drives most players to the game -- or, to a particular site.

Rather, most players are simply hoping for a game they can beat. The dream is to be a winner (not necessarily a dream to be profitable, but to be a winner -- that's what average joe has in mind). They are ~corollary as winners tend to make money, but there is a subtle difference and average joe dreams about winning, not a career.

IMO, this was a big reason why we had the boom. The WPT games that were broadcast on the Travel Channel looked very beatable to new players, thanks in large part to the commentary and rudimentary strat advice being given.

That's the dream to cast: you can be a winner by playing here.

EXACTLY

They operate on a model of perception.

You mean market is too saturated I assume... and tbh I disagree. Is there competition? Sure there is. But are consumers really happy with the product? I don't think so. The decline in players on the big sites is an indication of this. Do these departing players suddenly not enjoy poker? Or is it they feel that the product offerings aren't what they once were? I believe it's the latter. Sites like Unibet are proof that there is room for growth, provided the product suits their needs.

As for new players, with the right partnerships I have no doubt this site or any other could gain thousands of new 1st time players nearly overnight. There are plenty of people who haven't given poker a shot because they haven't been given enough incentive to try.

Those suggesting no high stakes tables because recs lose their money way to fast wtf? Its one of the main attractions for new players to play poker, besides recs that play 50-100 to 200-400 aren't interested in playing 1-2 to 5-10 these guys are rich businessmen or whatever that get a thrill playing these high stakes games and at the same time attract new players to the game to deposit play smaller stakes with the dream to play these high stakes.

All you need to do is view IPoker and the other sites that have got rid of all high stakes tables, no action no railing = poker is boring!

And yes railing, since railing attracts discussion discussion is posted on websites and forums on the internet and chatted between friends which all attracts new players to the game and as i said these guys playing these stakes do not play < 5/10 anyway so why get rid of these games at all.

Also if you just view who the most popular online poker players are, and what they all have in common? Answer they play high stakes and 99% of them are heads up players.

You know why fish lose? because they suck! I do not need a Hud to get the fish's money, the fish gives it to me by calling weak pairs all day long. I am not using stats on him to exploit his leaks, all I do is valuebet, hud or no hud. The fish needs to improve his game to lose slower, banning huds wont stop him losing!

Joey Ingram released a short YouTube clip giving his thoughts a few hours ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmLNJ8Jgfok

OMG is there anything Clay Aiken can't do?

Despite what you say it'll make him lose slower. It's easier to identify fish with HUDs. It'll also make the HUD players not win as much. It's win/win. I use a HUD atm but I'm all for no HUD.

lol @ fish losing because of hud. huds are for reg to reg battles. fish are so bad that no one needs a hud to beat them

Huds are not a problem guys. They started around 2005-6 and for like 5 years no one complained about them at all. You guys think they are the problem but they are not. The problems are:

1. Segregation of countries.
2. Very bad fish to reg ratio.
3. Massive rake.

They all combined lead to games which we have in 2016.

The probability of success: 1%? A modified skin? Possible? There has been some boom periods when something good has been offered even by some skins.

My preferences where possible:

- a simple house hud, and a good notes function
- two tabling max per limit and form
- the big enough winners must move up from micro and low limits
- a big part of the rake returned to losers in form of deposit bonuses
- no bigger than maybe 100 player MTTs. 2 of them starting close the same time. All scheduled
- 100 bb cap tables with a mandatory auto-fill, and a "bring in" size open raise
- a modern popular mixed games pack that attracts rec players also (plo, nlh, big omaha, plo8, lhe).

If there is/was a Canadian Bovada skin (Bodog), then perhaps a rest of the world or so one also is possible. I wasn't accepted, but would give it a shot. Many USA players might not like it because of the lower economic countries and there already is a global network called WPN, but there one is just another tiny skin. If Bovada (or some other network) is still going to hang in there and ready for the idea(s), I wouldn't mind getting in also.

I think the main reason departing players stopped playing was because they were losing too often, the games became too tough to beat, and losing money consistently isn't an enjoyable existence. Unless you can offer softer games somehow this won't change for them.

No one complained because there were plenty of soft games available. As games got tougher, the existence of HUDs became a turn off for many recreational players who assume they are playing against robots and computer programs. Having a policy where HUDs are banned can only help the perception of the fairness of the games to the people you want playing.

If anybody worried that the gaming license fees are going to cost a lot of money, well you don't have to be
here are the maltese fees:
http://www.mga.org.mt/gaming-sectors...fees-taxation/

(obviusly this new site won't even try to get a french, or italian license for a while that's for sure.)

bunch of really silly suggestions itt. Galfond wants to create the best poker site possible in the current environment and its not gonna be another dump like unibet lol. Huds will obv be allowed and there will be no small table caps. The software is gonna be new bc there is no way some ****ty skin soft can compete w stars. Effective rake is going to be way smaller than stars (which is the main thing killing the dream nowadays besides legislation). Biggest issues are going be marketing and liquidity.

UK license is needed at a minimum - you can't not operate there if you want a successful dot-com. Denmark and (soon) Netherlands are pretty key markets that also require licenses; soon you'll have Portugal too. And there's Romania, Belgium, Estonia, Greece and i'm sure others i've forgotten that you can't access with local licensing. And then doing business is some pretty important grey markets (Russia, China) requires real savvy, and even say in Norway, Sweden, Germany and Australia you gotta know the lay of the land.

Operating a legit online gambling business in international waters aint easy these days.

Hood speaks the truth, absolute legal nightmare.

Well said - One can only hope!

u dont need license for every small country. for example 888 and party arent licensed in my country, but ppl still play there. only thing gov does is block their websites and thats lolworthy.

Id bet against it being no table cap. This is the most crucial in order to make it doable. Or we have cumicon taking all the tables from PLO400 to PLO40k like on every other site and likewise for NLHE. No table cap for tournaments though.

If you tailor a site for it to be reg-heaven well, its not gonna last. Our gov licensced site have had a midstakes region that put everything else on the internet to shame despite it being a v small playerpool. ´Money just stays around longer if weaker regs get to sit in on 5/6handed action aswell, taking shots cause of a whale, losing to stronger regs etc. It kills seat scripts aswell somewhat because you just can´t fire up all the tables you want and still let software find games for you, youll have to make a educated guess what will be more ev for you etc.

A good solid software, a humane rake, a nice VIP program, some idiot funneling ****loads into tournament guas, table cap to 4 or 5 and you are off to a good start.

if there is a table cap its not gonna be something silly like 2, 4 or even 6 as ppl suggested here. I dont think cumicon camping all mid and high stakes would be that big of a problem since reasonable rake incentivises regwars. If u can get regs to play each other hu tables will fill up naturally. Right now no one wants to play hu esp. in ssnl bc stars hu rake is unreal so ppl are either forced to watch the lobby all the time (which is tilting as ****) or get scripts.

Jman,

Just buy the FTP software and rebrand it and provide NO HUD tables..

And you're set ! Hahaha

Cheers and GL..

Why not run the whole platform on Bitcoin and avoid the legal nightmare?

And what do you think caused point 2?