Thanks for the GL wishes! Please let me know what you think once you try it out!

Thanks very much for sharing your experience!

Without going too deep into it, we absolutely knew the importance of resizable tables. They just weren't going to be ready for months (because, as I've mentioend elsewhere, our first tech team leader screwed things up quite badly) and we wanted to start testing and stabilizing our software.

I agree that it may have cost us quite a bit, launching with as many issues as we had at that time, but we only found out about some of them by launching, and we'd be less far along now if we hadn't. I'm unsure whether or not it was a mistake in hindsight, but there's not much we can do about it now.

I'm very glad you've either stuck with us or come back and that you're happy with the software progress that's been made. I'm excited about where the software is heading now that we've gotten a handle on things. I agree with you that the experience is only beaten by Stars for now, but I'm obviously very biased and can't trust my own opinions on things like this . Thank you!

Why there aren't head's up PLO tables at riopoker?

Phil stp is idiotic. Phil. You are a smart guy Phil.

Which one do you prefer? Sure money at your account once a week, or stp where an idiot goes allin with A2o vs. your KK and you are down 200 bb?

Hello! I am honoured with your response Great to hear it's on the list, good plan.

Hope you read my previous post too. Main point: we need some type of non-anonymous tables on offer, in addition to the anon tables. A choice.
Poker is a social game. Having identities adds colour & value to the experience, in so many ways.
If we win or lose we want to come back - "I can beat that guy", or "I will get that guy next time".
I want to make notes on who I think is good or bad.
(also I have a longshot hope that one day you will bring in other game types: draw and limit games. I'll definately need notes for those.)

If people want to come back, win or lose, you could think of that as very strong customer retention.

I'd strongly prefer "some idiot going allin with A2o vs. my KK" over a 5bb splash than receiving 1bb in my account directly.

Limit games are in the plans, but very long-term. We don't have the liquidity for now.

We also don't have the liquidity to add options right now. I totally understand where you're coming from, but our biggest challenge right now is keeping games running so that when people show up, there is action for them. If we split our player pool into 2 different game offerings for each stake, we'll have even less liquidity at each.

It would also require significant time from our developers. Right now, I'd much rather they work on getting SNGs out the door as quickly as possible.

I'm not opposed to offering other types of games in the future if it seems to be what people want, but it's not possible yet. I hope you understand. Thanks for the feedback!

I think the initial instability of the site was a big issue that has impacted on things but from my own point of view I haven't had a crash in a long time even though I'm playing with a version of windows that isn't officially supported by the site.

Thanks again for replying

Really hoping Limit games, will include draw like, 2-7 Single Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, but also just normal Limit Hold Em would be really cool.
Totally understand it might take some time to develop, but very glad that they are in the plans
I really think people do love the variety of games, it is one unique thing Stars has over the competition.

I hear what you are saying about the player pool, yep that makes sense. Hopefully you mean when the pool is big enough, you plan to offer that non-anonymous table option?
Hope so

Also by talking to people in these forums and openly discussing things, you are way ahead of the competition on that front. Keep up the good work

Hey Phil,

Thanks for coming back to answer some questions, a few suggestions comments:

Have you thought about stp and non stp tables or doing stp during certain hours or moving from games to games(on ggn they offer on some zoom i believe but have both options)

As a player who grinded for many years you have to understand that some ppl will like it and some may not so to offer as the only option is limiting your site in a way

Obv mtts, this is just a huuuuuge must, like ASAP , this is what drives traffic, someone blinks a nice tourney then comes to the cash tables etc

Marketing, think you need to seriously evaluate this, for someone who is looking for somewhere to play it’s very difficult and confusing to find your site when it’s somewhat connected to the original training site, on top I think it would also maybe be better to even rebrand , if some random Rec/fun/fish stumbles across the rio training site and then noticed u can play real cash games do you think this will make him want to play ? Anyway regardless it just makes it more difficult to find then it should be

On the bright side I’m glad to hear most bugs are fixed can re size tables and your still progressing while still listening to others

Gl

Of course part of them problem is players getting better!If 100% of the player pool are fish and 10% decide to study, that means that now only 90% of the player pool are fish. This is simple to understand. The more players that get better, the less fish there are.

I'm also not the 1 claiming to be ethical and "protecting the recreationals" etc, if you are going to claim that huds and anon tables will better protect recreationals, owh and make things fairer, then why continue to try to improve regs with a training site?

Unless Phil thinks that every poker player will become part of the Rio poker traning site, I really think he should take responsibilty and perhaps close those doors, the same way he chooses to apply a no hud rule and anon tables!

So why then is Stars still the biggest site with the most fish?

Phil, serious question: Are any of your investors big players involved with Stars? They told you not to compete with Stars, so you have come up with this site, I know it seems far-fetched?

Stars has the most liquidity, the most recreationals. Stars allows huds and non-anon tables.

You say you created RIOP this way because online poker is dying and this is the solution. I ask again, why do you think online poker is dying, which metrics did you use, how did you get your evidence? You have evaded these questions before, I doubt I'll get an anwer this time.

Why hasn't Pokerstars changed to hudless and anon tables, do you think you are smarter then those guys? I'm trying to understand why you went this route?

I see, you take offence to me wanting choices, you should work on that, and not be weird about it!

I don't care much for your views about me, I don't care what you think the type of guy I am.

Choice is good, some people prefer to see the avatar, I prefer to see numbers and make decisions based on that.

I'm all for a fun experience, some people have fun looking at the avatars, while others have fun with numbers, why can't we both have fun?

Great post, I like those avatars, and your ideas!

@The Imp, Thanks for your review! (edit: I have deleted my previous post because I forgot to say thanks to The Imp. that's the reason it's below The_Jackal21 post)

I will give you my honest opinion... The chips on the table are the best I have ever seen! But the avatars look cheap and boring.
Why don't you let somebody on Fiverr or Freelancer for a few 100$ make something like this.



I know this is South Park but this is only an example.
More colors and variation of characters is better...
And I would give the buttons (fold,call etc) and other things in the lobby, a border or/and shadow, like PS has.



I would rip all the good things from other poker sites and stick it in one site. Like Quentin Tarantino does with making movies...
He is a movie addict and copies the best scenes from other movies, makes it better. And there you have it... a perfect poker site!
IMO the graphics are important to attract new people to a site. I understand that there are not many games at the beginning. But you have the ground to build and to improve! Never give up... the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) did 10 years to become famous and it did cost a lot $$$.

You do have choice already, if you’re looking for steady rakeback go to Party. If you want HUDs try any other site.
You have a strong opinion about how RIO isn’t meeting your needs as a player. There’s the door. RIO was never supposed to be Stars 2.0

As you mentioned, the numbers work out to net rake being lower. (Again, our calcs have us 30-40% lower across all stakes than Pokerstars)

If you want to compare us to old Stars, which is perhaps a little bit unfair because they don't exist anymore, I believe we still outperform them.

Yes, if you were in a tier with 40% rakeback or higher, you'd have paid slightly less in rake on old Stars, but old Stars also gave extremely little rakeback to casual players. This means:

a) We still charge, on average, quite a bit less rake than old stars
b) Even if you're in the top couple of tiers and get a bit more on old Stars, your competition gets much less. When we give plenty of rakeback to casual players, that money goes back into the ecosystem and will benefit you.

This part is entirely untrue. Since we beat Stars by 30-40%, you only have to capture a small fraction of the STP EV to have better net rake on RIO, which you could do even if you ignore the splashes and play regular poker.

Further, if you're a winning player, you're better at poker than the average player at the table. Most of the team, this will mean you adjust better than they will and will capture more EV than 51% rakeback.

If you think you're getting less than 51% in EV, who do you (by you I mean any grinder) think is getting more than 51%? Someone has to. If you and two other players are only getting 21%, then the other 3 players at the table get 81%, or two get 51% and one gets 141%, etc.

The money is being given out and has to go somewhere.

I'm not understanding how pros, who have to have a good understanding of expected value and variance, don't see this as a lot of money in their pockets.

---

All that said, it's clear that I'm wrong about everyone understanding EV the way that we do, and as such, we're completely failing on the very important marketing front that is optics.

We have rake much lower than major competitors yet a subset of players think it's higher - that's an absolute disaster, and a big failure for us.

It's something that we didn't see coming from the reg community and we're going to have to do a lot of thinking about how to address, what previously planned changes to bump up the priority list, and what new changes to make to our pricing/rewards.

Thanks for your feedback, BringThePain!

I'm pulling this part of your post out because I'd really like more feedback on it from others, as this is a decision I'm working on making with our design team right now.

Like you, I'm used to buttons like Pokerstars, and I asked the team to work on buttons with more depth.

Our designers informed me that depth, like they have on PokerStars buttons, is a dated design practice. Modern design generally (though not always) leaves elements like this flat, like we currently have at RIO.

During my Twitch stream last week, I asked the viewers this very question - if they preferred flat buttons or buttons with texture/depth like they might see on other sites. I only saw a few replies, but they all said they liked the flat buttons.

I'd love to hear from others here so that we can make a more informed decision!

No promises here - I don't want your hopes too high

I mean that we'll definitely discuss and very seriously consider it when the pool is big enough, but it's not something worth spending a lot of energy on right now because we can't achieve it.

Thanks for the feedback and kind words <3

Funny observation, NL has no players right now, you'd think players would love the "extra" variance given how solved NL is, and the fact that everybody nits it up to the extreme. I can see stp being a good thing for NL.

PLO has 80 players across plo50 and plo10. Funny, as I'd of thought the variance is already too high for plo and stp makes it worse, I guess degens gunna be degens, right.

Is it a significant subset? Or just loud trolls on forums?
Lemon clearly didn’t take the 51% RB into account, to be so certain that rake will be “significantly worse than on Stars”.
It’s also moot that regs have a learning curve. The learning curve is equal to everyone. Some regs obviously cannot wrap their heads around this though.


It’s clear as well that Jackal is not here to provide anything constructive. He walked into the RIO thread and is upset because it’s not Stars.

I'll make that choice myself kiddo, you can crawl back in your toilet, I don't care for your input either.

Guess what kid, I'm not the only player, RIO isn't meeting their expectations!

Re buttons - the current ones seem fine so not sure it matters. Unibet for example I find the buttons annoying although I couldn't tell you why.

In general though - please don't make decisions based on what a designer thinks is modern/dated, especially when he's describing the current top poker client as "dated". All the other poker clients attempting something "modern" have ended up with the same flaws - clunky to use, busy design, less functional than old clients 10+ years ago. A poker client should be functional first then design around that. People are using their own money to play the game, it's not about what a designer gets to put in their portfolio.

As I said previously though, I like the client.

What you fail to understand and/or accept is that nobody is obligated to give you the choices you want. If you have a choice, then by all means choose the best option that works best for you. As someone already stated; if huds are what you want, play on a sit that allows you to use a hud. But complaining that the vegetarian restaurant doesn't give you the option of ordering prime rib is just silly. Choice works both ways: you have a choice to eat at any restaurant you choose to, at the same time a restaurant has a choice to offer what they want on their respective menus.

@PhilGalfond I made a huge review with suggestions on your blog post with a survey, and I havent received a word of reply as you promised. This was a few days ago

I think what you fail to understand is that I'm merely giving my opinion and giving critique. I am not complaining. Phil asked for our input and I am giving it. If you can't handle "negative" (in your mind) feedback, perhaps the problem lies with you.

You have on several occasions mis-read and misinterepted my posts.

And yes while nobody is obligated to give choices, Phil asked for feedback, so clearly he might want to give players options.

It's also incredibly dumb to think you make some valid point here with a comment like "nobody is obligated to give you choices". It would be in a sites best interest to make their players happy and give them choices!

Regarding buttons, perhaps it's possible to satisfy both the modern/flat crowd and the traditional/textured crowd by offering the choice of skins. Often that only requires some different graphics with no difference in layout and coding, although if it affects animations, that could be a little more involved.

Yes, it would be nice to live in a world where one always has the options one wants. Just today I was at Starbucks, ordered a large coffee and thought to myself "it sure would be nice if I, the customer, had the choice to pay the small coffee price for my large coffee." Suffice it to say, I was not offered that choice. Oddly enough, when I extolled the virtue of "giving customers the choice" the manager at Starbucks merely listened to my feedback, but still did not give me the choice to pay the lower price for my large coffee. So what's a coffee lover like myself to do? Well, I realized that I was actually wearing my big-boy pants today, accepted that the price is what the price is and paid for my large coffee at large coffee prices. I made a choice, given the options available to me.