OK, I read your post more carefully and I understand what you are asking now.

There are numerous reasons why JP tables are more active.

The mega-grinders play JP tables because they make they make a good portion of their money from the Beast. Thus these few guys that are playing very frequently are choosing to sit on JP tables, because even though they will be paying a lot in rake they will make more back from the Beast through mass multi-tabling and breaking even.

So any fish that comes along will see the JP tables more active than non JP tables, which are pretty much always empty. Also of course all JP tables are displayed above non JP tables, which you have to scroll down for. And since there isn't much of a cash game filter, you can't filter out one or the other. And of course, the fish aren't typically aware of how much they are paying in rake that only the mass multi-tablers are benefiting from.

So the fish are jumping on the JP tables without knowing/caring about how much rake they are paying. THe mega-grinders are there for the Beast obviously, and of course the fish being there doesn't hurt. So everyone in the know about how much the Beast is tearing into their winrate is left either sitting at the JP tables to play against the fish (having to pay the insane rake), or try to start games on the non-JP tables. Games that aren't given priority and appear at the bottom of the filter, and that will typically not be seen by fish looking for quick action, or be passed over by mass-grinders looking for beast points.

I really fail to see your argument that just because there is only a little uproar that it's a good system. Other than the few guys that finish at the top of the Beast race, just who else that plays there do you think actually wants to see it stay? I'm thinking that if all the non-regs were made fully aware of how much they are losing to the top grinders each month, thet wouldn't much care for it.

The BBJ is another matter, in that the fish probably like the promotion.

This line is under the chart on the ACR site. No idea why the inconsistency.

I never said I thought it was a good system, and the fact it may make the games much tighter (if that is possible on ACR) is certainly a negative. All I have said is if the customer likes it, then a minority on a website have no right to demand it be stopped or to tell people what to do with their monies. If so many people were upset with the promotion, my argument is less people would play, no matter where they put it on the list of games. The fish don't know any better is a weak, self-serving argument. Especially in these days where 'online poker is solid', and so much harder, and people have so much more information, yet tens of hundreds of people who play cash at ACR/BCP/True don't know any better?

I would be interested to see the results of a poll made from all ACR customers regarding their thoughts on the Beast/BBJ. Of course that won't happen, but I would be interested

The placement of the BBJ tables certainly has an effect, but there is also ample proof of people avoiding the network.

ACR is the worst traffic wise by a considerable margin even though it has one of the most important perks of an American Poker site today -fast cashouts. Players opting to wait sometimes up to 3 months for a check as opposed to the 1-2 weeks from ACR is pretty alarming.

Outside of the mega grinders who do well in The Beast, I doubt anyone would sign off on the jacked up rake.

I understand why ACR holds this position though. The value of building a long term playerbase just doesn't make sense when the DoJ could come a knocking any day, and if some kind of US regulation were to occur they would just simply be destroyed by larger companies.

Exactly... Really any company operating in the U.S is looking to make money now because if legislation does pass (in say 5-50 years) their site is done

THIS is the single biggest reason for ACR not listening. Nevada anticipates sites up and running by possible March 2013. It won't be long before they go interstate and other states join in. When that happens, all foreign poker sites who accept U.S. players will dry up in a short few months.

Dog

I just don't see how you can come to the conclusion that the customer likes it, when the current system obviously only benefits a small minority, while being rather detrimental to the majority of players. There are people who avoid the network with the fastest cashouts solely because of the insane rake. Software would also play a part, but it's not like the other US facing sites have great software themselves, so a portion of it must be the rake. Why else would regs choose to play on sites where they must wait months to get checks, or sell funds for a vig?

How is the "fish don't know any better" a weak argument? Can you tell me how much of an impact the BBJ/Beast is having on winrates? Because although knowing it's high, I can't tell you exactly how much. So I would expect non-regs that don't frequent 2p2, haven't spent time reading the promotions page, and so on, would know even less of how much an impact it has on their winrate. So, of course the games have gotten harder, but that still doesn't mean everyone playing is in the know on every detail. There are still plenty of players that are oblivious to many things. But I'd think if told about the Beast Promo and what it's doing to their bottomline, they wouldn't be in favor of it. Who would other than the obvious top grinders?

I would be interested in a mathematical presentation on how it affects winrates, and also at what point the Beast becomes +EV. You admit yourself that Top Grinders benefit. So, there must be some point/time/hands played where you need to qualify for the Beast to make it smart to spend your time. Do only the Top 4 benefit or is it actually +EV if you qualify for even the bottom payment?

This is what 2+2 generally does best, I think a full presentation on the rake + premiums would work a lot better in the arguments of just how bad this promotion may or may not be.

What evidence do you have for that assertion? I see no public displays in other forums or social media that say people are avoiding the site due to rake and I find that hardly believable.

Massive software problems alone I could buy, a name not widely known I can buy. I'll throw in with you it is a factor in some peoples decisions but I would discount it as a large percentage except for some posters at 2+2

The traffic count the site shows on the front page is not much different than Revolution, Merge shows.

In fact, since the Beast started traffic has increased tremendously at the network. (not that it was because of the Beast, the network has grown fast since ACR took over from Doyles)

Sure they do. ACR doesn't have to listen, but people here have every right to point out what bull**** it is and embarrass them over it.

No one is arguing with you that ACR doesn't give a ****. You're probably right. But this is a forum to discuss ACR. It's pretty silly to tell people to shut up about all the things wrong with ACR.

Not really. IMO it's a pretty good argument because it's true. The fish buy into the promotion because it sounds good. The regs go where the fish are, see they're being killed by rake after a little while, and stop or slow down. So the rooms are becoming more and more populated by people just going after the Beast and playing 9/7 boring ass nitty poker.

The problem here, which you accurately identified in your posting, is that ACR doesn't care about this as long as they make money in the short term. They are, but it's a bad longterm strategy IMO. The fish will leave because the action is dying, badly; and the regs will leave with the fish and because the rake is so bad.

Yes. Some of these people, I'd be surprised if they can tie their shoes in the morning. It's that bad, which is what made ACR such a good site (despite all the other ****ty things about it) pre-Beast.

I STILL enjoy it, mainly because I play only Omaha and non-Beast NLHE. But, the games have dried up a lot in the past few months.

It's not like they wouldn't make money short-term if they dropped the Beast though. They would probably make more, seeing as how the tables would be less likely to be filled with 9/7 uber-nits.

I'm right there with ya man on everything! I gave them info on a table break when add on hits problem and buttons disappearing and the rep acted like I was making it up. I emailed screen shots for them and it appears they are TRYING to solve the last solve. Addon's are improved but table break seems to be the key. I put up with the bs cuz of P2P and quick payouts. I have seen an entire satellite not get an addon but one person. Wasn't me tho.

This is essentially what I'm saying. The only downside I really see to dropping the Beast promotion is that the top guys who are racking up on it currently would likely not be pleased.

But other than that, stopping the beast would benefit the overwhelming majority of players on the site with reduced rake. I think more players would come to the site, and the games would be looser, which is both good for the site rakewise. Also, fish would lose less rake to the mass-grinders, thus allowing them to maintain rolls for longer periods of time, passing money back and forth, and inducing further rake for the site.

Obviously it would only be speculation, but I wouldn't think they would take that large of hit to rake given the other benefits mentioned above.

Hell if anything, they could do a month long no-Beast/BBJ promo to see how things work. To get a feel for how the games would play, the amount of rake they would expect to earn. Even doing it for a month would likely bring in some new players that might stick around even if they continue the promo later. Then they could give us some statistics that it's clearly better for them to run the Beast, and we would have to accept it as the better business model for them.

Where you did you find this info? I recognise it from looking at the site previously but it might have been updated:

http://www.americascardroom.eu/suppo...or-real-money/

You're missing the key text under the chart which makes the chart completely irrelevant:

Just to add to the discussion regarding whether The Beast keeps players away. I -- sample size of one -- no longer play cash games due to the rake and the fact that I am just a casual player who would never play enough hands to benefit from the Beast.

I now only play a few SNGs and tournaments.

And while we're discussing the add-on problem being solved. From this vantage point they solved the problem of never getting the add-on you had requested. But they still have a big problem with how add-ons are implemented: the add-on should always be added to your stack as soon as the break ends, not some random number of hands later. It is annoying to wait five (or more) hands for your add-on, especially when you see someone go all-in and lose [they would have possibly been eliminated if they had received the add-on], or you yourself go all-in and double-up with 3000 less chips than you should have.

How difficult can it be to implement this simple change?

Might have already discussed, but why does PT4 show EV so wrong? If i go pre AI and win opponent doesnt show his hand and PT shows i was supposed to win with 100% equity but in reality it was flip and 50/50.

The debate that there are "tons and tons" of fish left floating around an American site like ACR is just laughable.

If you play on ACR for any length of time, you see the same damn guys day in and day out. Sure, you *occasionally* get some random guy here and there, but for the most part, the US sites are all regulars. Not saying they are all good, I see the same 80/40 fish every day as well.

But, using the argument about fish and BBJ tables doesn't apply to the absurdity that is the beast. Considering I keep getting whispers from people saying "Hi, saw you on 2p2, I play on ACR too as blahblah," I'd hazard to guess the "regulars" are clearly an overwhelming majority on ACR network.

As such, I really don't see any reason to support the BBJ tables instead of trying to get non-bbj games running. I haven't played a BBJ table in over a month. Granted I'm forced to play 10NL and lower, as these are the only things that run, but the volume has picked up because of the micro promotion. Which, the micro grinders are the ones bitching the loudest about this (as they should).

If you micro guys just make a concerted effort to avoid BBJ tables like the plague and simply start sitting in non-bbj games, they will eventually fill with regularity. And don't think, "omg I'll miss out on all the fish at the BBJ tables!" because you won't. 1. There are much, much, much less "Johnny's depositing their paycheck to take a shot at poker" than you think on any US site 2. You'll be playing against the same 5 guys you are playing on the BBJ tables.

So, by not starting up non-bbj games, the only person you're really hurting is yourself (unless you derive a significant portion of your profit from The Beast) and you're basically working hard to ensure the top grinders make more money.

Unless you're grinding The Beast and making profit from it, if you play on BBJ tables, you might as well just log in, open up The Beast leaderboard and do a player-to-player transfer to the top 5 guys of your remaining bankroll. It'll save you a lot of time. Otherwise, blackball the BBJ tables and simply start putting your asses in the seats of Non-BBJ games until they fill. That's what I'm doing. I'm even starting to see 25NL games run with some regularity.

There are still plenty of fish from the South American skins / bookmakers aka the guys with ve and bkr

True, but these players are a very, very small minority on ACR. It's not like pokerstars where you consistently get new depositors everyday. Even the players from these other skins aren't enough to warrant sitting at BBJ tables in the low stakes tab. Having 1 "ve" player in 1 seat out of the 30 on your screen isn't going to make up for the massive drop from The Beast.

The players keeping these tables alive are all you regulars, because of the misconception that there are an overwhelming amount of fish sitting at the BBJ tables (which there isn't).

If it was normal to be 2 grinders and 4 "ve" or "bkr" guys at the BBJ tables, I could see where you're coming from. But, let's be real. It's 5 "regs" falling all over each other when they happen to have a "ve" player fill a seat and this scenario repeats across all 10 tables you're on. For the most part, it's usually you and 5 other "regs" on every table.

I actually play them at the PLO cash tables and HU SNG.

The addon problem is still there. Just yesterday addons skipped me over two times with the button pushed. Both times it was due to table change as addon was occurring. Many people at my table who were moved over also lost the addon.

Also, still everyday people are reporting their buttons missing when it comes time to make a decision of check/fold/bet. I have not figured out what scenario is involved with these people when it happens because it has only happened to me once.

So far, I have only personalty encountered these problems in the small rebuy sats for OSS

Software is unacceptable at best.

Can you please bring this link/thread to the attention of support.

http://www.pocketfives.com/f10017/ac...-probs-674803/

Multiple problems that need to be taken care of ASAP.

Exactly -- those are two areas of the site unmolested by the ****ty Beast, so there is a better fish/reg ratio.

That would happen to the NHLE tables again too if they removed the Beast.

So, now you are saying the fish are aware of the rake differences and thus make their way to the PLO tables, whereas above you were saying the fish were too stupid to realize the difference in rake and thus continued to play at JP/Beast NLH tables instead of Non-JP Tables.

Well, which is it?

You do understand that if the fish were smart enough to play PLO they would also be smart enough to play Non-JP NLH