Regarding Unibet that is really neat and I was not aware of how anti hud they really are. That is very refreshing to read/hear I truly wish that other sites were to follow this model. The traffic there is still fairly small though, correct? If a player focuses on sngs/mtts is it worth playing there? I regret my comment and do seem I am very uninformed about the network.

Regarding pokerstars"s marketing campaign I do admit that is fairly impressive. No I do not think 888 can compete with it and it is a real shame how little they seem to care about promoting their poker games. I mean they can't even spend money on fixing their servers. I personally think it is pretty awful how limited of a choice poker players have to play online poker.

I don't follow the MTT scene closely, but I think MTT traffic/variety might be one of Unibet's admitted weaknesses. It's obviously quite hard to offer "massive prize pools" if you're still quite a small site. I believe they are trying to improve the situation, and the support team is always open to suggestions in the official support thread in the Internet Poker forum. UnibetAndrew certainly seems more 'hands on' than other industry reps on 2+2, and I'm sure he'd welcome questions about what's on offer to MTT grinders if you ask in his thread.

in response to the myriad of threads all with similar underlying themes of what is wrong with online poker, what should be fixed, what will cause next "boom", etc etc I've seen a common fundamental flaw.

Most all of the posts / ideas / suggestions etc are written through the lens and from the perspective of non-rec player, which is the type of player that mostly populates these boards.

It seems that many in this forum believe that the sites look at world through the eyes of full time or part time grinders. Those days are gone. Rec players are the new Supernovas. Maybe a bit hyperbole, but I don't believe sites really care much at all about anything that anyone that frequents 2+2 (i.e. non-rec player) says or thinks. That's simply not the market that most of them seem to care about.

Look at the world through the same lens the sites do, focusing on the markets they seem to care about and the conversation makes more sense. Talking about the online poker market in terms of what non-rec players need/want/think is fruitless because that world just doesn't exist anymore.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that and you aren't really providing an innovate approach that nobody has thought of. Like I have said earlier itt there are definitely things that co exist of the needs and wants of recreational players and regular winning/breakeven regs.

I didn't start this thread because I think myself or any other poster will come up with innovatve ideas to create the next poker boom, this is not that thread. It is to simply discuss what effect competition in online poker has today on the overall industry. Pokerstars seems to control the fate of online poker in this current environment and I think that is very unsettling to a lot of players ( yes recreational s don't care).

I played on a micro gaming site today, I have never been a fan of their software but I really liked the new look. Well at least i is new to me

The fields for the mtts were less than 100 man though. But with some guarantees it created a nice overlay.

Yeah its a real shame for sng and mtt players stars and 888 is really the only options. Excluding sundays and the odd mtt here and there there really is no point into playing on other networks. However even cash games now a days are pretty withered on sites like ipoker and micro gaming and probably have a lot more bots/unfair play than others.

It seems bovada is a fairly big network now a days. I personally do not like the anonymous aspect of poker though so I have 0 aspect of playing there. I would imagine there is a lot of collusion on that network, maybe not though?

You are wrong here. Why do you think iPoker/Party and a bunch of other sites have removed the highest stakes? Because people depositing thousands of $ and instantly losing it, is not a good thing for the company. Skrill offer me 0.5% for my deposits. They get this from the pokersites. Poker sites do not want people with very high or very low winrates, they want people to break even. They want rake. They don't want losers. Why do you think FTP/PS offer(s/ed) different free training videos? Not only to pique the interest of new players but to help them improve.

A poker site would make the most money if everyone deposited and no one withdrew, you can't have that happen if people win or lose quickly.

Have a look at pokerscout and you'll see that stars is far ahead of everyone else and there are a bunch of sites that in some way can be named #2. The reason you named 888 as the top competitor is because you happen to play there. This just invalidates your whole standpoint.

Thread should be named; What George thinks about 888.

Pokerscout only covers cash games. Obviously stars is way ahead of everyone I think it's fair to say 888 covers bovada and ipoker by a pretty large margin.

Well, I revealed my source so it would be fair of you to reveal yours.