i don't think poker will get any harder.... it's reached equilibrium and i think it gets slightly easier if anything..... only counter-argument is that today's 30 year olds won't grow into today's 60 year old fish.. but that's pretty small effect and a ton of old guys play tighter (learned behaviour or necessity)

i will say online poker is alot more difficult than most people think. win rates are illusionary and rake is massive relative to those questionable win rates

I think that I'm explaining it simply and directly.

I've had people give such a complaint all my life. But whenever someone really sits down to listen and understand what I am saying, they seem to always admit that what I was saying was completely direct and proper.

The way this 'game' works in relation to poker sites, is we give our money, in exchange for chips. We put money in, a bunch of things happen, and we are given our money multiplied by an exchange rate.

The rake and the variance, fool players into believe that there is a commodity other than the exchange rate.

I explained what the exchange rate is earlier, but its not as important or crucial as understanding that the whole process renders the poker site no different than a bank.

The concept is simple and agreeable I think, its the application and (therefore) the ramifications that you might not see, thus making it seem arbitrary.

But there is no use continuing if we don't agree that the whole process is identical to banking.

You're very, very wrong, and that probably helps to explain your next statement.

When you constantly have trouble getting people to understand you, have you ever considered changing your approach?

A poker site isn't even remotely close to a bank.

Excellent, then let's move on.

dude what are you talking about, mtts are like the softest games online atm.

newguy,

Please explain your concept with more words. It doesn't even have to be simpler because there should probably be a few people that can figure out wtf you're talking about.

The commodity that winning players are receiving is the ability to play with losing players. The losing players are receiving the ability to play with other people, with some having the illusion that they are better than they are and some receiving entertainment.

Good players profit the difference in skill edge minus the rake. Bad players lose their money and gained some entertainment or perhaps are still lying to themselves.

...........

^
Cool story, except when earth is about to be destroyed by a meteor and all the rich, smart people get on their space ships while the dumb, poor people get blown up. Evolution is not obvious over a 50 year time period.

I think we get an exchange rate for chips, or that our chips hold a certain buying power but the varying rate is not winning and losing at poker. The varying rate is real and it is a function that includes the rake % AND the difficultly level of the field.

There is more to discuss about exactly what is included in a proper index, but you can't compare sites until we have that. That means you can't compare 'rake' today to 'rake' yesterday without properly accounting for the fields. It seems to me if we did it would be obvious rake is super high right now.

And if we could compare the stars chip power to party's I think it would obvious that stars rake is higher. But since we don't have solid mathematical evidence its hard to protest.

All this has different contexts whether in a natural or manipulated environment.

From what you are saying it means money has more buying power on some sites than others; i.e. some sites are softer than others. That is a not a new concept; pre 2006 everyone played on different sites and networks because they evaluated their "buying power". Now that sites are more limited and for security reasons, people are willing to pay a higher rake.

Back then, sites just had to open a site and make their money back very quickly. A zillion players and regulations seemed to be much looser. It is much harder now. It makes sense that the real effective rake by your definition should be increased.

What am I missing?

Please for the love of god, everyone ignore newguy. He does this routine in every thread. All he is essentially saying is that he feels the poker sites are ripping us off now more than before because the games have gotten tougher but they haven't lowered their rake to compensate for it. For some reason he's too incompetent to word is as simply as that and insists on repeating the same jargon about exchange rates and rake indexes over and over until you want to punch him in the face. He doesn't want anything to actually progress, he just likes to take a concept everyone here already understands, complicate it unnecessarily, and pretend he's trying to revolutionize the way we think about the poker market. It's sad really.

He thinks we're missing that rake also needs to be factored in to the equation, and I assume he's thinking in terms of BB/100 rather than %, because the % has remained pretty stable while the BB/100 has gone up as games get tougher - smaller edges means more churn, means more rake. At least that's how he should be thinking. And of course one should really also include things like software, site security, and anything else that could affect your profitability on a site. But I think those are side issues for him, because this is really what he's been all about:

Very, very well encapsulated; I don't think I could say it any better than that.

He already linked us to the last thread we went around in circles with him on this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...poker-1353102/

At this point, all he's doing is derailing the thread, and I guess we're helping by indulging him.

Correct me when wrong Please. Microstakes players pay 10/20bb per 100 hands in rake, so playing 6max needs more than 100bb/100hands fresh money to keep That table running? Looks unsustainable indeed.

this is wrong but ok

What is the comparison in rake online vs live? Usually 1/2 live is 4$ max and 2/5 is 5$ every 30 minutes. Obviously online has lower overhead and more hands dealt per hour, I would think a comparable game would take much less per hand online then live

Pretty much articulates what I was thinking

uhhhh yeah, this would come close to doubling the fish pool.

care to elaborate why?

You are missing that players have never been privy to the information needed to make such decisions in an accurate form. Playing have never known there true buying power because variance hides it.

Sites are more limited? Why? ....

because a bunch of regulations get slammed into place, the games get ridiculously harder because of an essential monopoly that was put in place by the doj etc., and I'm the idiot for complaining that the cost of exchange is way too high just because the rake % stays the same?

It doesn't make sense that the 'real effective rake' should be increased. You are just asking to be taxed harder for no reason at all.

Everyone calling me an idiot, look at the world you live in, not your house, your car, your job, your life....look at the ACTUAL world.

Yes you've been taught to defend your own slavery, but try to think outside of it.

The game is way tougher because of things the poker sites and governments have done to players to rake them harder. Its time to take back the money we are owed and demand the information that is needed to calculate the true rake, and to use it bring rake% down.

And its isn't a thread derail, it is directly tied to how hard the game is, suggesting its a derail shows you don't understand the economy of the game.

What gives players the right to be privy to anything? You are just a customer. A site has no obligation to compare their prices to other sites prices or to share anything about the business with you. You pay to play. You are owed nothing.

As for us being slaves, yes that's true, but we are willing slaves. Being boss-man is a full time job for life, and a huge PITA.

Costs and prices do go up for numerous reasons. Poker becomes more difficult when that happens. The person who originally claimed this game can never get harder is either a fool or is leveling his students.

No but what if we find out pokerstars is charging 10 times more than it should for rake% and that for no other reason other than monopoly they charge way too much. We can't even know this until we look at it correctly. All players here tell me I'm being redundant, yet none of you have done the math, yet you are commenting.

The sad truth is
you'd rather follow the school into the net
'cause swimming alone at sea
is not the kind of freedom that you actually want.


Those costs and prices are being manipulated to maximally profit, not to keep the game at a maximally efficient rate. It is well within the players rights to combat that, and to effect it, but every poker player seems to think that their 'chips' don't work that way.

We have a right to vote with our chips, but through ignorance mostly, we are not privy to the information needed to inform ourselves on the proper vote. Nor are we allowed to vote for all the candidates.

So does that mean we should allow the prices to be fixed naturally, or we should demand the leading sites have a rake that ACTUALLY reflects the state of the game. And why in the world would you defend the former.

um... You seem to disapprove of capitalism at it's finest.

Its not real capitalism, and I'm not an idiot for pointing that out. A rake index shows us what the REAL chip market should look like.

Can no one seriously see why that would be useful?

Can someone ban this ****tard?

The problem with newguy1234 is that he is a terrible writer who passes off all criticism as a lack of comprehension by the critic. Even if he has a novel point to make, we will never know because it is outside the scope of his ability to convey one intelligibly.

Are you suggesting that 'ban this ******' is an intelligent response from this person:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...-spew-1373568/

because I am suggesting we are bred to emotionally freak out when confronted with such obvious truth.

I also think we could do better if micro 4nl player weren't allowed to contribute to the conversation.

Lets not use the democratic system here where the stupid people get a vote. Because unbeknown to them they will just sway our decisions towards stupidity.