Best solid rant in a while +1

It varies from site to site, but when I've seen figures for this kind of thing most formats of the game (see note below) have something like 25-30% of players making money, even before rakeback/rewards. At the very lowest stakes, it might be as much as 33% of players that are profitable. You can confirm this with your tracking program, by looking at "opponent summaries" to see how many have green numbers for winnings.
It should be pointed out that as the games have got tougher, there has been a lot of "bunching" around the breakeven point, creating the phenomenon of the "breakeven rakeback grinder". Very few people crush the game hard enough to be able to move up stakes quickly, partly because there aren't enough donators around any more. (Mass-tabling grinders have hunted the whales to near extinction).

In some formats (e.g. shortstack push/fold games, PLO zoom, FLH, possibly O8, and presumably Spin and Gos), the number of winners is considerably less than 30% of players. Some games are virtually unbeatable, and the main reason is quite simple: The rake is too high.

If Amaya/Pokerstars was serious about improving the health of the game, it would do an analysis of every game format in order to check what proportion of players can beat the rake, and then actively "interfere" with game conditions, such that the liquidity could be sustainable and games remained popular. The most obvious/simple "interference" they could undertake would be a reduction of rake in games that are suffering.

I would argue that if less than 30% of players are making money, there are too many "unhappy" players for the game to be sustainable. These unhappy players will eventually quit the game. If the number of winners is much less than 30%, then the unhappy players will quit very quickly.

If sites don't do something to make players happy (i.e. make it possible to win), sites won't just kill their players, they will ultimately kill themselves.

All Rec players want to win! That has to be obtainable for some percentage at each limit in order for a sustainable poker economy

Poker already was disrupted by the internet, which is why you pay much less rake for the same game online than you would live. Netflix, prices rose. Amazon, prime prices rose. Cable, movies, streaming video games...What is the industry you are comparing to that after becoming established lowered it's prices?

This is exactly why they are making changes you are upset about. Correct? The fact that you don't find it attractive but the masses do is the bone of contention. You are the 5-10% they were retaining, now they are looking at the other 90%. Sorry about that.

That is exactly what you said. The rake does not affect how much you beat your competition, it affects how much money you make. It's not a small semantic point imo. The rake increase does not affect how many players you beat, only what you get to keep from the winnings. it is only profit you are talking about. You "won" at chess but made no money from it.

Look, I see your point, but honestly there are several "minor" semantic differences that you are hanging your hat on. May just be a matter of opinion, but not everyone sees it the way you do. Here are some of them:

Recreational player. You see it as someone who has another income, ie not pro. That is not the context that most people use it in, and is not the context that PS uses it. So when they are talking about rec players, they are not talking about you. You getting upset about the way they want you to see poker is a flat out mistake. They don't want you to be attracted to spin and goes, they are talking about the tons of people who are. People who play for fun and will never, ever play enough hands to beat variance, never mind the rake. For these people it is gambling.

Beatable games. To the above point, if you look at the Phil Hellmuth thread it is full of internet players saying, with graphical proof, that he has not played enough to be determined a winning player. His sample size is too small. If this is the case the whole argument about rec players deserving a beatable game is hogwash. They are not beatable to casual players. Nobody but grinders will ever put in enough volume to make it anything less than gambling and variance.

Winning player. This is where you get all upset with Daniel saying winning players are worse than the rake for casual players. They are. You have take more money from the player you beat than the rake does. It's a fact. If the rake was zero losing players would still lose all their money every time. Just because the fee/rake you pay to play is near dead on the difference in dollars you would need to make a profit does not mean that the fee is the problem. If you were a race car driver and the fuel bill for your car was exactly how much you were in the hole at the end of your race season post winnings, you would be a fool to blame the price of fuel for your losses.

You have obviously taken the idea that winning players are to "blame" very personally, as if blame matters anyway. I do believe that a lot of the behavior of winning players, whether promoted/allowed by PS or not, is far more destructive than rake increases to the attractiveness to casual players. I know it is to me. That said, I don't have a problem with winning players because they are winning. I want to play against people who are better than me on an even playing field. I don't think that anyone said nobody should ever win, including Daniel, and that seems to be the idea that causes you the most frustration.

Game of skill. Just because you cant beat the rake on a given game does not make it less about skill. Just means you can't grind it for profit, which is not the definition of a skill game. Spin and Goes are three man hypers. The only thing that the spin affects is the prize and the rake, not the play. If they made the effective rake 1% and the multiplier way more even, the game play would be identical as far as skill goes. Likewise, if they made roulette pay out everything except 0 and 00 so you were assured the odds to win, it would still be 100% luck. Saying that they are removing the skill is just flat wrong.

Again, semantics. You see competition only as it pertains to your personal experience as a customer, competing for your time when you are sitting at home on baby watch. A business sees it as competing for the dollars you will spend on poker, entertainment etc, not the hours of midnight to 2 am.

I have a new baby too, and with only play money available to me I do the same thing you do. And I also play poker live, in home games and the B&M. So if $$ online becomes available to me again, it is not for that couple of hours of my time late at night PS is concerned with, it is for the dollars I will spend playing poker. That does not come from a bankroll for me, like true rec players, I have disposable income to spend on my hobby. Of course I want to get better and win consistently, I am doing a little better than break even (with a vastly inadequate sample size to matter to anything except my wallet), but it is not the deciding factor for me like it is for you. Knowing dozens of recreational players who do not have access to online games, I know this to be true for many people. I know many, many poker enthusiasts who have zero idea how much up or down they are over any given period of time longer than their last session. And these people have money to spend--they are not the type of "loyal" PS customers who will flip out at a rake increase to the point of suggesting petitioning congress to screw their business over, call their spokespeople names, and all of the other reaction you see here. In other words, maybe more valuable customers?

And whether the tide is turning for how casinos see online poker and their support of it or not, my point still stands--they view online as direct competition for their B&M customer's dollars even if they want to get in on it.

Am a bit late to chime in, but wanna give my props to OP for a very solid post. Thumbs Up!

you a freaking idiot if you think no pros have gone 13 months in the red.

What about getting your BI back in games where you don't make the money // No rake if you lose money at a cash table (like your 10$ and another 10$ go to the showdown , you lose, villain pays rake on his 10€, you get your rake on the 10€back.)

I haven't read the thread but why would an online site want players who withdraw money?

Rec players can win when they run hot. It's like live rec players. They want to win the current hand, not win overall, they are not trying to be pro's. They are there for fun, etc.

Players don't get raked, pots get raked. Amount x gets deposited, they want it all and can't get it all if people withdraw. Doesn't it make sense for them to drive away those who withdraw? Perhaps not if they hold the deposits in some money market fund and make money that way, otherwise they only want people who will push the money around until it is all gone to the rake.

Maybe in a quest for market share they kept the rake low enough the game was beatable but now, there isn't much competition or expansion left to do so just drive away those who withdraw.

I guess live casino's could/should do the same, no?

Sorry if this has already been asked and answered.

Then again, once enough pro regs leave, the competition will be weaker and the higher rake will be beatable? It's just that pro's may move down in limits and accept a lower win rate and have to move to Sri Lanka to maintain their standard of living, lol.

Great rant. Only question...why play til you lose it all? Cash out and move on, no?

Great post OP.

I'd like to share my stats to lend weight to the argument. I basically haven't played poker for quite some time because I effectively came to the same conclusions as OP some time ago. This is my second account on 2+2, I took a break then came back with a new accont .. it's been some time since I even logged in here.

Anyway, after reading this I opened my HEM database for the first time in a long time. Again, second database, I ran PT2 the first time I played ... probably had 500k hands there. In this HEM2 database, I have approx 550k hands mostly at 10nl and 25nl.

Was I a rec? A reg? An amateur? I'm not sure that is relevant really. Like OP I was a person who found the game and wanted to get better. I read, I studied, I joined sites (Stox, Raise the Bar) and I grinded. Not to become a pro, but becuase it was a pastime I loved and because I genuinely believed I could be good enough to grind out a few k as a profitable hobby. I multitabled, I had TableNinja, I played 8-12 tables, I tracked players and yes I table selected hard.

My last recorded hand in my DB is 24 Dec 2011. The relevant stats:

Hands: 548,062
Winnings: $-1,753.43 (-1.16bb/100)
EV adjusted $-1.041.05 (-0.56bb/100)

It was soul destroying. This was my serious hobby, I put a lot of time in while juggling a full time job and a family. But I loved playing so I kept working, partly disappointed that I was running well behind on all-in EV but confident eventually it would turn around. I was sure I could be a winning player but it was taking a lot of my time and it slowly became less enjoyable and more frustrating that I was still not even a break-even player.

The biggest single frustration was that I just could not find the areas that were killing me. I ran every report I could think of in HEM, I ran leakbuster. While I'm not saying I was leak free, generally my reports were quite good and I was frustrated that I couldn't find the areas where I was falling down that was keeping me a losing player.

Until someone pointed out to me that actually my HEM reports were missing one vital stat ... the rake. So I added the rake paid to the report and the result was:

Rake: $8223.96

It was then that I realised that I actually was winning at a decent clip. My stats and other reports were all green becuase actually, I WAS a winning player ... I just wasn't winning enough to overcome the rake. Back in 2006-08 I was profitable because of great rakeback deals. But as these evaporated after Black Friday and the rake began to get steeper, when I cam back for my second decent crack it just wasn't enough.

With that came the realisation that with the time I had available to me, I was never going to improve enough to beat the rake. I could beat the players at my level, but not enough to overcome the house.

That's a powerful disincentive ... and I think the point the OP is making. When you reach the realisation that good isnt enough ... then unless you really are playing for the gamble, for the rush ... the incentive evaporates.

Now I play the odd SnG, the odd mixed game, and yes I have tried the Spin'n'Goes as well. But I'll never again play volume like I used to ... and as a result, Pokerstars are missing out on my rake.

If the rake was 25% less, then in all likelihood I'd be turning enough of a profit to keep me going. I'd probably play another 500k hands ... then Pokerstars would have $6000 more in rake but I'd also be up $1500 or so ... and surely that would be the best for both parties.

Thanks Johnny, very well thought out post. I`d like to reply......

Johnny Truant;45175976] Fair enough, agreed. That is certainly the case when talking about online poker vs B/M, and I guess I didn`t explain myself clearly.

I mean why is there no extremely high volume, extremely low margin poker venue online? People point to Poker Stars as the whale, but it`s really pretty much a minnow compared to other online businesses. It`s a blip. And somehow they managed to lose the majority of 50 million customers in there along the way.

You say Amazon`s prices rose, yes, but they rose from basically zero. Free delivery etc. Wikipedia is free. Youtube is free. Google is free. I mean, all these huge online businesses that cater to hundreds of millions of people somehow finding ways to pay for themselves without needing to charge huge amounts.

Of course the games must be raked, but I would argue that the way we think about the game itself is based on the B/M model, simply because it`s "gambling". Their monopoly position allows them to avoid coming up with more creative or reasonable ways to make a profit.



That`s quite a built in supposition you have there. The "masses" find it attractive do they? Is that why they raised rakes and introduced extra charges in secret is it? Is that why I didn`t get the memo from them.

And the "other" 90%? Is that the ones that already quit you mean?

I would ask you this. Do you think they will have a higher customer retention rate now than they did before? I`m guessing "no". Plus, I think the reason Spin`n`Gos are popular now is
#1: Novelty. Will it wear off once people realise they have the same chance at winning as a scratch lottery ticket? Time will tell I guess.
#2: For the average rec player, it may be the only way for them to ever seriously "win". The idea of working your way up from 2NL to 50NL and getting a thousand bucks is a total fantasy nowadays. Spin`n`Gos are probably the only way for a rec player to get anything worth cashing out.



If you have HEM, if you are looking into your stats, if you are aware of what you are being raked and where the money is going that is.

Look, I`ll use the example of my friends here. Only two of us have HEM, but everyone is a basically competent player. Everyone has basically the same experience. Deposit. Watch deposit bounce up and down but slowly and surely melt away. Deposit again. And again. Stop for good.

Now, I am SURE that without any rake 2-3 of us WOULD see our roll increase which would then prove to all of us that the game could be "beaten". Right? So if you are me (last week) and sit down and pore over your stats, then yeah, you say "Wow! I DON`T suck so hard, I`m just being beaten by rake!". If you are my friends without HEM, you say, "Nah, Pokers Stars is impossible mate. No-one wins. No point playing". Maybe customer retention would be higher?

Look, I see "rec" players, when used by Amaya, to be interchangeable with "gamblers" or "losers". The people who play for "fun" on PS definitely certainly "lose". I`m just saying, that if some of these people could "win" (without having to bink some scratch lottery Spin`n`Go) by playing regular poker, maybe PS would retain more of them.

I just think it`s disingenuous of them to discount rake as a reason no-one wins to the point that they raise it in secret and then call raising it a SOLUTION ffs.

We are not talking about "a" rec player, we are talking about "all" rec players. That`s the problem with this statement. Once you include everybody, the # of hands played certainly is enough to draw a bulletproof mathematical case.

Wrong. Again, you are confusing a sample size of "one" (ie "a" losing player) with everyone currently playing. Once you have enough of a sample size, then you get a smooth distribution of abilities from winning/losing.

To take your race car analogy to it`s conclusion, lets say there are 100 race teams and use something arbitrarily set like "track fees".The 100 teams (after fees) range in ability from losing $95 through to winning $5 in one dollar increments. You can easily see that by dropping fees $1, you increase the number of winning teams by one team. Drop it 10 bucks, 10 more winning teams.

Once you have a large enough sample size (and we do) it`s a smooth linear model. The reason PS doesn`t address their role in this is simple misdirection.

They say ""Fun" players don`t care about rake. And even if they do, they don`t notice it. And they don`t care about losing. They just want to have fun. It`s entertainment. Poker is exciting, even if you lose. It costs money. It`s "winning players" fault. We have to raise rake to attract more people."

Whaaaaaatever. At no point does anyone ever ask "How come you can`t keep you customers?".


I`ve covered this. The system was set up in such a way to promote this bad behaviour, Poker Stars never addresses their own culpability in it.

Look, Daniel said "Winning players are the problem". Parse that sentence for me. I take it to mean they want LESS winning players, not more. How else would you understand that? If your girlfriend said "Your drinking is a problem" would you take that to mean do more or less drinking?(maybe don`t answer that If the police chief said "Drug addicts are the problem" would you take it to mean he wants more or less drug addicts?

Daniel is the mouthpiece of Amaya, he`s saying what they want him to say. I think it`s telling that they say they want more "rec" players, not more "winning" players. I would argue more "winning" players is EXACTLY what they need. But then it wouldn`t allow them to raise rake/fees, would it?

He also gave an analogy to the WSOP raising rake and drew the very spurious conclusion that raising the rake increased their customer base. Let me then say, what if, when asked about rake increases, the director of the WSOP had said "Winning tournament players are the problem"? It`s loony land.


Total strawman. Never said or dispute any of that.



?

I would argue that by having a lower rake, it is mathematically certain that more rec players would win consistently. This would be good for the game I feel. Word-of-mouth is the best advertising, proven time and time again.

[/QUOTE]

In the U.S maybe. A vast number of online poker players (far out numbering the U.S population) have precisely zero access to casinos.

Well, yeah, that`s what I take it to mean when they say they don`t want "winning" players. Of course they mean players who withdraw regularly. But that`s what I think the problem is.

Their thinking is similar to B/M casinos. Player comes through the door with "$XX", we want ALL of it. If someone is a consistent winner, don`t come back. Sure, that makes sense. But I would say online, that`s a dangerous business model. I go to a casino as a big event. They make money from me from drinks, rooms, meals, the whole thing. Even if I DO make money playing blackjack or poker, it`s usually only enough to cover my trip (if that)....they get my money anyhow right?

Online though, you can reach vast numbers of people and they can play every day. Your only product is the game. If you can`t beat it you quit. And you tell your friends. So they drive away the winners AND the losers eventually. That`s why 80-90% of people quit within a year.

Late to thread.
Excellent post, subby.

thanks for replying, I think you're just not "their kind" of rec player. They want a player who is just thrilled when he runs hot and crushes a table. Never mind that that rarely happens, he will keep trying and trying every couple months. Maybe you would call him a degen even if he only looses what is to him a tiny amount of money overall, be that many thousands of dollars per year.

You are the type of rec player who wants to learn the game then win, even if only a little. That's quite a different type of player. If it's true that anytime you withdraw money you hurt the casino(from their perspective)(which I think is true) then they should be quite happy when you learn the game but then learn that you just can't beat it and quit. They have made as much as they can from you.

What you say about word of mouth advertising is true and a big deal. You're right, soon, fewer and fewer people will even bother trying to learn. It's that learning process during which you are a profitable commodity to them. I can just here the water cooler talk, one guy saying he won or lost and a couple others dumping on online poker saying you can't win. Maybe you're right. Maybe only the degen will go back.

PS and on the flip side, if you say while at the water cooler, "I'm beating the game but only for a tiny bit and at low stakes", that might be enough to get the others to try. After all, "if Shane can beat the game I certainly can. Never mind all his talk about chess and IQ".

Did you ever think that playing 8-12 tables might have been your problem? I don't know of any training site that would ever recommend playing that many tables BEFORE learning to beat 2 tables for a solid winrate. You don't play 12 tables to learn the game, it doesn't work that way. You play 12 tables AFTER you know the game inside/out AND have the ability to play well while thinking really fast (which not every winning player can do). A player who first learned to crush 10NL on 2-4 tables, before adding more, would have netted at least $3k-7k in those 550k hands (assuming he didn't move up). Don't blame the rake for preventing you from winning (espcially in 2011 and earlier).

And further, maybe what is best is keeping players who play 3 hours a week and win and getting rid of those who play 30 hours a week and win. But how to do this? They should have just gone around banning full timers who withdraw. That would maintain winning rec regs. The bad press would be from the complaint, "they'll ban you if you make too much". Well, yeah, but that's a hell of a lot better than the bad press OP describes.

Why are there so many low post accounts all of a sudden writing very long responses to OP. Most of which appear to not be disputing what he's saying but mainly arguing that his opinion doesn't matter? And how are they so certain they know exactly what Amaya means by "rec player"?

A few posts back I provided a link with quotes of poker room execs defining what a recreational player is. The notion of this big whale that's spewing around randomly clicking buttons and spewing off their stack with bottom pair no draw no kicker is such an outdated concept. Today's rec players are mainly pretty much like OP. They're not stupid, they know quite a bit about poker, huds, training sites, odds, etc. You see them talking about them incorrectly in chat.

There is absolutely NO-ONE that comes on to online poker in a knowledge vacuum nowadays. It`s like claiming a new player is likely to be some caveman or hill-billy from the Ozarks who has never even had access to a computer and suddenly buys an Ipad and says"Waaaayyyull hell! I giss aima gunna fire up dis dere Poookaaa Stars and play me sum POOOOKAAAAH!"

If you even want to learn suggested opening cards for any of the games, you end up straight at a poker site, card chat forum, coaching site or where ever reading the "basics" and also seeing ads for HEM, training vids, rakeback deals, the whole thing. I doubt you could even find many people blowing of their stacks randomly clicking buttons on Facebook poker.

This I what I would say is one of the problems as well and one of the things Poker Stars has culpability for. Of course people are going to do this, but I think 4 tables open should be the max. Then if you want to make a living, you have to be good enough for them to be 4 tables of 500NL or whatever. If you want mass volume, then play 4 tables of Zoom. Then the new or rec players can avoid the stronger players. I just think the idea that there is a community of people who move to Thailand to somehow make a living out of playing 2NL is really bad for the game. If I`m going to play 2NL, I want everyone else to suck as hard as I do. I don`t expect to be up against some guy playing with science fiction gear and 24 tables open.

Lolz

For all of the talk of the games getting tougher. 10NL is still walk in the park for any winning player prior to the poker collapse of 2008. I played 10NL Zoom and found plenty of fish from the richer Western countries and Russians who spewed on weekends while drunk on something... Even the few potential pros from Poland, Russia, Ukraine etc were basically rocks that played by the book.

I can't see any Western person doing that for long. I would think it's locals that are taking advantage of the strong conversion of the dollar to the Baht or Ruble. When you look at what a low end job pays in these countries making 10 dollars a day playing monkeys at 2NL might seem like heaven compared to risking your life for 3 dollars a day..

Not true at all. Some of the idiots I have seen at the nano stakes were as bad as anybody 10+ years ago.

Point taken, I can't argue with that. I did enjoy the pace of multiabling though but I accept it had an impact. I concede that had I 2-3 tabled my raw winrate would likely be higher - even profitable to break the rake, but conversely way less hands so variance comes in more.

I still think the claim is valid though. 25% less rake and even at the standard I was at, I'm still profitable and still playing.

This. Everyone would be wise to read entire OP.