You are thinking to shortsighted.

If the player pool got rid of the biggest winning players the next x% would become winners, yes.

Their skill advantage over the worse players wouldn't improve though, so they would still have to rake as much money while grinding out their low win rate. The difference is that the bigger winners wouldn't take a big chunk of money out of the system and that money would be available to be paid as rake. It wouldn't go as fast, but bigger % of the deposits would end up as rake.

The site earns nothing if a winning player grinds out a ton of hands while taking money out of the system because, well, he's taking money out of the system.

If I use the terminology actual rake, by which I mean the rake minus rakeback and other things kicked back to the players, which is the sites' revenue.

In the medium and long term

actual rake = deposits - withdrawals.

so clearly the losers are more important.

Doofus is clearly trolling, but I think he is winning his troll, because he is getting his opponents to adopt more and more extreme positions themselves.

The existence of winning players is part of the marketing of poker so they are important too. The sites may choose to optimise how much they are winning (we haven't been seeing enough some 2m2mm stuff lately so this is too low) and also the profile of the winners (they may decide that bumhunters aren't what they think new players will aspire to).

This is just a story. That you made up. I made bold the part of your story I find the most fantastical. You're just ignoring that winning players win at different rates. So, if like you said, the site in la la land kicked off it's top 50 players, 50 new players would definitely replace them as the top winners on the site. However, since these players weren't able to win as much when the original top 50 were around, it's likely that they will win less as the tops dogs than the original 50 did, leaving more dollars around for the site to take.

Could you perhaps write a bit more descriptively? Use more adjectives, a few literary devices:


Fiction is a bit tedious without those types of things.

Winning regs are only important up to a point in that they create enough consistent traffic to attract players. Think of a live poker room as a microcosm for an online site - the regs are needed to get tables started but it's the rec players that are attracted to a busy room that keep it going in the long run. A room of all regs with no new money will eventually eat itself to death.

To take your 1,000 player example, let's assume that the site has the choose of removing either the 50 biggest winners or 50 biggest losers.
If they remove the 50 biggest winners the games will be softer for the remaining players and it's highly probable that this soft reputation will attract new players and in time replace the 50 who were removed.
If they remove the 50 biggest losers then the opposite happens - no new players want to join such tough games, the remaining losing players start losing quicker and quit and the traffic will inevitably die.

No-one in the history of poker has ever said "I want to play in the room/site with the highest % of winning regs".

I think you are correct about my made up story, it is worse for the site if they remove 50 players from the middle of the spectrum, (say the breakeven players instead of the winners). If they can get rid of only the best players like I initially suggested, then the site gains.

However, any 'fair' change that a site makes, is more likely to squeeze out breakeven players before it squeezes out the top winners, (since the winners have more wriggle room before they become unprofitable), so in practice any changes the site makes is likely to hurt them if it leaves just strong winners and all the fish.

I completely agree with OP. LOL at thinking of table selecting as a skill that must be preserved.

Why are people still feeding the troll?

Guys did the segregation system work and when will pokerstars implement this??

Doofus should start a site that comes packages with a HUD, seating script, and real time session updates on an easily google-able site

What about if the functionality of HUDs and seating scripts was simply implemented in the client so everyone could use it?

Or would it cease to be a game of skill if nobody had a software edge?

The HUD is not really an issue that should be associated with table selecting. You can use a HUD on Zoom tables and anonymous tables.

If poker sites make their players all anonymous than this helps to eliminate all the aggressive 'table selecting' of scripting. There is nothing wrong of switching tables if you see a softer table.

The future for poker is to make sure that games are anonymous. This was a post by the head of Microgaming about anonymous vs normal tables; http://www.thempn.eu/blog/world-without-huds/

You can use HUD's on microgaming (also Bovada)anonymous contrary to the article. It states that pots are bigger and win rates are higher for regulars who play anonymous tables compared to normal tables therefore the tables are softer.

In the end anonymous tables is still playing poker at the end of the day just slightly different, if it produces softer games and protects the fish more due to not having aggressive scripters than surely it's worth it. If you are able to use a HUD it won't take that long to identify that type of each player at the table. The point of anonymous tables is that you create an ecology where there is more recreational players which will increase win rates unlike if you didn't table select on a normal site where you would have a lower win rate.

At no point does the article claim anonymous tables protect the fish more than regular tables. I am pulling this right out of the article you posted:

It will also make playing a lot of tables difficult (at least if you still want to table-select when doing it). This is good because the less tables regulars play the more deposited money end up in their pocket.

Bad regs trying to steal money from good regs ITT.

Ano tables - people play less tables, less rake for stars

No huds - people play less tables, less rake for stars

Both unlikely

[spoiler]kind rgds from teh TimStone[/spoiler]

Tim gets how the poker economy works imo.

I dont think we are much away to see ps ban scripts, making hu sngs like spins and get rid of non zoom games on lower stakes.