The Rake :( - Page 9

On October 19 2010 11:32 TenBagger wrote: - Nolan, Exiliharate, Mipwnya, ChicagoJoey, etc. pay 21321452341613461 a month in rake. They also happen to make 6 figures a year clicking buttons. Any boycott on their part would be massively -EV and so they tolerate it. An idealistic person might accuse me and the regs of being unprincipled and not fighting for what we believe in. At the end of the day, almost all decisions made by human beings are an economic one. Even the situations bejamin described regarding the civil rights movement and women's suffrage were at the core an economic decision made by a large group chasing what they perceived to be +EV.

Nobody is asking for these people to boycott poker? In fact if you noticed 5 of the 6 things I suggested were not time consuming by any means. If we do a boycott it would probably be one day a month. Even an SNE can handle that if they want to. The point is less than 1% of stars players are Supernova Elites. Don't exactly need them to participate in a boycott for this to be successful.

Reducing the rake is by far +EV in the economic interests of everyone involved in poker. So if people are making their decision based on +EV then fighting for rake reduction in whatever way they can contribute to the movement is highly +EV.

On October 19 2010 14:33 Bejamin1 wrote: Don't exactly need them to participate in a boycott for this to be successful.

Herein lies our difference of opinion.

Ok, let's say you are able or organize a hugely successful boycott. Not only are you able to organize every single reg, but you are also able to organize every single random fish so that for an entire 24 hour period, there is no activity whatsoever on pokerstars and they rake 0 hands. If you are able to do that 1 day per month, that amounts to roughly 3% of their revenue. Even if somehow you were able to guarantee this were to happen once a month for eternity, it is still FAR FAR more profitable for pokerstars to maintain their current rake structure and deal with this annoyance.

The reality is that even under the most optimistic projections, the best planned boycott will amount to a small fraction of pokerstars overall activity. I'm really not trying to be demeaning and I would love for you to be successful in this endeavor. I am just being realistic in that a boycott or sit out will never even come hitting 1% of pokerstars revenue and if you think about it rationally, why on earth would they consider sacrificing 50%+ of their revenue in reduced rake if that is the worst that can happen?

On October 19 2010 14:28 Bejamin1 wrote: So we already know of one site called World Poker Exchange that shut down basically because nobody was interested in playing there despite functional rake free poker software and real money games and this existed years ago. I think a grassroots movement against work that puts real pressure on a major poker site can work. I think many of you are underestimating the impact of millions of e-mails to support flooding in daily demanding lower rake, the impact of negative advertising articles all over the internet, and the impact of people using the resources of the online community to fight back.

Bombardment of emails might be annoying, but I don't think much more than a modified spam filter could fix it for them. They probably won't feel much pressure unless a significant amount of their income is affected.

On October 19 2010 14:28 Bejamin1 wrote: I personally think putting pressure on a major site to make changes can work. I think we also have a good number of bargaining chips to offer. 1. Players would accept any sort of advertising banners associated with the software as long as it didn't obstruct a players view of the play. 2. Players would accept paying fees on withdrawals and player-to-player transfers. These are things we can offer to lower their cost of operations and in turn push for lower rake. Ask yourself if Pokerstars could cut the rake by 30%+ simply by using advertising to generate revenue how awesome would that be?

Well I personally hate ads and I think it would really corrupt a poker room's software, but think about this: Many popular sites with more traffic than pokerstars will only charge user $10-$20/mo to be free of advertisements. That should give you an idea of how much revenue they bring in from them. Ads wouldn't be able to cut rake by any discernible amount to the individual.

On October 19 2010 14:33 Bejamin1 wrote: Nobody is asking for these people to boycott poker? In fact if you noticed 5 of the 6 things I suggested were not time consuming by any means. If we do a boycott it would probably be one day a month. Even an SNE can handle that if they want to. The point is less than 1% of stars players are Supernova Elites. Don't exactly need them to participate in a boycott for this to be successful. Reducing the rake is by far +EV in the economic interests of everyone involved in poker. So if people are making their decision based on +EV then fighting for rake reduction in whatever way they can contribute to the movement is highly +EV.

Kind of contradicts your last statement about regs having greater market share to say don't need SNE to boycott since they would have the greatest share. Cooperation is a tough thing. I remember in college people trying to get everyone to turn in a blank exam so that the whole class would get an A on the exam through the curve. If everyone did it, everyone would benefit, but there's no way in hell everyone is going to do it. If you convinced every forum-inhabiting reg to boycott a poker site for an entire month I think sites would feel the hurt and maybe agree to some kind of rake reduction. People aren't desperate enough to have that kind of conviction though and many will prioritize maintaining their VIP status (black card, ironman, supernova).

Except that I never anywhere stated that regulars have a bigger market share. That was someone else. Pretty hard to contradict myself if your quoting someone else saying it was me who said it lol.

SOrry, confused you with Surprise. Regardless though, regs do have a larger market share. They're the ones multitabling and consistently paying rake each day.

tenbagger basically summed up this whole entire 'movement' in a nutshell. there's no way in hell that pokerstars would even consider reducing their rake by even 5% if the biggest possible threat was a 3% of their profits lost (and that's being extremely giving, no way in hell would it even be that much. think of the sng players, mtt players, non-regs, regs that dont give a shit, etc.)

SWOT analysis baby. PS knows that people are inherently selfish, and nothing like this will ever take place. and even if it did, it's more profitable of them to not give a shit.

edit: that being said. best of luck to you, would be great if this worked out. i just have my doubts is all.

Don't waste your time on this movement- support me.

Took me 3 days to put together. I used to be a games developer so I'm like an expert in this area.
I've also written other Poker software before,
http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/825616/Linux_PT3_HUD.html
http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/710030/PokerTracker3_with_Linux.html
Last year I made $10k at NL50 but haven't played much this year.
You can see me talking about gamedev at a conference,
http://www.youtube.com/user/lumaix
I was a guest speaker at worlds largest gamedev conference:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=452500
Made some games, blaa blaa...

Anyway enough promotion, I don't plan to stop until I have this finished. Everything will be released public and anyone can start their own servers to run their own games. The legal/money issue is a non-issue since we can use bitcoin.

- rake free
- no trackers
- built in pokerstove
- auto-fold
- customise look
- build own clients (ads for promoting your own site?)
- integrated HUD
- keyboard shortcuts

Wikipedia in 10 top websites in whole world- funded on donations. Poker players are rich and not even pokerstars sees as much traffic as wiki. We could easily run a server on donations. Might cost $1000/year (probably not even)

The only problem is whether fish/players will come. We have 1 advantage- it's for Linux + open, and uses bitcoin, so already we get 2 untapped player pools
Look at PokerTH (Linux play money client) usage statistics on their website- there's a few hundred users and it's the only shitty bad Poker client that exists on Linux. They're run off donated hardware and programmed by volunteers. Try the windows client out. I'm convinced I can do 1000x better than them

Accepting donations to genjix on PS if you want to help me out It's really surprising how shitty the Poker sites software is considering all the millions pumped into them. For the $5k in rake I gave PS this year, I expect the best software in the world. Fact: it's really quite meek and lame. Instead it's a bit of a bolt on design, add some nice features every so often like coloured notes .etc fuck the system

On October 20 2010 07:11 genjix2 wrote: Don't waste your time on this movement- support me. Took me 3 days to put together. I used to be a games developer so I'm like an expert in this area. I've also written other Poker software before, http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/825616/Linux_PT3_HUD.html http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/710030/PokerTracker3_with_Linux.html Last year I made $10k at NL50 but haven't played much this year. Anyway I don't plan to stop until I have this finished. Everything will be released public and anyone can start their own servers to run their own games. The legal/money issue is a non-issue since we can use bitcoin. - rake free - no trackers - built in pokerstove - auto-fold - customise look - build own clients (ads for promoting your own site?) - integrated HUD - keyboard shortcuts Wikipedia in 10 top websites in whole world- funded on donations. Poker players are rich and not even pokerstars sees as much traffic as wiki. We could easily run a server on donations. Might cost $1000/year (probably not even) The only problem is whether fish/players will come. We have 1 advantage- it's for Linux + open, and uses bitcoin, so already we get 2 untapped player pools Look at PokerTH (Linux play money client) usage statistics on their website- there's a few hundred users and it's the only shitty bad Poker client that exists on Linux. They're run off donated hardware and programmed by volunteers. Try the windows client out. I'm convinced I can do 1000x better than them Accepting donations to genjix on PS if you want to help me out It's really surprising how shitty the Poker sites software is considering all the millions pumped into them. For the $5k in rake I gave PS this year, I expect the best software in the world. Fact: it's really quite meek and lame. Instead it's a bit of a bold on design, add some nice features every so often like coloured notes .etc fuck the system

Shouldn't we set up something on sourceforge or something? Something with an SVN and forum. Also, I really think we should be trying to find other poker players who are developers from forums other than just this one. There are bound to be skilled programmers and people with good ideas elsewhere as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_mythical_man-month
10 part time programmers is less than 1 full time skilled programmer.

I want to buy Qt support (€1500)
http://qt.nokia.com/products/pricing/pricing
I have money for just under a year of living, so paying for that will strain me. I'll post a running total here, goal: $2500

I do need a helper to pick up loose ends and a couple of guys (Fudyann from here) are helping out. Fudyann has some really great long term ideas. Also have a cambridge educated mathematician and various people assisting/lending me servers. Kind of nice to see it all fitting together

Prokaz, $300... thanks

On October 14 2010 08:53 Bejamin1 wrote: That's why you need the players to organize and take meaningful action. You need petitions signed by 10,000+ Regs. You need legitimate threats to short tournaments like The Sunday Million by boycotting them so that they miss their guarantee by hundreds of thousands of dollars, You need people mass sitting out on 24+ tables simultaneously for as often as they have a computer within reach to block tables and disrupt play for everyone including fish. Spread the word publicly by blog and in the chat on Pokerstars. Pokerstars, FTP, and the other big sites are raking the games dry. This is especially true at the microstakes which are disproportionately effected. It has a trickle up effect at higher stakes because less players advance to donate money higher up. It is in everyone's best interest to fight for lower rake. I want people to start fighting for this issue.

Damn Communist

How about encouraging new sites to appear with lower rakes and just steal the players away from pokerstars. This has a much better chance of success. (slim instead of none)

On October 20 2010 13:43 curtinsea wrote: Show nested quote + On October 14 2010 08:53 Bejamin1 wrote: That's why you need the players to organize and take meaningful action. You need petitions signed by 10,000+ Regs. You need legitimate threats to short tournaments like The Sunday Million by boycotting them so that they miss their guarantee by hundreds of thousands of dollars, You need people mass sitting out on 24+ tables simultaneously for as often as they have a computer within reach to block tables and disrupt play for everyone including fish. Spread the word publicly by blog and in the chat on Pokerstars. Pokerstars, FTP, and the other big sites are raking the games dry. This is especially true at the microstakes which are disproportionately effected. It has a trickle up effect at higher stakes because less players advance to donate money higher up. It is in everyone's best interest to fight for lower rake. I want people to start fighting for this issue. Damn Communist How about encouraging new sites to appear with lower rakes and just steal the players away from pokerstars. This has a much better chance of success. (slim instead of none)

Incorrect. You must realize that if any new poker site was launched that had a different rake structure than Pokerstars and had any success whatsoever FTP & Pokerstars would instantly match the rake scheme and steal all the customers right back.

The best chance is continued protest in a meaningful way + an open source project like what Gen is working on. Security will be the primary concern with such a project though.

On October 20 2010 07:11 genjix2 wrote: Don't waste your time on this movement- support me. Took me 3 days to put together. I used to be a games developer so I'm like an expert in this area. I've also written other Poker software before, http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/825616/Linux_PT3_HUD.html http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/710030/PokerTracker3_with_Linux.html Last year I made $10k at NL50 but haven't played much this year. You can see me talking about gamedev at a conference, http://www.youtube.com/user/lumaix I was a guest speaker at worlds largest gamedev conference: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=452500 Made some games, blaa blaa... Anyway enough promotion, I don't plan to stop until I have this finished. Everything will be released public and anyone can start their own servers to run their own games. The legal/money issue is a non-issue since we can use bitcoin. - rake free - no trackers - built in pokerstove - auto-fold - customise look - build own clients (ads for promoting your own site?) - integrated HUD - keyboard shortcuts Wikipedia in 10 top websites in whole world- funded on donations. Poker players are rich and not even pokerstars sees as much traffic as wiki. We could easily run a server on donations. Might cost $1000/year (probably not even) The only problem is whether fish/players will come. We have 1 advantage- it's for Linux + open, and uses bitcoin, so already we get 2 untapped player pools Look at PokerTH (Linux play money client) usage statistics on their website- there's a few hundred users and it's the only shitty bad Poker client that exists on Linux. They're run off donated hardware and programmed by volunteers. Try the windows client out. I'm convinced I can do 1000x better than them Accepting donations to genjix on PS if you want to help me out It's really surprising how shitty the Poker sites software is considering all the millions pumped into them. For the $5k in rake I gave PS this year, I expect the best software in the world. Fact: it's really quite meek and lame. Instead it's a bit of a bolt on design, add some nice features every so often like coloured notes .etc fuck the system

I would be very happy to help promote your work. I think one thing you could do that would be very significant for yourself is get in touch with a couple of very famous and well respected people at LP, 2+2, and the other major poker forums. Have some meetings and conversations with these people. Perhaps bring them in as partners. The most important thing is going to be safety and security of such an open source project. I think 100% you can do it and go out and get the same recognition for your RNG as Pokerstars as well as run the program with the same security features which aren't all that complex. That's going to be priority one though for sure.

A poker site run entirely by donations & advertising would absolutely work and I'm certain of that as I'm sure you are as well. I will fully support you in this endeavour and do whatever I can to help you. I think it's important we get the word out about this project. I think what you should do is start a blog about your work on this. Then get the major forums to make a post every time you update this blog and help you with generating donations/finding other people who would like to help for free on the project the same way Wikipedia was built. I'm sure there are tons of talented people out there who would be willing to help you with this.

Okay so heads up everyone. I think we've had some really good discussion here. I'm not really interested in a prolonged debate about whether it is or is not possible to make a real difference. There is value in the struggle and there is value in having a group of people who are dedicated to organizing the players to give the consumer a voice. We probably won't get everything we want, we certainly won't get it right away, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth making a fuss over and building up a meaningful movement to deal with the problem. So I'm going to collect e-mails from anyone who wants to take meaningful action. I'll come up with ideas for our activism and I'll start up a blog in the next few days to track the progress.

Anyone who wishes to be involved and help with the movement to lower the rake/build an open source competitor to these big greedy sites leave your e-mail in this thread or send me a PM!

Most of the activism commitments won't take a lot of time. It will be as simple as forwarding an e-mail to Pokerstars once a day. Making sure to forward it directly to every single one of the Pokerstars addresses including departments unrelated. There are lots of things we can do.

i m w/ u guys



no but srsl too many posts to read, cliffs?

On October 20 2010 15:22 Bejamin1 wrote: Show nested quote + On October 20 2010 13:43 curtinsea wrote:   On October 14 2010 08:53 Bejamin1 wrote: That's why you need the players to organize and take meaningful action. You need petitions signed by 10,000+ Regs. You need legitimate threats to short tournaments like The Sunday Million by boycotting them so that they miss their guarantee by hundreds of thousands of dollars, You need people mass sitting out on 24+ tables simultaneously for as often as they have a computer within reach to block tables and disrupt play for everyone including fish. Spread the word publicly by blog and in the chat on Pokerstars. Pokerstars, FTP, and the other big sites are raking the games dry. This is especially true at the microstakes which are disproportionately effected. It has a trickle up effect at higher stakes because less players advance to donate money higher up. It is in everyone's best interest to fight for lower rake. I want people to start fighting for this issue. Damn Communist How about encouraging new sites to appear with lower rakes and just steal the players away from pokerstars. This has a much better chance of success. (slim instead of none) Incorrect. You must realize that if any new poker site was launched that had a different rake structure than Pokerstars and had any success whatsoever FTP & Pokerstars would instantly match the rake scheme and steal all the customers right back.

But wouldn't that achieve the goal of reducing the rake? Surely you can see that the sites need to make money in order to stay viable. Maintaining security has got to be a constant expense, and I'm sure legal is quite another high cost of doing business.

only real thing to be worried about is collusion and seeing hole cards. stars and ftp seem to be catching bots when they want to lure ppl into playing again in their site by "depositing" some money that u were allegedly cheated on. they dont even tell ppl who those bots are since we will have an idea how many hands weve played against them.
ive heard from some guy his friend got caught botting at stars and all stars did was tell him to stop lol

On October 20 2010 15:22 Bejamin1 wrote: Show nested quote + On October 20 2010 13:43 curtinsea wrote:   On October 14 2010 08:53 Bejamin1 wrote: That's why you need the players to organize and take meaningful action. You need petitions signed by 10,000+ Regs. You need legitimate threats to short tournaments like The Sunday Million by boycotting them so that they miss their guarantee by hundreds of thousands of dollars, You need people mass sitting out on 24+ tables simultaneously for as often as they have a computer within reach to block tables and disrupt play for everyone including fish. Spread the word publicly by blog and in the chat on Pokerstars. Pokerstars, FTP, and the other big sites are raking the games dry. This is especially true at the microstakes which are disproportionately effected. It has a trickle up effect at higher stakes because less players advance to donate money higher up. It is in everyone's best interest to fight for lower rake. I want people to start fighting for this issue. Damn Communist How about encouraging new sites to appear with lower rakes and just steal the players away from pokerstars. This has a much better chance of success. (slim instead of none) Incorrect. You must realize that if any new poker site was launched that had a different rake structure than Pokerstars and had any success whatsoever FTP & Pokerstars would instantly match the rake scheme and steal all the customers right back. The best chance is continued protest in a meaningful way + an open source project like what Gen is working on. Security will be the primary concern with such a project though.

wat

On October 20 2010 18:56 whamm! wrote: only real thing to be worried about is collusion and seeing hole cards. stars and ftp seem to be catching bots when they want to lure ppl into playing again in their site. they dont even tell ppl who those bots are since we will have an idea how many hands weve played against them. ive heard from some guy his friend got caught botting at stars and all stars did was tell him to stop lol

Well chances are every low stakes player plays regularly with bots especially limit poker and stud. Poker clients' software is already intrusive enough as it is, but it's not going to be able to catch the smart ones. So there will always be bots regardless, but PS and FTP does still catch quite a few random cheaters and colluders. The actual security of an open source poker system if well implemented shouldn't be a problem, but these issues like collusion and botting are. There would need to be some kind of way for someone or something to analyze the evidence indiscriminately and have the authority to do something once a conclusion is reached.
I think the best part of an open source poker room though will that people won't be able to claim the site is rigged.

i would love a site with not much rake and no superuser cunts. i dont mind playing with some bots but only worry is colluders which is definitely hard to stop.
site would be very attractive to losing players and fish alike since most live fish who play online claim it(online poker sites run by big business) is rigged against them anyway. i dont think promoting the site is a huge concern, the internet is so viral even to poker fish surfing the net its realy silly to say attracting them will be a problem. only problem i see here is security of games(colluding mainly) and financial concerns(xfers, withdrawals etc)
this is very much like linux vs windows but this time we should not act as if the sites have control over us but actually the opposite. cmon guys , give this thing a chance also this is an awesome leverage tool for getting lower rake if ever stars becomes aware of this haha

imagine when the money u save is relative to being sne (70%)