You answered your own question

Is it normal to get an overwhelming feeling of sadness when you log into a poker client? It seems to happen on Merge, Bovada, and esp WPN quite often.

I remember logging into FTP, "Ding..". Next thing you know you're in a $650 tournament with a $1 milly first place prize. I digress, just feeling nostalgic on this Xmas Eve. NH, DOJ, you've broken my spirit.

I'll go back to dropping 5 buy ins during 4 hours of late reg in a $5K $109 now..

The software was glitching like crazy today.

Currently getting **** on again by merge connection problems. So sick that I'm out like $50 the past month off of connection problems and they never refund me. Decent amount of BIs for me in the micros. Very tilting

Yeah cause Carbon could careless about their players.

Once again, no $60 10K or $215 $15K.

Is there a Merge tournament improvement thread? Or is this it?

Why don't you guys have more turbos with big guarantees? (Preferably rebuys) Turbos increase traffic and actually make sense for a site to have. For example, Bovada has a ton of solid nightly turbos and has the best schedule of any of the USA sites cause those turbos create a good player base.

Don't want to ruffle any feather but why not just scrap the big 60 10k or something to do it, if you cant just add them anyway?

This is it.

Getting rid of tournaments that fill every night isn't the answer. The problem is there isn't enough tournaments, not that the ones they do have need removed.

Not sure why they don't go back to the old schedule sans similar tournaments to the nightly offerings.

Don't you remember what that affiliate kid posted a few weeks ago? He/She said Merge doesn't care about the poker side of business because profit margins aren't big enough for them. This explains why they are letting the poker side die and why they don't care enough to improve things going forward. Expect terrible software problems in the future, I think they fired the software engineers to improve profit margins.

I don't buy it. They obviously care enough to try to attract players or they wouldn't be running a "Double Sunday" that is going to have huge overlay or a $1 $10K that will have overlay. Over on the SB/PO side they are doing a $20,000 freeroll. Not to mention Carbon/Aced is running another OPS to get more people to leave Poker Host.

Seems to me they figured out they messed up over the last few months and are trying to bring in more players. Aced has practically been throwing themselves at me all month to come back and grind like I was.

The rake structure for ring games is just to insanely high for me to take them serious again. I'm glad they are giving you some positive things on the tourney side though. Good luck with that part.

Yeah, I took almost all of my cash game play elsewhere. I sit in here and there if the games are good.

There hasn't been much positive on the MTT side of things either. I was just pointing out that they do seem to care about poker at least somewhat. Until they improve their offerings I don't see it making much difference. The schedule is horrible now.

Anyone else having trouble with ring game waitlists tonight? I get on the list, the seat opens up, and I no longer get an invite pop up. Have to keep the table open and watch for the seat to open. Very PITA.

no because I also stopped playing cash due to rake

and ofc they care I think it's nieve to believe that they don't just because of their incompetence(you're giving them too much credit, they suck because they suck not because they don't care), you really think they make more on casino? i highly doubt that volume is anywhere near poker but if some1 cites something I will happily say i stand corrected....i just don't see people going online and playing roulette and sh** and redepositing over and over(i'm sure theres some) like many do at poker. sportsbetting could make more idk how large the market of that is compared to poker, assume its sizeable or larger or what % of the sb market they have.

I would strongly presume poker and sports betting are their bread and butter, I alone have paid 5k+rake this year and thats small change compared to some. for what? them taking/moving money around and having servers and virtual info? until someone cites me hard evidence they don't make ends meat on poker I won't buy it.

from opr:
Year 2012 Not Rated - - - - n/a of 71,434
Year 2013 99.XX% $XX,XXX XX% XXXX XX% 2XX of 44,394

71,400 tracked accounts in 2012
44,400 tracked in 2013

and im not even loking into the traffic numbers from sites like pokerscout, merge has done f***ed up and it's rather annoying seeing as there's no real other option that has both tracked games and non-anonymous player names or ****e software

no $60 nightly, $109 nightly, or $215 nightly today.

lol ya wtf are they really worried about not making their lousy $15k gtd for a $215 mtt with 4hours late reg, soon they'll be cancelling the big sunday ticket i imagine

Very dumb. Especially since it was in the lobby until like 2 hours ago. The site was very busy last Christmas in the evening so I don't really get it.

:We understand XXXXX, since we are having several season promotions and regular games might be cancelled due to this, however we understand your point of the cancellation short notice and we'll forward this feedback right away" -chat rep.

LOLZ, promotions? Where?

Who generally plays $60 and up? Regs
Who does Merge want to rid themselves of? Regs
All Merge cares about is feeding their fish who want to dabble in a little recreational poker and rake as much as humanly possible.

Games that don't produce multiple reentries like the $60+ aren't worth it for them to risk having the overlay. I'm sure them removing them has to do with the holidays, knowing traffic would be down. They cancelled them to avoid having to pay out overlay.

I just went through my tournaments over the last 6 weeks and while I was down overall across 3 sites 70% of my losses were on Merge games. I know lots of consistent winning regs who are regularly losing money Merge. The top heavy payout structures, ridiculously long late and structure in general makes it very difficult to make money on the site. Most of the guys making money are re-entering numerous times.

This is only going to get worse, Merge doesn't care about a having good MTT schedule or doing anything that regs might like or want. They only care about making as much rake a possible.

Hi, Is there a limit as to how many VIP points you can cashout at 15% in a month?
Thanks

Edit - I think I found that the answer is 5 vips to cash transactions per month. Is it unlimited points for each of your 5?

5

You can only cash in 10,000 point increments at the 15% tier. No more, no less.

As always, there are 2 sides to every coin. That said, I've kept my results consistent by checking my ego at the door and limiting my re-entries to no more than 2 a tourney. It helps that the $11 deep are my highest buy-ins which I balance with the little boy rebuys. As long as I maintain my BR management I'll be ok. Playing more $11 deeps since rebuilding BR to 4 figures in hopes of a top 3 cash. Usually would have cashed out by now, but, feel it's time to take a shot at the next level. Plus, this is probably the best way to build a BR for live play in 2014. Just sayin...

So, you're down on 3 different sites but it's merge's fault? Makes sense. Consistent regs or mediocre regs? Mediocre regs can't win on Merge because the good regs can reenter until they have heaps. This is why reentries are terrible for poker. I've benefited quite a bit from them, but it's obvious they aren't good for the poker economy which your post shows.

If you aren't winning on Merge it's because you're probably not all that good. Recs and bad regs have no chance to win any more. Merge may or may not have realized this but they are catering to the regs. At least the good regs. If you get in a tournament and fire 1 or 2 bullets you don't have much of a chance unless you run good when people can take every small edge and reenter 8 times. Eventually it sticks and you can push your skill advantage on the table.