Phil Galfond to Start a Poker Site (Launched)
08-22-2019
, 12:42 PM
08-22-2019
, 01:24 PM
08-23-2019
, 08:05 AM
08-23-2019
, 10:07 AM
Just for reference Gaz:
I deposited 100 euros when the site first opened to test it out. Got charged £90.29, fx rate of 1.1075.
I then withdraw €458.21, receiving £389.76, fx rate of 1.1756.
Here's the RIO download from the client (euros):
Had I got the same exchange rate back, I'd have received around £413.73, a difference of £23.97 on a €450 withdrawal, which is ridiculous.
I'd eventually like to put a few thousand on RIO and grind SNGs as another option to the sites I currently play but if I'm going to see large fx differences as above, then I'll stick to sites where I'm not losing anything more than the odd penny.
08-23-2019
, 10:44 AM
I think you may have come to that conclusion after seeing that gif's background with the name of all those RIO employees. That's actually RIO's official Discord channel.
The only thing i'd say is that it would have been a lot more ideal for RIO if they had launched the site with MTT offerings as well but I think they had their reasons to launch the site without them.
08-25-2019
, 09:23 PM
08-26-2019
, 06:40 AM
08-26-2019
, 10:55 AM
Quote:
I believe Empire Poker was a Party Poker skin, but your point is still valid. I am embarrassed and disappointed that development has taken us this long and that we don't yet have tournaments. Things haven't gone according to plan, as I've detailed in my public updates on runitonce.eu/news.
What I'm not understanding is why you think we have sky-high rake and why you (and some others) appear to want to see Run It Once close our doors.
By our calculations, we've got lower rake than Party and Stars across the board - in some cases by a wide margin, and this is while not being a profitable company, much less one with 9-figure profits.
I believe we've demonstrated that we can come up with creative solutions to protect players and adapt to challenges facing the industry, and that we'll explain all of our decisions in detail, which is what the community deserves.
We've been quite limited in what we've been able to do, mostly because of our development delays. The majority of our ideas haven't been implemented or shared. Our interface is just our MVP version, yet still compares well to several sites that have been around forever - we will still make a number of improvements here. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Liquidity has been a challenge, especially at higher stakes, but our game quality has been good - something I know many of you were concerned about and something we've worked hard to achieve even before having the luxury of pumping profits back into heavy marketing.
Customer support and cashouts have been quick - I've received overwhelmingly good feedback from many happy players.
While software issues certainly exist, we've consistently refunded players who've lost pots due to software problems, absorbing the full cost ourselves, of course.
We've been listening and discussing things with the community. We made a change to our STP PLO policy based on community feedback, and we are in the process of making a big policy change based on community feedback (I'm currently writing a blog post to discuss it, in between playing WSOP events).
In addition to our normal high rakeback (for all players, regardless of volume), we've given an additional 50%-110% rakeback to a number of streamers through an innovative program that is open to everyone.
We've run 80% rakeback Super Splashes regularly, we've done a weekend of (over) 100% of rake donated to charity, and we're currently in the middle of a full week of 101% of rake returned to the players.
This is what we've done in a few months, and I want to reiterate, while we're still losing money each day.
I'm obviously incentivized to say things like, "I believe our success would be good for the whole of online poker, and I'm excited about what we'll be able to do for players if we survive and eventually thrive," so if you don't trust my word, I'd encourage you to make your own judgments based on our actions.
I knew, going into this venture, that no matter how much the community wanted to support us, the overwhelming majority would go (or stay) where their EV is highest. I don't expect any of you to switch over to Run It Once Poker if your experience and your earn is better elsewhere. I don't expect many of you to even try it if you're just happy with what you're used to. I knew this would be a challenge for us.
What I have been surprised by, and genuinely curious about, is some of the negativity like this. I don't mean to single you out by quoting this post - there are obviously others who feel the same way, and I would like to get a better understanding of it because I find it difficult to respond to properly if I don't know where you're coming from.
Is it frustration that we haven't delivered a "full product" yet? Are you not a fan of me or of Run It Once? Do you just find it funny that we have run into software development problems and have only made it this far?
To be clear - I want to hear from everyone. I want feedback, positive or negative.
I guess where this all comes from, and why I want to learn more about our detractors, is a scenario I play out in my mind sometimes - one that keeps me up at night. It's a scenario where you and others get your wish: We aren't able to gain traction, even as we continue to make improvements, and we do close our doors for good, at which point there's an outcry of disappointment and support...
"I didn't actually want them to fail. I just wanted them to hurry up and release tournaments. I was trying to help by explaining that to them!"
"I wanted to play, but I was just waiting til people in the thread said the software was 100%!"
"I would've told people about Run It Once if I knew it mattered."
If the market doesn't want our product, or if we don't market it well enough, make poor decisions... whatever... and it leads to us not making it - that's fine. Well, it would suck a lot, but you know what I mean... we should only succeed if we deserve to.
What would really, really upset me is if we don't survive but we could have. If we had the player base we needed this whole time, but they were just waiting a little longer, or they were deterred by negative comments here that weren't even all that genuine in the first place.
I've heard from a lot of players who are excited to play once we add X Y or Z. I know a number of players are ready to play once there's consistent liquidity at their preferred stake. The catch-22 is that we need those players to get that liquidity, to grow our games, and to grow our development team and increase the speed at which we can reach X Y and Z.
I began to write "Though this is starting to read like one, I don't mean this to be a cry for help, and I don't want or expect anyone to try RIO if it isn't their very best option, or to recommend RIO if they don't feel they have anything to gain from it," but if I'm being honest with myself, I suppose that's not entirely true.
I do want people to consider that (imho) the success of Run It Once Poker would be +EV for their future in poker, and if going slightly out of your way to try something new or to tell some people about the site (assuming you love it) with nothing to gain from it, or playing in slightly smaller games every once in a while because that's what's running on RIO, or sitting in the lobby to help start the games you want to play (while you go play elsewhere) if they aren't currently running, rather than checking and leaving, or a number of other minor inconveniences that could impact the site in a big way (I can create a full list if you'd like)... if that minimal cost now would lead to future EV for you and for the poker community, perhaps it would end up being +EV in the long run. And yes, of course, I would appreciate it.
This got off topic and I said some things I didn't ever intend to say, but obviously, I'm very passionate about Run It Once Poker. I believe in our vision so deeply that it overpowered my aversion to asking for anything resembling a favor.
Oh well. Transparency, right?
What I'm not understanding is why you think we have sky-high rake and why you (and some others) appear to want to see Run It Once close our doors.
By our calculations, we've got lower rake than Party and Stars across the board - in some cases by a wide margin, and this is while not being a profitable company, much less one with 9-figure profits.
I believe we've demonstrated that we can come up with creative solutions to protect players and adapt to challenges facing the industry, and that we'll explain all of our decisions in detail, which is what the community deserves.
We've been quite limited in what we've been able to do, mostly because of our development delays. The majority of our ideas haven't been implemented or shared. Our interface is just our MVP version, yet still compares well to several sites that have been around forever - we will still make a number of improvements here. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Liquidity has been a challenge, especially at higher stakes, but our game quality has been good - something I know many of you were concerned about and something we've worked hard to achieve even before having the luxury of pumping profits back into heavy marketing.
Customer support and cashouts have been quick - I've received overwhelmingly good feedback from many happy players.
While software issues certainly exist, we've consistently refunded players who've lost pots due to software problems, absorbing the full cost ourselves, of course.
We've been listening and discussing things with the community. We made a change to our STP PLO policy based on community feedback, and we are in the process of making a big policy change based on community feedback (I'm currently writing a blog post to discuss it, in between playing WSOP events).
In addition to our normal high rakeback (for all players, regardless of volume), we've given an additional 50%-110% rakeback to a number of streamers through an innovative program that is open to everyone.
We've run 80% rakeback Super Splashes regularly, we've done a weekend of (over) 100% of rake donated to charity, and we're currently in the middle of a full week of 101% of rake returned to the players.
This is what we've done in a few months, and I want to reiterate, while we're still losing money each day.
I'm obviously incentivized to say things like, "I believe our success would be good for the whole of online poker, and I'm excited about what we'll be able to do for players if we survive and eventually thrive," so if you don't trust my word, I'd encourage you to make your own judgments based on our actions.
I knew, going into this venture, that no matter how much the community wanted to support us, the overwhelming majority would go (or stay) where their EV is highest. I don't expect any of you to switch over to Run It Once Poker if your experience and your earn is better elsewhere. I don't expect many of you to even try it if you're just happy with what you're used to. I knew this would be a challenge for us.
What I have been surprised by, and genuinely curious about, is some of the negativity like this. I don't mean to single you out by quoting this post - there are obviously others who feel the same way, and I would like to get a better understanding of it because I find it difficult to respond to properly if I don't know where you're coming from.
Is it frustration that we haven't delivered a "full product" yet? Are you not a fan of me or of Run It Once? Do you just find it funny that we have run into software development problems and have only made it this far?
To be clear - I want to hear from everyone. I want feedback, positive or negative.
I guess where this all comes from, and why I want to learn more about our detractors, is a scenario I play out in my mind sometimes - one that keeps me up at night. It's a scenario where you and others get your wish: We aren't able to gain traction, even as we continue to make improvements, and we do close our doors for good, at which point there's an outcry of disappointment and support...
"I didn't actually want them to fail. I just wanted them to hurry up and release tournaments. I was trying to help by explaining that to them!"
"I wanted to play, but I was just waiting til people in the thread said the software was 100%!"
"I would've told people about Run It Once if I knew it mattered."
If the market doesn't want our product, or if we don't market it well enough, make poor decisions... whatever... and it leads to us not making it - that's fine. Well, it would suck a lot, but you know what I mean
... we should only succeed if we deserve to.What would really, really upset me is if we don't survive but we could have. If we had the player base we needed this whole time, but they were just waiting a little longer, or they were deterred by negative comments here that weren't even all that genuine in the first place.
I've heard from a lot of players who are excited to play once we add X Y or Z. I know a number of players are ready to play once there's consistent liquidity at their preferred stake. The catch-22 is that we need those players to get that liquidity, to grow our games, and to grow our development team and increase the speed at which we can reach X Y and Z.
I began to write "Though this is starting to read like one, I don't mean this to be a cry for help, and I don't want or expect anyone to try RIO if it isn't their very best option, or to recommend RIO if they don't feel they have anything to gain from it," but if I'm being honest with myself, I suppose that's not entirely true.
I do want people to consider that (imho) the success of Run It Once Poker would be +EV for their future in poker, and if going slightly out of your way to try something new or to tell some people about the site (assuming you love it) with nothing to gain from it, or playing in slightly smaller games every once in a while because that's what's running on RIO, or sitting in the lobby to help start the games you want to play (while you go play elsewhere) if they aren't currently running, rather than checking and leaving, or a number of other minor inconveniences that could impact the site in a big way (I can create a full list if you'd like
)... if that minimal cost now would lead to future EV for you and for the poker community, perhaps it would end up being +EV in the long run. And yes, of course, I would appreciate it.This got off topic and I said some things I didn't ever intend to say, but obviously, I'm very passionate about Run It Once Poker. I believe in our vision so deeply that it overpowered my aversion to asking for anything resembling a favor.
Oh well. Transparency, right?
I just stumbled upon this thread by a missclick but got to read a lot of the posts ITT and yours where you ask everyone for feedback so i wanted to give the input from my perspective fwiw. I haven't logged into twoplustwo for years.
First of all I am sold on the premise that your intentions for the good of Poker are true. I have been playing online poker for years and when Pokerstars started making these monsterous changes in the last couple of years I read about u wanting to create an online poker site with said intentions. I was really looking forward to it and had quite high hopes, I entered the survey from ROI years back.
Months after that I read an article which stated that ROI will not be allowing the use of Huds and that is when my interest in the site faded, I stopped following the progress of ROI and didn't even register.
The deal breaker for me is the no Hud policy. I am usually playing 12-16 tables online and the inconvenience that this policy brings is simply too great. It is simply too annoying and quite frankly impossible to be aware of every player when you play that many tables. Now you might say, just play less, which is a valid point, but for me personally that is what feels amazing in online poker. Being able to play so many tables, that is the dream for me.
Obviously one could demonize me for only wanting to play with a Hud, but that, to me, is online poker. The downside that this multi tabling brings for recreational players is obviously the time that it takes to make a decision, but this could be solved differently through software changes. People who play x+ tables could have a completely merged timebank, or their decision making time before the timebank activates could be reduced greatly. You are in charge of the software, it is a giant playground where all sorts of different things could be implented to cater to almost every sort of player out there. The possibilities are truely endless. You can have the mass grinders on there along the 2 tabling regs and the 1 tabling recs just like it used to be. The thing that matters is just what every individual experiences at the table. You can have 60 tablers allowed if their acting time is reduced so that they wont bother others players at the table with the tanking.
I would also like to add that anonymizing the tables is another thing that really kills some of the flair of poker. The reg battles which do get so intense simply aren't possible anymore.
For what it's worth I think the project you had/have in mind was/is amazing and I believe your intentions are true. The splash the pot feature coupled with flat rakeback FOR ALL is an amazing combination for regs and recs.
I would certainly play on RIO and wouldn't mind regbattling all day with those conditions.
I am not expecting a policy change in the regard of huds being allowed, but you asked for opinions from everyone. I'd play the max number of tables allowed on RIO and start tables if Huds were possible.
Wish you the best of luck with RIO, well and in general.
Last edited by Falling behind; 08-26-2019 at 11:01 AM.
08-26-2019
, 11:00 AM
08-26-2019
, 01:08 PM
08-26-2019
, 03:30 PM
08-26-2019
, 03:33 PM
08-26-2019
, 05:21 PM
08-26-2019
, 05:56 PM
08-26-2019
, 06:26 PM
08-26-2019
, 09:30 PM
08-27-2019
, 12:29 AM
08-27-2019
, 12:33 AM
08-27-2019
, 12:58 AM