+1

Yep. But not this one.

I think this might be the dumbest idea i have ever read.

they wouldnt be east to beat because they wouldn't exist

A site without rake would basically be a 2+2 developed site with only solid regs playing it considering there would be zero money for advertising & if that's the case then rake would be the least of your problems.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record.....online players should stop being so myopic about rake. Reducing rake isn't the main issue. Mass multitabling regs are.

Would you rather 24-table paying minimal rake making $5/hr or single table a higher raked game and make $10/hr?

obviously. i meant hypothetically.

Yes people are mass multi tabling at 2nl to make a living..

stfu plz

You know your idea does exist in Party Poker's casual cash games? Removing everything that makes online better than live poker from all online poker is just ridiculous.

who said anything about making a living?

you can't have it both ways.

So the things that make online poker better than live poker are what?....ability to multi-table? easy access to games 24/7 etc etc.

The things that everyone whinges about with online poker are what? .......rake....and that's essentially it. And the reason rake is such an issue is because the games are so dreadful online and so rake sensitive

The things that you're probably implying are better about online poker are the very things that are destroying it.....and I bet I've played a hell of a lot more of it than you have.

Games aren't as bad online as people make them out to be. The problem is that a lot of people profited for a long time and expected to be able to continue to profit at earn-a-living levels without getting better or being very good at poker in the first place. Online poker is a form of recreation, and improvements shouldn't be directed towards making it more profitable for mediocre regs.

I don't disagree with that

Funny how I was talking about removing ONLY 2NL and everyone starts talking about how fishes can't afford to lose 10 BI at 200NL.

Removing ONLY 2NL would have abolotuly no effect on the income of players. there are plenty of sites that start at 4NL/5NL

People who are playing 2NL aren't playing it because it's all they can afford, they're playing it because it's the lowest stake available.

I think it'd be reasonable if at every many years a site got rid of the lowest stakes.

Just eliminate heavy multitabling. If someone then wants to waste his time in nanos, that is his problem. The fact just is that micros have been more or less ruined, that should be what the low limits should look like, or the medium limits. People these days think small money being bigger than it is, and micro money ten years ago was nothing, and i mean that, it wasnt even considered money, but today people think it is like low limit money and that fiction should be dropped.

Just because most players are in the nanos it doesen't follow that the reason for this is that they can't afford to play higher. I think that a more probable reason is that they understand that they are not so good at poker yet so they prefer to play in the softest games. If the sites removed the nano limits, the softest games would now be in the micros.

Or they're not from a well-off country, and that or other factors mean their income isn't the same to dispose of as the millions of fish you undoubtedly mistakenly envisage.

itt: people who understand variance so well, that they know that 20-tabling nl2 is the same as 1-tabling nl200. Oh, wait, they must be live players.

It's happened more than once. They have no money so can't do marketing so there're no new players so there're no games.

Obviously the softest games will always be on the "cheapest" tables. But there is virtually no incentive for a site to unilaterally remove the lowest stake level.
If Stars was running 200 2NL tables and then got rid of them overnight, there wouldn't suddenly be 200 extra 5NL tables running. Believe it or not, there are plenty of bankroll nits at nano-stakes that only move up if they have 30+ buyins.
Mass tabling is a clear problem, but Stars isn't going to do anything to get rid of that either... because it makes them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also itt:

People who don't realise 50,000 hand downswings (let alone 5000 hand downswings) don't exist in a soft, juicy playing environment like they do online.

Oh wait, that won't ever happen online because players are so focussed on mass multitabling playing 10/9 and focussing on volume to overcome variance.

I dont agree with this. I think there would be many of those players who now move up to 5nl because they still want to play and dont have a choice other than to play 5nl. You think people at 2nl are seriously pinching pennies? I'm sure there's some grinders who have deposited a small amount and are trying to learn and play with bankroll mngt, but doubtful that's the majority at these stakes.

Seriously, it's all speculation. I still speculate that if you remove all stakes below 25nl the games will be better off. More weak players at 25nl. More weak players who run hot at 25nl that move up to the higher stakes.

And fish dont often care about bankroll management like 2p2 regs do. Most just say well i have enough money on here to play [insert stake] so i'll buy in short to spread it out a bit. That and/or they lose a buy in or two at [insert stake] and start moving up to chase their losses.

I know because i once was one of these fish 10 years ago. They know no better.

The easiest solution is to limit the number of tables one can sit at the lowest stakes - for example, if you are playing 2NL or 5NL, you can't be on more than 4 tables total (maybe even 2 tables max).

- beginners and recreational players can play the same games they did before
- rec/nit seat ratio reduced
- forces mass tablers to move up if they want to make money
- site doesn't need to adjust rake structure (would be nice though)

I'd prefer to have all stakes with 4 or 6 tables max, but obviously a lot of sites won't do that. At least at micro stakes, beginners would have a place to play away from the annoyances of mass tablers. Limiting tables accomplishes that without making any drastic changes like eliminating games.

^ The problem is that people could multi-site instead, which of course the sites don't want.

How about reducing the time available to make decisions (with exception of beginners with VIP status of bronzestar or chromestar) to create a defacto table cap. If you can't ever click the "fold when it gets to me" button because you are always looking at other tables then you will always be short of time.

^^It should be noted that Stars already does automatically reduce table caps for people who regularly take a very long time to make a decision.

If they don't care about BRM, why do thousands of people play 2NL every day?
Why don't they all move up to 50NL after losing a few buyins?
There no doubt are some/many "fish" who chase their losses, but I repeat: if these guys want to play higher stakes, they can do it already! Taking away something that's cheap does not create demand for something that costs more.

This whole argument is akin to saying "Sports betting sites should raise the minimum wager". Why would sites do something that loses customers?