I assure you it makes perfect sense

What part of my post do you disagree with?

Simple and great points that sites seem to slack on or ignore.

1. Entertainment is key, players don't mind losing money if they are getting entertained. I think more random bonuses should be giving at the tables during play time to give more of an 'anyone can win,anytime' feel. Also Fulltilts cartoon graphics and Party's scrathcard promos are great examples that every site should be implementing.

2. Sites should provide these to level the field for everyone, along with also offering HUD free tables that are strictly monitored.

3. 888 used to always plop $20 in my account after I had done my wage packet in the week, and here I am still playing 8 years later

as much as i hate nits, there should be no punishment for playing too tight, there is no rule in poker that states "players should play loose or gtfo". Fail to adjust - gtfo from the table yourself.

How is it a punishment to tight players? It is just giving an additional incentive/bonus to players that contribute to the appeal of a site.

"Fail to adjust - gtfo from the table yourself."

Don't worry, they are adjusting by taking their business elsewhere... just don't complain when your tables are completely full of regs.

It beggers belief how short-sited these dumbass sites are, and this just proves sites are willing to drive online poker right into the dirt before considering lowering rake.

Do we need a friggin union or something?

It's very simple. The higher amount of hands you play, the less rake you pay. Bonuses can still be offered as well as rakeback.

Example
First 5k hands - You pay 5% rake
5k-10k hands - 4% rake
10k-15k hands - 3%
15-20k hands - 2%
etc.

Obviously this structure would have to be approved by the network so it might be hard to push through.
PS/FTP make so much money already that I don't think they would even bother with it, but it could be interesting for a bunch of the independent networks.

but they should not be able to play below the GTO VPIP and make a profit and if they can, the game is not sustainable. the standard bonus and rake structure makes it profitable to play at a VPIP that is suboptimal and it sucks money from the casual player

lol, almost all sites are using contributed rake division systems, so they are doing exactly what you're talking about (giving more rakeback to players with higher vpip), and yet you dont even realise it, i bet it would be pretty much the same with most changes suggested - recreational players wouldnt even notice them.

thanks, that's a big help and no I didn't notice because I don't have the luxury of playing online anymore

and I think we've agreed that fish don't notice the rake, they notice their wallets getting short and the time they get to play brief

Most sites where using contributed system for a long time now, i think that last big site to change to that system was poker stars around 1,5 year ago (?) and ipoker network around that time, ftp had it for years. Yes, all that fishes notice are their wallets getting shorter, but itt we are arguing that changing that by taking money away from regs is not the way to fix it.

A player's union? Actually not a bad idea. I'm sure there are plenty who will ROFL and spout off the usual claims about how regular players contribute nothing etc, but I think it could be effective.

thread should be renamed to rake pricing for a sustainable poker income for me

There shouldn't be an extra reward for it either. They offer 0 entertainment for the casual players and suck money off the site. Giving them a higher percentage of rakeback than donators is absurd. Even the way rake is collected needs to be switched to time. There is no logical reason that the players who the games are built around and actually contribute money to the sites should be paying more rake per hour than nits- but they do right now since they win more hands.

pot kettle
you and guys like you were the ones who pushed for huds and all kinds of other software as well as mass multitabling which is completely short sighted and greedy. And the ridiculous thing is you really think the rake is the biggest reason the games suck when it's actually way lower than it used to be per hand.mass multiabling is by far the biggest reason the games suck and fish don't want to play any more.no **** when you play ten times more hands than you used you per month you pay a lot more rake per month.

but gl with your union lmao

Great points, how about making a thread about them instead of derailing this one, again, and again.

Obviously I was exaggerating with a 'union' idea, but on the other hand union's are for a group of stakeholders with a shared interest who have low power individually, why is it so far fetched with poker players?

With other points aside Borg, dont you think that as edges shrink in a naturally maturing/evolving game, rake needs to be lowered at the same rate to keep the games beatable, and thus sustainable?

This makes no sense at all from an sustainability perspective.

This would be awesome for regs but bad for casual players. Its really bad from an sustainability perspective if you rake the fish to death but let the sharks get away for free basically.

no!

but good observation. folks need to focus what the thread is really about.

Im not derailing the thread you absolutely refuse to look at the real problems that make the game unsustainable. Rake per hand is actually significantly lower than it was a few years ago.Everything I said is completely on topic because your main premise is wrong.

A union won't work for several reasons. To start with for the most part poker players are self serving and can only think of the short term. The reality is everyone would have been better off in the long run if they just left things the way they were- ie playing 2-3 tables, keeping the games fun for the fish etc but instead thinking short term and only of themselves people figured i make x playing 3 tables I'll make 5 times that if I could play 15-20 (which would actually be true if you were the only one who could do it. )Or they think crap like table ninja and all these scripting softwares are the greatest things in the world when once again the truth is that stuff is really only great if you're the only one using it.When the hell in online pokers history have the vast majority of winning players thought of anyone but themselves? It's not gonna change now.

Good unions are well organzied and make short term sacrifices for long term gains.Thats never going to happen with poker players. I mean sure they'll be some people who refuse to play but it will never be enough to make a real dent on the site. People complain now about paying all this rake but they're still in many cases making their living from online poker. As many people showed after black Friday most poker players arent exactly saving their money.Most young kids who come into a lot of money are terrible at saving it. They just assume it will last forever. I know so many people who made a ton of money when a monkey could have made 150k a year playing 20 hours of poker a week who saved nothing. Apparently they thought the gravy train would never end and buying fancy depreciating shiny **** was more important.How many poker players can really all the sudden go with 0 income for a while? And even if it started working the games would be a lot better because all the pros werent playing that lots of people would break the "picket line" to play in the super juicy games. I mean you have tons of players who refuse to play against anyone who can count to six, these people won't be sitting out when lots of good players are.And the majority of the players who can afford to go without income for a while are the really good players, which something like this would benefit the least.They're gonna be at the top of the food chain no matter what.

Another thing about unions- they work a lot better when there is social and societal pressure not to break the picket line. It's a lot more intimidating breaking a picket line in person when you're getting yelled at and cursed at and knowing if the strike is over and you continue to work there all of your coworkers will hate and harass you.There are no such negative consequences with breaking a picket line with online poker.

The sites will still have tons of people playing if there is a "strike" and be printing money hand over fist. A good strike in the real world creates work stoppages and companies are no making 0 (and actually losing money because of fixed costs) This is another advantages to unions you won't have.It's a lot easier to wait out a union when you're still making a lot money and you know that you have them by the balls.

And to the people saying take 1 % or whatever rake in pots after a certain amount of hands- sites are getting away from catering to mass multitablers because that is a bad long term business strategy. You need an influx of new money coming in every month so to give incentives to those taking money off the site does nothing to help the sites profitability.

The players who leave the sites that play purely for the money are the ones who over time will break even or lose money. But realistically nobody is going to leave who still makes decent money because they think they pay too much rake and the sites know this. I mean there arent too many ways to make good money sitting on your ass at home.

I'm actually baffled over how many stupid things sites have done over the last few years that caters to little to no revenue generating players that just suck money out of the poker economy and hurt the site's bottom line.The sites seem to be realizing this and reversing course.

Poker's skill element and long term beatability are at the forefront of what created the boom/growth by attracting the interest of not only gamblers, but a much larger market of gamers, intellects etc.
Multiple tables, HUD's, Coaching etc are all edges, edges that have been keeping the game alive and growing. Just food for thought Borg but poker might not have reached this size without embracing these aspects of the game.

Suppose HUDs and multiables disappeared tomorrow, there is still a massive system flaw when a random sample of 100 players of average skill are ALL losing players after 60k hands as shown in the OP graphs. And yet such a small change in rake yields such massive differences in the ratio of players in profit over this sample. Sure they'll lose it all back next year but the fact is THEY'LL BE THERE NEXT YEAR!

Who knows how much the industry has been stunted because 0/100 players, who read a few poker books and post on forums, ended the year in profit.

Now sites are attacking the 2 core growth attributes of the game, skill and beatability, in an attempt to retain the lazy gambler segment of their player base, instead of dealing with the real problem that's dooming the game.

Very thoughtful post, you changed my mind on that.

[ ] Game growing because of huds, coaching etc.
[x] Multitable nits growing.

Could someone please clarify the calculations people are doing to get the value for the bb/100?

I agree with this. And with the large amount of money they make and the few winning players that exist, say less than 10 percent, can you imagine what the percentage the cashout tax would be?? 30 or 40 I would imagine. Sounds pretty hefty for the winning players to pay ALL the rake. I agree with your reasoning and think anything to keep fish depositing is good tho. Also what about P2P transfers as a way to pay no rake?

Poker was far more popular when the game wasn't populated by mass multitabling nits and the tables were actually fun for amateurs to play.
Of course the games popularity has fallen off- the game is more boring and a lot harder to beat than it used to be.

You really aren't capable of looking at poker through anyone else's eyes but your own. This is obviously the direction things were going to go in but for some reason a few years ago people thought" hey lets all play 20 tables there is a never ending stream of fish to fleece" which clearly isn't the case.

Lol at huds and multitabling being good for the growth of the game.Sorry but tight boring slow games where where fish get slaughtered arent good for the growth of the game. Fun gamble filled games with 6 way flops are.

I'm just saying 'maybe' these things helped grow the game online, In 2006 I remember player numbers between 20k-40k on the big sites, 5k on smaller sites, now its pushing 300k at peaks.

The point of this thread is the games have got to get pretty damn fun if players are going to spend many hours mastering the game only to find out 0.1% are winning over a smallish sample. THAT is unsustainable.

If most of the newbie fish leave the game, which is inevitable, the bad players putting in hours of study to still be losers in the game NEED to win for good samples before donking it back and some, then rinse and repeat. These player types will need to be retained for the future of online poker to survive in its mature state, but as it stands, 0/100 OF AVERAGE-SKILLED PLAYERS ARE LOSING OVER 60k hands.