GGPoker killing the HS poker dream?
Recently it has come out that they are planning on making VIP games (5k+) invite only taking a path which many feared co
wonder what games (and where) HS crushers like Linus will play in coming months...
There was a large player pool of regs and recs that only play 10knl+ and just from tracked hands Daniil has played over 100k hands in a year at these limits (so not sure how you can say higher stakes than 5knl were rare on GG?). The big whales who play live games in Macau etc aren’t gonna drop down to 2knl and the semi-recs and weaker pros who jumped in to those higher games once tables started also won’t drop that low
Daniil playing 100k hands at 25/50+ is really a non factor in terms of rake generated compared to how much will be generated at 10/20 with the higher amount of tables + higher rake %, i'm sure someone could crunch the numbers there. Your point on them missing out on some big whales though I agree with, there's no denying that they've created a hole for regs/fish alike that don't want to play 10/20<
If I was the high stakes regs wanting to preserve my poker dream I would start investing in your own platform ASAP instead of devoting years of your energy into companies that want to make you obsolete
Invest in people who actually want to build what you want to be apart of
I would predict GG changes this back once another site starts to have a lot of success who play by the same rules they do. Poker players are tired of being disrespected by these poker companies. **** the regs is always an aggro strategy - banning the regs and then letting ambassadors open sit high stakes HU getting all the action seems super unfair to the other players.
Saying that you need to email our hosting service for an available host that you might have to pay some type of side arrangement with in addition to other club rules sounds like how Vegas works. The better relationship you have with the host and are of value to the host, the more comps, rewards, treatment, fees, etc. you receive. If you're willing to pay the right amount of money, that will usually get you a VIP experience almost anywhere. Showing off the high stakes games in the top of the lobby while everyone else is hanging out in the general admission 10/20 lobby.
GG buying the WSOP and then saying we are turning our online platform into a bunch of private clubs at the highest stakes and saying that is what high stakes cash game poker is reminds me of when PS removed SNE from the hardcore players and told the regs to go **** themselves - then DN left PS to go make the new poker dream at GG. A lot of new people are looking to invest in some version of the poker dream these days. I would go find them if you really want to keep this dream alive.
If they make it easy for regs to find there way into high stakes clubs and still win money without having to pay host fees - then it might work out well for them. If they make it impossible for some players to get into games and make money while also charging high host fees - people are going to think it's very unfair that this is what the WSOP is creating. That isn't what the WSOP is about imo - letting insiders make all the money while blocking out the rest of people from the same chance is the opposite of the WSOP brand.
When you go play the WSOP - you know that if you get on the waitlist for a high stakes cash game in the Kings room - you will get in the game. If you have the buy-in for an event you can enter the game. Private games exist around that event where you can find a different type of game but there is always the opportunity to play a public game if you can get a game running in the high stakes room. I think that's one of the big things that makes the WSOP special.
I would give it about two weeks until public is added back unless they have some other big issue. I don't see why the two worlds wouldn't be able to coexist if you put some effort into it and had smart people building the environment.
If I was the high stakes regs wanting to preserve my poker dream I would start investing in your own platform ASAP instead of devoting years of your energy into companies that want to make you obsolete
I am pretty surprised this hasn't happened already given how much money some of the top crushers won over time and the connections they have with mega rich businessmen. Too bad Galfond tried to do everything by the book, that method no longer works. GG, ACR and now Coin poker are showing us what you need to do to succeed as an online poker operator.
No, it's dead now after the change. There has been basically nothing running despite there being supposedly few pros allowed in the games.
I could be wrong but I think it is more likely they are just trying to kill off the nosebleed games for the general population and get people playing 1k and 2k. They want to protect recs from losing too much at highstakes. If I had to guess their invite list just includes well known recs/pros who GG know to have deep pockets. The move just doesn't make sense o
Sorry I misunderstood, I thought you were saying action at high stakes was dead even before these changes. Yeah obviously after the changes it looks terrible, and even if there was lots of volume it would be still be terrible because most people couldn't play high stakes now.
[QUOTE=ChicagoJoey;58786894]If I was the high stakes regs wanting to preserve my poker dream I would start investing in your own platform ASAP instead of devoting years of your energy into companies that want to make you obsolete
Invest in people who actually want to build what you want to be apart of /QUOTE]
Since what the HS regs seem to want is for the site to bring in the fish and let them cook and eat them why would ANY intelligent person running a site want to build your fishing hole rather than try to maximize their profits?
More insightful people should give their opinions in here imo - lots of people reading and are looking to give the players what they want
Lot of wealthy people are tired of worrying about getting cheated and looking to build/grow their own platform. It might be one of the only ways you can ensure you are getting a fair game these days. I do love that there is still a player pool who in 2024 doesn't care and is willing/wanting to still battle in that type of arena. If the Wizard AI is what is public imagine what is private these days. The 2024 modern dream machine. The neo boys are out blending in the wild. They have perfected their craft. It's never been easier to make epic software and people have been working on it for poker over 20 years.
It makes it even more impressive the natural players who get to the highest stakes and are able to win.
Would suggest more people read this article on what these guys strategy is, they are probably the biggest winners in online poker history: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-...
I don't see many people competing for the biggest brand in the poker world title w/ GG anytime soon after their WSOP purchase so they are in a powerful position to create whatever type of poker ecosystem they want. From my experience dealing with them they are open to what people want and what they have to say. They do have some really nice content ideas for the WSOP and beyond in taking the game of poker to another level maybe never seen before and I think a lot of people will hold them responsible for driving the WSOP brand where it goes next. Lots of people hate lower winrates, more rake, more private games but it seems like it doesn't stop many people from still playing.
[If I was the high stakes regs wanting to preserve my poker dream I would start investing in your own platform ASAP instead of devoting years of your energy into companies that want to make you obsolete
Invest in people who actually want to build what you want to be apart of /QUOTE]
Since what the HS regs seem to want is for the site to bring in the fish and let them cook and eat them why would ANY intelligent person running a site want to build your fishing hole rather than try to maximize the
It's competiting ideologies about poker
Some people love/care about the poker dream and want to build their business around real players winning money against other real players in an open competition environment while trying to provide the best safety you can to the players- that has been the meta for about 20 years now in some places. "We have the highest stakes games and anyone can make it there if they put in enough work. "
Licensing out your software to others to create their own clubs has been a massive trend since crypto came to the scene. It's not that surprising a site would decide to do that and switch the model around - you might end up with 100s of sick clubs putting on their own version of poker. It is surprising they would eliminate the traditional poker dream all together on their platform. Giving people a legit platform that is partnered with the WSOP to create your own games on is a pretty sick value proposition for GG. You get to build your own game w/ a rev share while plugging in your VIPs and regs to make the game on one of the most legitimate brands around. Very anti-poker to many people who are competitive hardcore players. Very GTO for a lot of other people who would laugh at the regs in here for the way they perceive that world.
Very different ideologies about the game and how you should win money at it.
GGPoker might be on another level here if they are making their platform more like YouTube and let anyone create their own game with their own TOS - go from one arena to 10000 arenas and taking a rev share from each. Support the best clubs and let them compete for the best games.
I think the reason a lot of these changes piss off regs is bc of how they perceive their rake should be used.
The original PokerStars model ostensibly was pros pay rake, PokerStars spends a ton of rake on marketing, marketing brings fish to the game who lose to pros.
The problem with this model is it creates an ecosystem where another business model just outright wins, which is games run around the whales, private games poach whales, private games comp whales out of the rake to keep them in the game, they don't go back to the public games. As a winning player this is better than rakeback because all of the rakeback ends up getting lost back on the table again instead of all of the rakeback being cashed out as winning player income, and you can usually just negotiate your own rakeback as well.
And if the original operators just spend more money on marketing, they bring in new whales, who then get poached as well.
The issues of technology and cheating and everything else are secondary to this main issue.
As a player in semi-private/private games I regularly poach players from public games. There's just a lot of incentive for me to do so. Bigger games don't run all the time so I'm often playing in a smaller public game waiting for the bigger game to open up. A player sits down dressed well, looks like they have money, don't care about the stakes, playing splashy. I let them know there's a bigger game happening soon and invite them. Maybe the game starts an hour earlier now because I got another player on the sign up list. The host loves me now because I brought another player into the game. One more reg gets frozen out of the lineup because there is a new VIP. The player is now friends with me because I invited him into a game that accommodates him better. If you're a miserable reg in the public game and get salty when I do this, it's not my problem I'm just doing what I'm incentivized to do.
It's not even really about politics or putting much effort into networking to get into games it's just about certain things that make you as a player good for the game or not. When I play I usually play until a game breaks, I'll play from 4PM to 4AM with no fuss. That's one of the biggest things that make you valuable as a player, if you're willing to always be at the table and keep the game going, even when it drops to 5 handed or 4 handed. I'm always very conscious when I take breaks, when the table is 8 handed and everyone is seated I have no problem taking a 15 minute break and walking around, talking to people outside of the game, eating food whatever. I'm never taking a break when the game is short handed and at risk of breaking though. Always being willing to get a straddle going, never starting arguments at the table that are not about the rules of the game when someone breaks one or angle shoots, keeping conversation going at the table, being willing to joke around when all in, there's lots of small things you can do and should do as a winning player.
There's a lot of games where it's played down to just me and the host at the end of the night and I've sat there like "do you want to play heads up?" and they say hell no you're way too good of a player for me to play heads up, it's cool let's call it. If you're regularly getting excluded from games it's not because you're a winning player.
I am pretty surprised this hasn't happened already given how much money some of the top crushers won over time and the connections they have with mega rich businessmen. Too bad Galfond tried to do everything by the book, that method no longer works. GG, ACR and now Coin poker are showing us what you need to do to succeed as an online poker operator.
Whatever happened to gelfonds site anyways? I never followed it closely but it seemed that the goal was to have a very good rake structure with a player first mentality. Very much like the old PokerStars
the answer is yes, they have gamified poker to much, they wanna gamify poker, how about I gamify their careers
Whatever happened to gelfonds site anyways? I never followed it closely but it seemed that the goal was to have a very good rake structure with a player first mentality. Very much like the old PokerStars
TLDR; cash game traffic a lot lower than expected, very few sign ups, no MTT's. Shut down and now trying to go the legal route into USA market.
IMO the no MTT's really hurt the site. Heard somewhere he was misinformed/misled by the software developers somewhere along the line too.
I really wish the best of luck to Phil for it in the future though, can't root against him.
More insightful people should give their opinions in here imo - lots of people reading and are looking to give the players what they want
Lot of wealthy people are tired of worrying about getting cheated and looking to build/grow their own platform. It might be one of the only ways you can ensure you are getting a fair game these days. I do love that there is still a player pool who in 2024 doesn't care and is willing/wanting to still battle in that type of arena. If the Wizard AI is what is pub
Think this is a very pessimistic view, chess is booming more than ever despite AI being stronger than ever. In chess it's used to catch cheaters, as it could in poker. The security is/could be stronger than ever. If someone is worried about getting cheated, public highstakes games is the best way to guarantee you are not getting cheated. 99% of guys playing these stakes have a great reputation and have been around for 5-15 years. Their hourly at the tables is way too high to ever risk cheating, most players are also friends/friendly so when the smallest suspicion arise it would get discussed by the top players.
Do you think there is less cheating in private highstakes live games than the triton ones/ept ones for example, or the ones in aria/bellagio?
Who are these designated hosts?
make pokerstars great again
best rake structure anyway
apparently GG sponsored pros get to choose
Now fish will play with people with impeccable reputation who have never done anything shady, like jungleman...
apparently GG sponsored pros get to choose
Elky, Minthon and Inner deciding who will be able to play all your HS games. LOL
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Btw, Kayhan is playing rn (the first cash reg i saw) but hes playing PLO5 only, which isnt his main game. Im pretty sure he bought in for 40k.
He's also holding one NLHE and one PLO, but he isnt playing on the only one that is running, i wonder if he wasnt allowed to.
4 tables running rn, all hosted by Elky
Prime time Sunday and not one table running. Looks like the whales will save their bankrolls, not by the new rules but by not playing at all. Not like 2knl is thriving so that the missed rake is made up, just a few tables there of leaderboard grinder regs battling each other for the bonus money...
Prime time Sunday and not one table running. Looks like the whales will save their bankrolls, not by the new rules but by not playing at all. Not like 2knl is thriving so that the missed rake is made up, just a few tables there of leaderboard grinder regs battling each other for the bonus money...
Disastrous decision unless their intention was to kill off these games. Hope GG can see sense and revert to the old VIP games. If not another site maybe Coinpoker has a massive opportunity to take over if they can get the high stakes fish on board
Disastrous decision unless their intention was to kill off these games. Hope GG can see sense and revert to the old VIP games. If not another site maybe Coinpoker has a massive opportunity to take over if they can get the high stakes fish on board
To be fair the only highstakes games running on Coin are reserved for fish and site employees as well so there isn't much of a difference.
