I wonder if his site will only let players run it once

I'm intrigued but yet cautiously optimistic. I imagine the games will just be reg infested for awhile.

I don't know if he has any backers/investors. But a big company like Stars already has trouble getting new recreational players to the game. It will be that much more difficult for Galfond to do so.

I love how all this discussion always comes up about how poker is dying, and how sites HAVE to switch to recreational models... however people seem to ignore WPN and the growth they've shown over the past couple years. They cater almost exclusively to grinders, and in some cases even more than what Stars ever did. In fact, I think they do it TOO much. For example, I feel like tables should not be listed in lobby as currently constructed - instead, list only the stakes and number of players currently playing at those stakes to completely eliminate bumhunting. The Beast is also one of the worst ideas I've ever seen for a poker site. WPN's support is below-average. Pre-black friday Pokerstars support was the gold standard. It made regs and fish alike all feel comfortable, on top of everyone getting top notch service. If sites focused on providing great support, that would be a great step as well. It also helps to be serving USA customers.

It is my opinion that regulars aren't the problem with poker sites. It's the greedy companies that own poker sites (coughamayacough) that seek short term profits instead of building a poker site from the ground up the right way. NO ONE has tried to copy the pre-black Friday Pokerstars strategy of, spend a majority of your money advertising to new players and let the regulars keep tables running while subsidizing them with big rewards, while providing excellent software and support. Is this entirely possible in the current climate? No. Players are too good now. But if you balance those ideas with things like eliminating seating scripts, spreading out rewards more to lower level grinders instead of only high-volume players, and reducing rake to make all games profitable for a decent percentage of people, I personally feel those are great steps to take for any poker site. Instead, Bovada walked into a gold mine with every trusted US-facing site leaving the market after black friday, and then sites like Merge and Lock shooting themselves in the foot with horrible management and massive cashout issues. Bovada gave out zero rewards and had anonymous tables with a 4 table limit for cash games, and every poker site jumped at the opportunity to throw all the blame to the high-volume regs who supposedly made the ecosystem unsustainable, completely ignoring the fact Bovada just got blessed by a bunch of sites just falling face first before them and zero other competitors other than themselves being there to fill in the void.

Could say more but I'll end it there

My guess is that it's a skin:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=39

Lol why do you think WPN has shown good growth in the last few years? Hint : It is the same reason PokerStars showed enough growth from Nov 2006 onwards to move into the number 1 site spot.

Another hint, I do not think Phil Galfond would want the legal troubles that come with trying that.

It's a good thing that it isn't actually killing anyone, because Galfond doesn't have the kind of power you seem to think he does.

It's going to have to be better, faster, more responsive software than anything else other than Stars out there, with the same hotkey options and multi-tabling capabilities, plus totally undercut Stars rake, VIP and bonus systems, and why shouldn't that be enough?

The thing about Bovada is that a random fish at least has a shot to win in the short term because of lack of huds and other weak players, which is what causes the game to grow, or rather die more slowly. What's good about the anonymous, table-capped model is that it lowers the element of skill relative to luck while still retaining enough skill to make the game beatable, which as Mason Malmuth would point out, is what makes a gambling game sustainable and vibrant. What do you think the chances are that a random fish who has played poker only a few times with friends could win at even 25nl on a site with huds and 12 tabling eastern europeans over a 1k hand sample? I would guess that it's probably lower than 5%. Such a player is definitely -ev on bovada by a lot, but he at least has a legit chance of winning in the short term there.

a poker site should :
accept bitcoin
accommodate players from anywhere

this is seriously pretty amazing news

this is a whole lotta YOLO in it and you gotta respect that, unless its a ipoker skin , then its just bad all around, he won´t be able to make himself seperate from anyone else if he goes under a network, so it have already failed in that case.

I hope its a seperate network, so he can play the right games for the best legal licensces, aproach the right markets, set the right rake/rb/bonuses and just go for minimal profit atleast the first 2 years (or no profit at all) when he tries to get it off the ground, done any other way this will just be a quick money grab like any other ipoker skin is before it crumbles and sold off with hidden debts to suckers. (happened many times)

Unless I'm misinterpreting Phil's intentions there's a near zero chance this is an iPoker (or other) skin. Very exciting stuff.

Well it will 1000% be the toughest site on the internet and I don't see how they will be able to attract enough recs.

If it's a skin or a rebrand of an existing software it would be extremely underwhelming.

They definitely need a ground up built software fit for 2016.

Having a software that can compete with PS would be one of the few ways this could succeed. A skin would be doomed to failure IMO.

Friendly wager $100? I take it's not a skin.

Skin-based model was a doomed from the get-go, and everything Phil stated in his post would be just thin air, because he has 0% to deliver anything if he puts himself in that position.

fyp.

Also agree that there's 0% chance that it's a skin of anything. It seems like Phil wants to fail/succeed on his own brand to give others a good site.

+1

+1

besides that, definitely great news since Phil not only seems to have the knowledge, but seems to be genuinely interested and capable

edit:


of course a new client completely built up from scratch would be awesome, but it's a gigantic project and there are definitely 'old' clients up for sale

we're gonna have to spam the pokerstars chatbox methinks

In before Timstone comes here and claims this will kill poker for the 7th time this year.

On a more positive note though, this is fantastic news and will be looking forward to this.

How many USA facing sites have there been since black friday? How many are doing better than they were pre-bf? Two. WPN and Bovada. So saying that's the only factor is stupid.

Would be nice if they purchased full tilt's software snd made everything right

Fish are gonna be fish. They are going to lose their money. Figuring out how to best make them lose it slowly is tactic used by poker sites to try and dip their toes in a revenue stream they shouldn't be trying to make money off of - fish. The poker sites buy the fish for the sharks so that they can eat. Keeping the sharks fed keeps games running, therefore generating revenue for the sites. Now, like I said... players are too good now to just allow bumhunting to be rampant - that in particular needs to be addressed. But, I believe the poker community has been brainwashed by the industry into thinking good players who play alot are the problem. This has allowed them to slash rewards significantly, while really giving nothing back. Even the games at Bovada aren't great anymore (100 and 200nl reg) and I'd much rather play cash elsewhere.

+ Bodog has huds and it works for the current session/table so Its not like its hard to identify whos a fish within a few hands.

sick ... comments in the blog weren't shown previously, so i missed the part where PG indicates, they build it up from scratch #holybatfantastic

<3