Throwing this one out there for 2017, hopefully Gandalf or Luckychewy or some serious stars competitor takes to this idea. It could be done for Nosebleed games to promote action ( a la Happy hour) during a specific time period. and obv to the mid grinders...

Lets say an operator would charge a flat fee (lets say 10$) and you could play on their tables from 9pm to 3am without any rake taken on the table. Good idea? Im sure some type of aggressive promo would convince customers to relocate their action.

Hail Mary

obviously no fish will play

ya not a very good idea tbh

Why doesnt someone start a online poker site where players pay a flat monthly fee, say $49/month to play unlimited real cash games and tournaments which would all be rake free. The site would be bare bones with little VIP/rewards/programs etc.

If they get 85,000 paying players they would bring in $50+ million/year in revenue.

Because low volume players wouldn't be willing to pay a monthly fee and operators want to collect way more money from high volume players.

I agree with madlex but if we finally get a site that cares about the game itself and its players, maybe something with a similar model could be sustainable. Or at least a site could have test it as a promotional gig. I think if 888 or Runitonce went for such a promo they could see a spike in volume. Could be done as a deposit promo ideally...

You could have an option to pre-purchase 100% rakeback.

You guys just dont get it. These are greedy companies we are talking about not mother theresa lol. Even luckyhippie and gandalf have only one thing in mind at the end. And that is profit. Noone cares for the players or for the game...

Stars and Negreanu have a mind-blowing promo coming during 2016, so I'd wait until that is unveiled first.

bc sites like money.

how are they going to get those 85000 players and why would the spend tons of money marketing to get donks and then let pros pay 49 bucks a month to fleece them?

next up the terrible world of warcraft comparisons.

Is happy hour a thing on stars? I see it mentioned on the cash game filters but have never seen it in action, and google only returns old results.

I've always thought what they could do is lower rake during non-peak hours.

Ahhhhhh Happy Hour.

The Good Owl Days.

What people mean by "good for the game" is creating games they can beat.

Giving all the high volume players rake-free action would not be as good for you as you think it would. Ipoker essentially used to do this and everybody moaned it was nit-infested with no action.

Recs care little about the rake EXCEPT if you charge them a flat fee (in which case they would object).

What they notice is losing their money too fast in relation to the entertainment they purchased. Build a model around that reality and you have a chance.

My suggestion would be to put a very old and well known idea into practice: more rake back for higher vpip/pfr or some kind of promotion which rewards high vpip/pfr or prizes which give players with higher vpip/pfr a higher chance to win (for example winning cashback tickets)

No, that would be terrible.

Rake works well because uninformed players (mainly recreationals) don't notice it being taken out of each pot. By charging a flat fee, they would most definitely notice and stop playing.

that was a full tilt promo that awarded more ftps during certain hours of the day, that no longer exists

Only a matter of time before some recommends rake free games for the fish as long as they blow a .08 in a breathalizer.

what about stop making tournaments 1500 chips utra super charger turbo ?!

and the players aren't greedy, but just care for the environment

@ thread: all the proposals itt are pretty pointless, if you think about them in general. each poker room is different and believing there's some magical super promotion, that brings back the old days is just naive.

the biggest RB deals were handed out, when the market was growing and poker rooms wanted to establish a brand (eg. FTP was the cool place with all the high stakes sickos ...). So luring in mass grinders was a smart choice since there were so many fun players pouring in money, no one cared how much was taken out by pros.

back then the RB was the cherry on top, not your only way of income. Sure we could argue that "oh, rb is only necessary, b/c the rake is too high" which the counter argument would be "yeah, but the games would be beatable, if you wouldn't have so many grinders per table".

a poker room is very complex, and definitely not static. let's say PS would drastically reduce the rake for Hyper SnGs. What would happen?

a) player pool doesn't change and everyone would have a bigger winrate
b) new grinders would jump into the hyper SnG pool until it's 'saturated'

Poker is about maximizing winrates, it doesn't matter if you're a player or an operator.

@ RIO poker: i really look forward and i have big hopes, BUT ... it will take some time, until the poker room grows. which means, there won't be much room for grinders (who are just interested to make a living) at the beginning. so while a 'rake based promotion' is great to create some buzz (and sign ups), it's just a temporary solution.

i don't think galfond needs a 'good rb' system anyway, since they 'just' could offer an attractive rake from the start. what i don't expect either, are nosebleeds. sure people love to rail ballers, but for nose bleeds you need high stakes, mid stakes, low stakes and micros ... each level much bigger to carry the weight which means a huge pyramid, so the money can flow upwards.

I assume you have no idea the type of person mother Teresa actually was. She's worse than any corporation to ever exist.
I suggest you look up "Chris Hitchens Mother Teresa"

no way anyone has ever thought of this idea, until now, brilliant!