Nothing encourages mass-tabling more than SNE.

How the hell is mass tabling killing the games? Its the rake machine for Pokerstars, if u want a more casual site go to full tilt

This thread is about rake, not VIP programs or multi tabling. Stay at topic pls else u got an enemy

Mass multi-tabling means that the skill gap between good and new players is bigger.

They go broke faster, they stop coming back faster, the games get harder. For there to be winners there need to be weak players, for there to be weak players newbies need to remain alive for longer.

Heh, just read your addendum. Did you know that you might be a mental?

And how exactly do they survive longer, its then not me playing vs them cause im limited to 4 tables, its another 5 regulars playing vs them

and no it doesnt mean the skill gap is bigger when i 20 table or w/e ... the skill gap is much bigger when i 2 table

Heh, just read your addendum. Did you know that you are probably a mental?

Im just not on your side if u wanna take SNE or multitabling away from Pokerstars

VIP programs are a form of rake discount. Multi tabling is a tool of reaching VIP levels. For those reasons i feel that they can be legitimate subjects in a rake discussion. Can you agree?

no i dont

So where do you see the fault in my reasoning?

I wouldn't worry about that. Monopolies don't change their business models. It'll be a smaller site that does it, if anyone does. The problem is that there aren't many stand-alone sites after PS and FTP.

As we said earlier it's much harder to change the model when you're part of a network because if you keep recreational players alive for longer, the high volume players can still play against them from another operator on the network, and still get the big SNE-style rewards.

Talking of the monopoly thing, FTP are interesting as PS can maybe experiment there. There's no SNE for a start.

my smiley was supposed to indicate that im wrong regarding this, but im still not supporting changes like cutting down tables for no reason other than someones taking up too much time while multitabling

SNE is just a form of rakeback. It encourages people to put in insane volume because there is a threshold you have to hit to get the rakeback. If you cap the rake, you are essentially offering 100% rakeback after a certain point. This would have the same effect - people would have a huge incentive to hit the threshold and so would mass-table to get there.

Additionally, those people who break even for 1mm hands to get SNE would get the same value under the proposed capped-rake system, since if the rake wasnt being taken out of those pots it would accrue to their winrate instead.

the skill gap is bigger on those 2 tables, but theres 18 other tables you aren't on. There is a limited supply of skilled players, and allowing them to play multiple tables increases the average skill level on each table since the weak players will not play as many tables as the skilled players, absent a cap.

we gotta define skilled player... id say everyone playing abc and theres an unlimited supply for that

why can't 2+2 set up a poker site for the people, by the people? not everyone has to play on the big sites (etc stars, tilt, party)

The more regs who go broke the better.

If you want higher rakeback (lower rake). Move up to where they respect your raises and put in the time.

Forbidding transfers would kill alot of regs. Do it stars

I love how a thread which was meant to be about creating a 'sustainable poker ecology' has degenerated into lots of dismal 'rakeback pros' complaining that rake on them is too high. However, this thread has generated some interesting thoughts as to how a better ecology might be created- it's just that most of them have been woefully misapplied. However, what I think would create a better ecology is the following:

1) No rake changes at NL50 or higher. This isn't a part of the poker economy which is crucial to creating a sustainable ecology. There are likely few fish starting out at these levels; most players have risen up from playing NL10/ NL25 etc. It's also a level which is likely to have a significant proportion of winners withdrawing, which is bad for the poker ecology. So don't stimulate it any more than it already is.

2) Cut rake at NL2-NL10 (and maybe NL25: you'd have to do some maths to work that out). This is where fish come in and transmit money to mediocre regs, who feed it to better regs at higher stakes. Need to keep the transmission mechanism running.

3) Impose a 10-25% net withdrawal charge. This would be paid on any withdrawals over the total deposits which a player has made. So only winners would pay this, and funds raised could be used to cover stuff you do under (2) or (6).

4) Impose a table charge, payable monthly, for players who wished to simultaneously play more than 6-8 tables (you'd need to model the effects to get the number precisely). So, there would no longer be a specific table cap. The first 8 tables would be 'free'. But if you wanted the ability to play 9 tables, you would need to pay a fee- say $5 per month. If you wanted to play 12 tables, it would be $5x4=$20 per month. That way, you could raise significant additional funds from grinders, with a 24 tabler paying $80 per month extra. Effectively, you're charging for the 'overfishing' externality which mass multi-tablers cause.

(5) Cap rakeback, and use the money saved to pay for more promos in line with (6). Rakeback should max out at something like the rake paid by playing 250k hands of NL25 per year. That will mean that the serious recreational player could hit the max level, and give nothing extra to mass grinders. The Edge programme has got this right.

(6) Spend more on promos which are targeted at recreational players, and less at stuff which mainly benefits grinders. So Battle of the Planets would vanish, and you'd have more stuff like 'the added bonus' which was on FTP1, providing small benefits to lots of players, or the 'one a day' ironman promo, encouraging players to play regular small amounts of poker. You need to keep the recs interested, and one way to do that is to give them back small amounts in exchange for regular play. Freerolls are also great for this. Another thought is reload bonuses which are only available for people who've never withdrawn and have never paid the multi-table fee. That should make them very heavily targeted on losing players and recs.

(7) Bar new players from sitting at tables above NL50. Call them something like 'elite' tables, and have it that a new player has to have logged 50k hands to play at NL100, 100k hands to play at NL200, etc. This would stop recs blowing their entire roll on a couple of hours of being destroyed by competent pros after failing to realise that NL200 online is not the same as going to the local live cardroom. Make them lose money more slowly, and they might just redeposit.

If you do all of the above, you'll likely get a more sustainable poker ecology, with more recreational players and a lower proportion of mass-tabling grinders. Game quality will improve. However, it would also cause a storm of protest from regs, and I'd expect 2+2 to be ablaze with talks of sit-outs. Doesn't mean that it wouldn't create a much better poker ecology, though. And all this could be done while being revenue neutral for the site.

DC

Pokerstars is trying to get a USA license in the next few years so this could never happen.

Pay for time makes the most sense to me.

Insightful and workable ideas in this post, great job. Just a few questions...

Is the goal to curb mass grinding, or charge them more to boost promotions that encourage recreational players?

Could capping rb + extra charges discourage mass grinding and thus cause a big drop in profits for the sites? How would you reassure sites the improvement to games is more profitable for them in the long run?

Does putting restrictions on multitabling and beginner limits not ecourage players to move to other sites or use them simultaneously?

so lets tell every new player what hes supposed to play in order to keep him safe and loose money less fast.. restrict tournament buy ins to 10$ sit and gos to 5$ and cash game to 25 NL until they played 200 tournaments, 500 sit and gos and/or 100k hands. Then they are allowed to play the stakes that they want to play.

i mean this idea is the worst i have ever read. This will not at ALL make new players want to play if u tell them what to do, and it will encourage more mass multitabling.

Not a fan of that at all.

How many chinese businessman are going to want to rack up a crapload of hands at micros before they can play decent stakes.

Or even the random donks who deposit $1000 a month to lose at nl100 or 200. These guys are helping to keep the poker economy afloat, providing barriers to them will accelerate the demise of anything above nl50.

But if you limit the number of tables the grinders can play, then there are considerably fewer tables running overall. There's really no incentive for a site to do this. Also, if a grinder can spread out his action over multiple sites, I think it just ends up being the same as long as fish don't exhibit a herding effect to one or two sites.

This has happened - see WPEX (and I think another). They go broke because they have no new players coming in.

Mass-tabling is an important part of this discussion. Allowing even marginal net withdrawers (winners) play more and more tables is a brilliant short term way of maximising pokersite profits but the longer you view the timeframe the further from optimal this strategy becomes. I know there are endless debates about how the poker ecosystem works, who really pays rake etc. but think of it this way: if you are a player who is a net withdrawer over your career how is the site making money off you? How can you be making money and the site be making money? Where is this extra money magically appearing from?

The sites profits effectively come from the pockets of the net depositors (losers). The fundamental reality of the poker ecosystem is a competition between winning players and the pokersites for the money the losing players are willing to put into the system. Unfortunately at the moment the sites (Stars in particular) are so focused on trying to make sure they maximise their share of this pie that they are doing it to the detriment of the size of the pie. In the long run Stars should be figuring how to make the pie bigger, how do we get the net depositors to deposit more? Its seems obvious that lower rake and cutting down on mass-tabling would be near the top of the list of things that would have a huge impact on the experience of the average net depositor and lead to more deposits in the long run.

This whole issue is not too different from government taxation policies. If you want to maximise government revenue for a year (or maybe two) you hike up taxes. The problem is this will also stunt growth and can even trigger a recession. In the medium - long term you just shafted yourself. Stars are literally squeezing the life out of their own golden goose with their rake and mass-tabling policies. You get away with a lot of things during the golden era of unsustainable growth that is often the feature of a burgeoning industry. That time has passed and from now on the decisions by the poker policy-makers really matter.

I like quite a lot of your post but am just going to single out the bits I don't:

I doubt that players are withdrawing more at NL50 than at other stakes, until you reach the highest games.

This doesn't work because it seriously annoys new players. New players can win too, particularly in tournaments.

Wouldn't it then be even better to just cap tables at 8? or 6? Taxing an externality is all very good, but it's within the power of "the regulator" to restrict it much more severely than that.

I'm fairly sure that freerolls don't work. They barely change the conversion rate, the players they do convert are normally not worth anything, and there are people who come in and only play freerolls. Then you get a few players who WOULD play real games but instead play freerolls.

I think you can do this with more finely tuned self-exclusion. This is also impractical for sites with a sportsbook.