GGPoker, Elky and Fedor: HS Regs' Perspective
After the events of the last few weeks, I wanted to write a post detailing what has happened with GG from the perspective of the HS community.
I personally haven't been playing much poker in the last year, but as a moderator in the HS group have a good oversight of the situation.
For anyone unaware, on November the 8th GG Poker:
- Removed VIP games
- Added Exclusive games where a host gives access
- Added 2knl with an exact copy of 1knl rake, 8bb/100 at the tables
Background to our relationship with GG:
- March 2023 - GG doubles rake at VIP tables overnight with no announcement. Regs realise through TOCs, and organise a mass boycott of the games.
- April 2023 - Elky acting as a rep for GG helps to present the data we provide on why this rake structure change will hurt their bottom line. We close the boycott with just a small rake increase, reduced rake 2-3 handed, and the promises to work more closely together in future
- April 2023 - Early 2024 - We provide a lot of data to GG poker about rake and action from other sites, mainly with the aim of reducing 2-3 handed rake so pros can battle each other, start tables, as they do elsewhere. Elky seems receptive and on board, but GG themselves don't believe that pros will play pros at any rake structure, despite the overwhelming evidence from ACR.
- In the same period, GG agree to give us more input to security, and some long term consensus cheating accounts disappear. Elky goes as far to say he will instantly freeze accounts for investigation, if the HS group mods are 90% sure they are cheating,. We take this bar very seriously, collecting evidence on many accounts, but only use it on two occasions.
- January 2024 - GG Changes their game integrity format, with Fedor as the new game integrity advisor
- Feb 2024 - myself and the PLO rep meet with Fedor on call, and discuss the issues we think are most important. I felt it was a very useful call, he communicated GGs standpoint on various issues, made it seem easier to understand, and also seemed open some ideas we had.
- Feb 2024 to present - Fedor and Elky respond with delays in the chat, but generally I'd say the relationship was good, things didn't get any worse on GG poker. Since then we only reported 2 accounts cheating, both were investigated at least, albeit with a long delay. The second account, Dennis Vetter, was still cheating and playing up to the last day of the VIP games, albeit only reported a week or so before. In the latter months Elky was kind of AFK, we heard he had some sickness so thought it could be that.
So in general, although things were not ideal obviously with high rake, low WR - GG poker seemed to be making an effort with GI and at least there was a line between players and the business.
I would also note that personally I endeavoured to only suggest ideas that would both be beneficial for the regs, and the business (lower rake HU and 3handed the most obvious example), hoping that this would keep some mutual respect rather than spamming with pie in the sky thinking.
My general feeling from these interactions was that:
- GG is profit maximising, but a smart company in general
- Elky was genuinely trying to make an effort to protect player interests. Fedor harder to get a read on, on occasions felt like he wasn't properly reading our messages fully and didn't really think we understood the landscape or situation. EG I provided a report with 4 GTOwiz hits for the same player, and noted that there were infinite more (it was every hand) but I would avoid spamming as they have already been emailed to support, and he responded a month later with a message about how GTOwiz hits can't be used as evidence and this case doesn't look particularly obvious.
For me personally this was a bit frustrating as I was filtering hard which reports from the HS community I thought merited being pushed to this level.
This brings us to early November:
Rumours start to abound that GG are making HS games private. We ask Elky for information, he says on 07/11:
Less than 24 hours later, he is in the middle of a marathon 10 hour session with a table full of recs in these new exclusive games.
Meanwhile, I message Fedor privately to ask what's going on. He says Elky will have to answer, and he has no insight to that part of the company, but he's not planning to play the games.
I message Elky saying I will publish something but can wait for his comment, and he says he'll have something by end of the day - but sends nothing.
Fedor then starts to grind the games too, pming to say he'll probably be playing here and there after all.
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My conclusions from this period are as follows:
GG
GG is a business, it cares about it's bottom line.
It didn't believe HS games were profitable after transaction costs, game integrity, so decided to privatise them with hosts, and raise the rake. I mostly believe the that they didn't much profit from these games. Recreationals have very high PVIs and acquisition costs,
I think over time regs will be allowed back in to increase the liquidity, obviously paying higher rake, likely giving some % of their action the game runners.
What seems clear though is that GG doesn't care about poker as competition/meritocracy or the HS dream.
Despite overwhelming evidence, they maintain that regs won't play regs no matter the rake.
The profitable variants that remain on GG website are largely only profitable through promotions. At 1knl a huge % of regs w/r comes from promotions (leaderboard, envelopes) that GG can pull at any point.
And from the leaks from PokerOK CEO/ other sources privy to their plans, it seems they aren't really concerned about it being possible to win in the long run. If they haven't come for your format now, they will in future.
There is nothing morally wrong with businesses pursuing maximum profit imo, and maybe they should be expected to. In GGs pursuit of growth, they actually resurrected HS poker too, probably benefitting most 500nl+ players to this point.
But if you are a poker player representing the business, with the information I have it seems you have to concede that you care more about the business than the other players or poker as a competitive game, which brings me to;
Elky and Fedor
Their brand is attached to GG. Until this recent period I genuinely would say I believe they were just realistic people who cared about the players interests, but understood they were operating within a business framework and radical change is unrealistic.
This last period though has made me question this assumption to say the least, and unless any further information comes to light, it seems reasonable to say they care more about their bottom line than the game itself.
This is also fine, it's not in my personal taste, especially if already extremely wealthy, but people through the whole of history have prioritised their own financial situation over 'moral' interests. It can also be debated if 'protecting the ability to win at poker HS' is a moral interest, but for me it's the thing that drew me to the game. No politics, just strategy, and the ability to test your strategy vs whomever you'd like.
It doesn't make them evil or bad, but silence on this particularly in Elkys case does mean they can't claim to be champions of the game in my opinion, and this should be acknowledged.
What can we do
Publicly support sites and ambassadors that do seem to have interest in maintaining the game, and the opportunity to play highstakes.
Right now this is:
- ACR, whose reps have been very responsive to feedback from the HS community in general, albeit maybe lacking the business competence of GG
- CoinPoker, with new ownership, Pads, big interesting promos coming
- WPTpoker, with HS games and competent GI as far as I can tell, and an interest in engaging with the players
Research rake and please think before you aimlessly play these new games GG offer. and vindicate their decision making. I counted 80 entries into 2k yesterday with 4 profitable seats.
Honestly though, when one site has the monopoly and seems to be trying to push it, it's almost every other platform.
For anyone reading from these or other sites, we have a discord with all the HS players in which we coordinated to try and make GI easier, streamline investigations and reports, feel free to reach out.
Any reasonable questions I'll do my best to answer in the thread.
I'm more disappointed on the GG ambassadors using this opportunity to syphon as much money out of the ecosystem as they can by using their position in order to keep every other reg (better than them) out of the games
I'm more disappointed on the GG ambassadors using this opportunity to syphon as much money out of the ecosystem as they can by using their position in order to keep every other reg (better than them) out of the games
and every reg they're doing it to would do the same exact thing if they were in the ambassadors position.
and every reg they're doing it to would do the same exact thing if they were in the ambassadors position.
And it would still be fair to critisize if that happened.
Why are you guys trying to middle of the road this issue? Defending GG and fedor/elky is still going to be detrimental for you and the community as a whole.
You should speak up about things that hurt yours and the community's interests.
I'm not saying this or that is moral/immoral, I'm just saying we want the poker dream to be alive, we love competition and the "sport" of poker and these guys are on a quest to ruin it at this point. Right now these guys are playing 4 handed vs a whale at 10knl, they won't even allow enough liquidity to fill a table, that's the level of greed and short sightedness
I'm not projecting it's absolutely true. Pretend otherwise if you want. Lol@ thinking a bunch of pros turn would down the chance to play with all whales if it freezes out other pros. That's adorable.
Fat man coming down the chimney with presents next month too?
And it would still be fair to critisize if that happened.
Why are you guys trying to middle of the road this issue? Defending GG and fedor/elky is still going to be detrimental for you and the community as a whole.
You should speak up about things that hurt yours and the community's interests.
I'm not saying this or that is moral/immoral, I'm just saying we want the poker dream to be alive, we love competition and the "sport" of poker and these guys are on a quest to ruin it at this point. Right n
If he said it sucks for those not in the "club" id agree.
But when he says he's disappointed elky and company are doing exact what 99.9 percent of people being frozen out would do it's ridiculous.
It's not surprising or disappointing when poker pros act in their best own interest. It is shocking the rare times it doesn't happen.
The competition and sport (lmao@ pretending it's a sport)of poker stuff is absolute nonsense for basically anyone grinding these games. They're doing it for the money. Nothing wrong with that but that's call a spade a spade.
If he said it sucks for those not in the "club" id agree.
But when he says he's disappointed elky and company are doing exact what 99.9 percent of people being frozen out would do it's ridiculous.
It's not surprising or disappointing when poker pros act in their best own interest. It is shocking the rare times it doesn't happen.
The competition and sport (lmao@ pretending it's a sport)of poker stuff is absolute nonsense for basically anyone grinding these games. They're doing it for the money. No
I will never understand ppl defending this unless they benefit directly from the change (aka the 3 regs playing whales 10h a day 4 handed) but you do you bud
I will never understand ppl defending this unless they benefit directly from the change but you do you bud
Your reading comprehension isn't good.
I can understand people being upset about it.
That's all well and good and makes sense when it negatively impacts them.
As I already said if they want changes to be undone they need to make GG see it's costing GG money long term bc they're a business and that's what they care about.
What doesn't make sense is someone acting shocked the players who benefited from this are taking advantage of it or pretending those not in the "club" wouldn't do the same thing if GG gave them the chance.
The fake moral outrage is comical.
and every reg they're doing it to would do the same exact thing if they were in the ambassadors position.
It's actually not remotely true.
Lots of people when they are set for life, and take position of ambassador, care more about reputation and integrity than a bit of extra money they never need to spend.
It's also significantly different for an ambassador to be grinding these than a reg who was mistakenly given access too imo, when you accept an ambassadorial position it's generally with the understanding, and a lot of social media spiel that you care about the game and supporting the players
I'm not projecting it's absolutely true. Pretend otherwise if you want. Lol@ thinking a bunch of pros turn would down the chance to play with all whales if it freezes out other pros. That's adorable.
Fat man coming down the chimney with presents next month too?
Literally logged in for firet time in a year just to say you are wrong.
I quit my role with GG to avoid going down this path that you say no "reg" would ever take.
I was nowhere near the level of these ambassadors of course but it was the eventual goal. Other streamers went through the same dilemma.
There are non-streamers who have done the same, most notably Jason Koon.
Stop saying everyone would do it just because you can never see yourself turning down money for integrity.
Your reading comprehension isn't good.
I can understand people being upset about it.
That's all well and good and makes sense when it negatively impacts them.
As I already said if they want changes to be undone they need to make GG see it's costing GG money long term bc they're a business and that's what they care about.
You don't seem to understand what actually went down here. This was ELKYS IDEA. It's a massive difference to make up some master mind plan how you can make as much money as possible as a ambassador than simply saying yes or no to playing said games. For better or worse I honestly think 99% of people couldn't even think of this idea. Like even the most greedy ambassador would have to be really ambitious to pull it off.
Same here, couldn't read Borg's nonsense anymore. Surprisingly, after logging in I found out he is already on my ignore list 😀 . He is just a troll, no point having discussion with him.
Ggbruce, is there a proof it was Elkys idea? That is quite something if true...
Misha innerpshy 1 week after changes HS graph. He is over 300k+ up after yesterdays stream as well.
Minthon (GG plo guy) i think is up ~150+ as well (not sure about exact numbers with him but he had few 100k+ sessions).
Btw my prev. post wasnt about that i like what GG/ambassadors are doing.
I honestly dont care.
GG has been scam for all non MTT/HS players for a very, veeery long time.
I mean EVERYONE with half brain literarily for YEARS now (incl. many HS guys themselves) were saying - DONT play GG cash unless u play 5k+ HS due to this scum site being barely profitable unless u grind 16h/day for leaderboards insanity lower. With all their nontransparent scum PVI pseudo advertised RB system pf rake etc (and obv highest rake online on top of that). Its just a very well known fact. Beyond all monetaker blabla bs as well (which is least of my concern tbh).
But games work in geometrical progression - the more promotion site gets the more dumb ppl will come and play it, incl. all tiers of players.
Problem is most other sites follow same direction now as they see `what u can get away with`. Because they always follow the trend/biggest leader route. Monkey see monkey do.
My point was about the fact that HS regs actively participated in promoting that scam playing these games making millions and doing insane amount of marketing to promote this scum site, thus them being scam themselves (as are GG ambassadors).
Noone blames neither HS/ambassadors, dont get me wrong - id do EXACTLY the same. Its super natural.
Its just that - dont come to poker forum with `shields of light` OP posts (blaming elky etc) when scamGG finally hits you with a scam change. Esp referring to community how everyone should know and care.
Because that really looks lets say `very odd`, and not very `cool`.
That sounds beyond pathetic at this point. Not many people care at this point (i certainly dont care what HS players have to say on poker forums online, esp when they say how any of that can affect whole lower stakes ecosystem or if its scam change or not looool. Or how GG wont `rake enough now` look how dumb their changes are with empty lobbies - that one is hilarious as well, certainly no self interest there, even if point is entirely not relevant to reality of how deposits/transactions(esp w huge amounts of $)/raking system for poker sites work)
Its like with that old saying about screaming `wolf coming` for 5th time noone will believe.
Have fun playing poker online in 2025. My condolences.
I'm not projecting it's absolutely true. Pretend otherwise if you want. Lol@ thinking a bunch of pros turn would down the chance to play with all whales if it freezes out other pros. That's adorable.
Fat man coming down the chimney with presents next month too?
Did you forgot about the recent boycott? There were tables full of whales and 99% of pros didn't join.
Future generations, do not give up on your studies to play online poker. Have a plan B. This way, you won't be forced to play on a site that is a rip off to be able to pay rent and food and be forced to accept things like what just happened.
Misha innerpshy 1 week after changes HS graph. He is over 300k+ up after yesterdays stream as well.
Minthon (GG plo guy) i think is up ~150+ as well (not sure about exact numbers with him but he had few 100k+ sessions).
I don't think people realize how much the regs are winning in private games they control vs public games with 5 other regs with positive bb/100 expectation and an artificial cap on winrate
It's hard to believe people that have so much money would play so bad by reg standards and keep coming back for more when you aren't used to a big fish pool but there is a shocking number of people who want to do just that with the right group of people. If you are a good recruiter who knows a lot of people you can find people forever.
GG able to offer 6-9 figure shark tanks for anyone they want to set up is pretty game changing but still think they will bring back public high stakes games for people who want to play. Really surprised someone wouldn't just offer the same thing with a lower rake system where the winners actually get to keep more of the money. I imagine that's coming soon - easy opportunity for a site to make a big splash and give the people what they want. If GG can shift the operator meta to run all your clubs on here - it's an easy sell to someone looking for a seemingly legitimate place to set up their game. A massive value proposition for the runner and a potential rev share stream for GG to scale as high as they want. Haven't played much on ClubGG but this is what they built there and lot of regs are elevating to big money status on that network. The money is worth it to them.
Coinpoker hired lot of GG people so expect them to take the good things they learned there and get to work. Everyone sees this as a big opportunity they can capitalize on. GG probably has some good reasons for wanting to not deal with it anymore.
How long will the agent/crypto meta hold strong for the sites to build on - the content/crypto boom is changing the game for a poker site attracting players so more operators are getting in the game and the industry is starting to attract more attention
And it would still be fair to critisize if that happened.
Why are you guys trying to middle of the road this issue? Defending GG and fedor/elky is still going to be detrimental for you and the community as a whole.
You should speak up about things that hurt yours and the community's interests.
I'm not saying this or that is moral/immoral, I'm just saying we want the poker dream to be alive, we love competition and the "sport" of poker and these guys are on a quest to ruin it at this point. Right n
Exactly how is pointing out most HS regs are hypocrites or liars defending GG? It is just being pointed out that those that want to be allowed to play losing whales while not being willing to give those that find the whales the lion's share are over valuing how important their ability to beat the whales at poker vs the ability to gather the whales to a poker game. And anyone actually interested in the "sport" of poker or the competition does not complain when they are not banned from playing other good players they just aren't allowed to fleece the marks.
So, what is the best solution here? To have both public and private highstakes tables, and let the whales decide against who they want to play? Same rake as before for the public ones until a whale sits?
Coinpoker hired lot of GG people so expect them to take the good things they learned there and get to work. Everyone sees this as a big opportunity they can capitalize on. GG probably has some good reasons for wanting to not deal with it anymore.
I sincerely believe they have made a major mistake that could cost GG their monopoly if another operator rises to the occasion. Their thinking might have been something like "well, who cares if we lose the HS crowd to another pokersite - it's more trouble than it's worth." That'd be fine if they just got rid of HS altogether, but everybody, regs and recs alike, can observe the VIP games and know that GG is not interested in hosting a fair competition. Now, if the other pokersites fumble the opportunity and fail to expand their business, then GG's player pool is not going anywhere. But if they don't ...
I sincerely believe they have made a major mistake that could cost GG their monopoly if another operator rises to the occasion. Their thinking might have been something like "well, who cares if we lose the HS crowd to another pokersite - it's more trouble than it's worth." That'd be fine if they just got rid of HS altogether, but everybody, regs and recs alike, can observe the VIP games and know that GG is not interested in hosting a fair competition. Now, if the other pokersites fumble the oppo
I disagree. Let me explain why. If you were a whale would you prefer a table with 6 whales and 3 sharks or a table with 2 whales and 7 sharks? Finding sharks is easy. Finding whales is hard. GG is designing the game to appeal to the whales.
The competition and sport (lmao@ pretending it's a sport)of poker stuff is absolute nonsense for basically anyone grinding these games. They're doing it for the money. Nothing wrong with that but that's call a spade a spade.
I think online poker overall has more tendencies of "competition and sport"
It's not fair to project that, because there's lots of people just bumhunting and all they care is to take care of their interest, that everyone just thinks in that manner.
I always cared the most about just making money, but my approach to get to there was to also love the competition of poker and try to be better than other regs than to sleeze/weasle your way in somewhere.
And I have observed lots of HS online regs just battling short handed and HU and enjoying the aspect of a "sport" much more than trying to squeeze out max hourly ev.
So even though I think your projection is accurate for majority of what poker players to tend to do, I don't think it's an absolute, and I think lots of HS regs do really enjoy competition and I think we should celebrate and reward them for that.
I disagree. Let me explain why. If you were a whale would you prefer a table with 6 whales and 3 sharks or a table with 2 whales and 7 sharks? Finding sharks is easy. Finding whales is hard. GG is designing the game to appeal to the whales.
How about we give them both options. GG could have restricted access high stakes tables and public high stakes tables. If a whale wants to challenge themselves against Linus they should have that option or if there’s no games running with other whales
How about we give them both options. GG could have restricted access high stakes tables and public high stakes tables. If a whale wants to challenge themselves against Linus they should have that option or if there’s no games running with other whales
It really doesn't make sense why they wouldn't do this.
You could have public games. and restricted tables, and then they could just reach out to whales that playing on public games and try to get them to restricted tables, and that would be more fair open market place balancing out all site-regs-recs interests.
Maybe these GG pros really just angled their way trying to take 100% of the market.
I think there's a very good case could be made in life to work at "8/10 effort and efficiency" instead of trying to get to 100% CPU, because from my personal experience you guys get overwhelmed by trying to push for too high CPU and start missing obvious things.
I feel like this could be the case where GG haven't thought everything out that much and just listened to "sponsored pros" and trying to increase the efficiency from 8/10 to 9/10, but overall gamble is not a good gamble for them. (they had it very good already with the HS tables being popular and them charging big enough rake)
Also, someone like Elky, I don't think his stock is that high... I think you guys might over rate his ev.
This is the guy that is likely not that competent and wasn't really able to beat the games for year? And now he didn't really comprehend his actual skillset abilities and just managed to get his way into some "juicy whale games", but these games are at 1.2bb rake cap no rakeback and he is playing much higher stakes than he is used to at games where he was never that decent anyway.
I just think Elky's stock in this whole ordeal is just overpriced and he is fish out of water there himself anyway. #my 2 cents but I could be wrong about it.
I think online poker overall has more tendencies of "competition and sport"
So even though I think your projection is accurate for majority of what poker players to tend to do, I don't think it's an absolute, and I think lots of HS regs do really enjoy competition and I think we should celebrate and reward them for that.
No one is stopping them from competing with each other they just are stopping them from fleecing the marks so it is a lie to claim this is about wanting competition. Indeed the point is to be given access to players specifically because they are not actual competition. And why should good poker players be given monetary awards? I understand they want them but they want others to do the hard work of getting the whales while they get the bigger share of the profit.
Give a fair market place and let the people decide.
What GG is doing now I am not convinced it's to GG's best interests.
