My take on the 'dump the skins fiasco'

[Jim Kuhn]

I do not receive any rakeback (probably like an idiot), don't play much on the party skins and don't really like the party skins overall. I do think this is a very serious time for party and the many players and friends here on 2+2. Party's decision will probably send a few pro's back to regular jobs and may cost the firm alot of profit and customers.

I have deleted several rakeback posts and considered banning a couple of regular posters. I have let alot of questionable discussions carry on and also did not delete the damage control $$ added tourney by Mike O'Malley. Mike has been a valuable poster here and carries our ideas back to Party management. He is trying to do his job AND help us poker players in general.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
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[sexdrugsmoney]

Jim, The skins have tightened up considerably, and after cashouts are processed some skins if not all could become graveyards at times like Bodog.

Party did the 'smart' thing, and now they have a monopoly, and have increased their profits hugely, especially since all the mutlitablers now can still do their thing minus the forbidden word.

Mike may be a walking "press release", but I doubt our feelings even if they did go back to Party will make changes.

Party wins, flawless victory.

/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[threeonefour]

[ QUOTE ]

Party did the 'smart' thing, and now they have a monopoly, and have increased their profits hugely, especially since all the mutlitablers now can still do their thing minus the forbidden word.


[/ QUOTE ]

this is all very not true. monopoly?????

[Exsubmariner]

[ QUOTE ]
cost the firm alot of profit and customers.


[/ QUOTE ]

You are absolutey correct. Especially after every self respecting 2+2'r resolves to never ever play another single hand on party ever again.

(cough cough) was nice, but I'm too vindictive let this fall by the wayside. Party management has a huge mountain to climb if they ever want another cent of rake from me and I would be very disappointed if this were not the case with a majority of players who are going to read this.

[ QUOTE ]
Mike has been a valuable poster here and carries our ideas back to Party management. He is trying to do his job AND help us poker players in general.


[/ QUOTE ]

I firmly believe you overestimate our friend. If he repeated half the things said here about Party Management he would be canned. He probably keeps his mouth shut and nods his head yes like every other corporate crony.

Yours Sincerely,
X
(edited for grammer)

[Jim Kuhn]

Party in one week may go from the largest poker site on the internet to the fourth or fifth. This could pave the way for other large sites to really increase market share. The impact on many pro's that are rakeback dependent multi-tablers could be devestating.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
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[sexdrugsmoney]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
Party in one week may go from the largest poker site on the internet to the fourth or fifth. This could pave the way for other large sites to really increase market share. The impact on many pro's that are rakeback dependent multi-tablers could be devestating.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
/images/graemlins/spade.gif /images/graemlins/diamond.gif /images/graemlins/club.gif /images/graemlins/heart.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

The sharks will go where the fish are, and the fish will go where the advertisements lead them, and Party outmarkets any other site.

While you may be right, and many 'breakeven' players who live of rakeback may go to the competitors, they may just get better at Poker. Party's allowing 10 tables now proves that they expect many of the mutli-tablers to migrate across to Party, because that's where the fishies are.

I think this is a smart move by Party who knew they had a base which was worth more exclusive than shared, but who knows, it could backfire on them? (I personally doubt it though)

Question is, will Empire go bust? Unlike Eurobet which has a sportsbook and casino, I imagine the 'exclusive' Party skins (should that be former Party skins?) will have to talk to their accountants.

[Precision1C]

I can see a similarity between this situation and the Athenian Empire and the Delian League. After decades of paying Athens to provide defense the members of the Delian League fond themselves basically clients since they had could no longer defend themselves versus Athens or others. Similiarly, after years of having Party Poker provide advertising and building a player base the other Party skins don't have independent platforms and the "fish" to go it alone.

Melian debate(paraphrase): There is justice only among equals, otherwise the strong take what they can and the weak give what they must. -Thucydides

[Jim Kuhn]

I agree with you. I think the skins will bail from the Party Network as soon as their contracts are up. I am surprised the skins did not have a clause in the contact binding PartyPoker.com to the skins network. The next year or two will be very interesting for the online poker world!

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
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[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
(cough cough) was nice, but I'm too vindictive let this fall by the wayside. Party management has a huge mountain to climb if they ever want another cent of rake from me and I would be very disappointed if this were not the case with a majority of players who are going to read this.


[/ QUOTE ]

absolutely retarded.

Barron

[smartalecc5]

Im in an AP history class and my teacher keeps preaching about how history repeats itself and you can predict the future by knowing your history. I like the Delian league analogy. I can't think of another example at the moment :'(

[Victor]

hahahahahahah

[TemetNosce]

I agree with your thinking on this completely.

While there is an opportunity here for other sites to pick up market share, it probably won't change much. I think Stars could do it because they already have a big player base, but they really don't have the incentive to offer "R" or more frequent bonuses, which is the primary inducement needed to pull in more people. The smaller sites already do "R" and bigger bonuses, that hasn't changed much of anything to this point.

Party has the multitablers by the balls and they know it. If you are a multitabler, are you going to go to Prima, etc. just for "R"? You might for a while, but with the lack of enough games you'll eventually go back to the Party fish pond. It's always been about the fish, it always will be.

This was a brilliant business decision by them, no matter if one likes it or not. And while we are at it, call in the priest. It's time to administer last rites to Empire/Eurobet/Multi/Intertops.

[aucu]

I'm expecting to see a marketing push from the skins and all the major sites trying to keep or pick up players during this shake up.

There should be some very good offers in the pipeline, even from Party.

[cardcounter0]

[ QUOTE ]
carries our ideas back to Party management

[/ QUOTE ]

Name one idea that management did that came from here via Mike.

[ QUOTE ]
He is trying to do his job

[/ QUOTE ]

His job is corporate shill, a mouth piece. He tries to convince you that the crap Party serves you on a plate tastes good and you should ask for more. Enjoy!

[ QUOTE ]
help us poker players in general

[/ QUOTE ]

See above. And above. Name one.

[Petomane]

What's all the fuss about? Players from the skins will move to Party, end of story. I primarily played on Empire until three months ago. I didn't like that Empire didn't have a phone number and couldn't receive my e-mails - I'd be nuts to leave any sizeable money there anyway. So I made the move and I'm happy. It's not about rakeback or TV sets, it's about the games.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
Especially after every self respecting 2+2'r resolves to never ever play another single hand on party ever again.


[/ QUOTE ]

Every self-respecting 2+2er is going to do whatever is best for his wallet. Period.

[villafan]

This creates a huge opportunity for Pokerstars (if they want a bigger market share). They do not have the same affiliate costs and network as Party, and can therefore start a rakeback program intented to lure the multi tabling rakemakers to Pokerstars. If they have a progressive rakeback system, Im sure they can offer an interesting deal to the big playrs.

i was talking to a crypto CS rep earlier bout a prob i was having there and just happened to throw in the question-what kinda big plans u hatching to reap the benefits of the fall out from the party thing?

reply - that is not part of our marketing campaign right now.

wtf?? if other sites dont make a push, status quo will be resumed (not that i think thats necessarily a bad thing)

[CORed]

I would kind of like to start a new thread for this one, but I'm respecting the moderators' request to refrain. If any moderators think this is worthy of it's own thread, feel free to make it so.

Yesterday's events have been a blow to a lot of people. I'm not one of them I play on Party without rakeback. However, in tough times, we need a little humor. I think yesterday's events are a historic occasion in online Poker, and need a name. I have a few suggestions to get the ball rolling.
1. Party's Pearl Harbor.
2. Black Saturday.
3. Satruday Sneak Attack.

There are a lot of creative people here, and I'm sure somebody can come up with something better. I'm sure a lot of folks will want to use profanity, and I can hardly blame them, but let's face it, [censored] [censored] Party [censored] [censored], just won't have much impact.

[Exsubmariner]

[ QUOTE ]
absolutely retarded.


[/ QUOTE ]

You mean like playing fish who are going flush every dollar they win from you into the "blackjack side bet." Sounds like a great way to keep them at the table.

Enjoy.

X

[ QUOTE ]
I would kind of like to start a new thread for this one, but I'm respecting the moderators' request to refrain. If any moderators think this is worthy of it's own thread, feel free to make it so.

Yesterday's events have been a blow to a lot of people. I'm not one of them I play on Party without rakeback. However, in tough times, we need a little humor. I think yesterday's events are a historic occasion in online Poker, and need a name. I have a few suggestions to get the ball rolling.
1. Party's Pearl Harbor.
2. Black Saturday.
3. Satruday Sneak Attack.

There are a lot of creative people here, and I'm sure somebody can come up with something better. I'm sure a lot of folks will want to use profanity, and I can hardly blame them, but let's face it, [censored] [censored] Party [censored] [censored], just won't have much impact.

[/ QUOTE ]

How about "The day the music died" from the STT forum.

[Exsubmariner]

[ QUOTE ]
Every self-respecting 2+2er is going to do whatever is best for his wallet. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. Agree.

I just opened an account on Pokershare through a fine affiliate.

X

[Sniper]

Newsflash... Today the Party ship "Titanic" avoided the huge "Iceberg" empire and arrived safely in port!

99.99%+ of all poker players could care less.

[mattw]

im atleast the third person to think of "the day the music died."

[Educator]

There is a lot of nonsense on this thread.

I am somewhat of an unwilling expert as I bought a fairly big chunk or Partygaming when it was first sold in the US. I knew the business, and since Warren Buffet is a smart man and says invest in what you know, I bought. I know how important it is for there to be many players on a site and Party was the dominant site and I also thought it was reasonably well run. I knew the business could never keep growing at the same rate it had in the years since Moneymaker won the World Series, but I assumed anybody with half a brain knew that and a slowing of the growth rate would not freak people out like it did. I was wrong. There were also a couple of other issues that left a bad taste in my mouth. Before they went public they posted an earnings statement, but they never mentioned that they were paying off a $750m loan that they had made to themselves to buy what appears to be the company that supplied the software and servers, which they of course already owned under a different name. This gave them a chance to extract money through a different path than selling stock and had the effect of lowering their previous years and first 'public' quarter earnings substantially. However, this is almost completely or is completely paid off (they are taking in huge amounts of money!!!) so the next earning should look dramatically better even if they don't grow at all.

With respect to the skins, they said they were going to dump them and that they found it a horrible business model even before they went public. Party doesn't give rake backs, but I got $200 for signing, another $150 two weeks later for making another deposit, and a month later was offered another $100. Given the amount I am playing it seems it has to be a better deal than if I was getting a 30% rake back. (I never play more than two games as my earnings seem to go down with more than that as I lose too much from not knowing who should be called, but this is a personal decision). I can understand why multigamers might suffer and while it is true that you are important, like unpaid props for the site, you are probably still a relatively small percent of their business. They probably feel it is better to use cash to generate new player than to keep you kids happy. They are also interested in expanding their casino operation as this is less cyclical and more profitable and they have the capital and means to expand into a business arena which now has high barriers to entry. That is the reason for the blackjack and the sidebets and the eventual direct connection to the casino. All of these things are not so good for the professional poker player, but not being good for you is not their principal concern. I have seen brick and mortar clubs increase the rake by going from time collections to a drop, institute jackpots and do all sorts of things that aren't good for professionals and end up only increasing their business.

I assume they are quite sure this will be good for them, though of course they could be as wrong as I was when I bought their stock, but thats horseracing. I am also sure they care what you think but not enough to continue with a business model they have known for a long time was not good for a big company in their market position.

Good luck to you all.

[barongreenback]

'Night of the wrong knives' - this is Party after all.
'Flayer day' or some variation.

[TemetNosce]

10/8/2005, A Day That Will Live In Infamy

[Maddenboy]

Uh, isnt "A.P." Advanced Placement?

As in, advanced placement into college courses?

As in, you are in High School? Anybody have a problem with High Schoolers playing online poker? Prolly been discussed, prolly not resolved, but did anyone catch this?

Does anyone care?

[Exsubmariner]

You sound like a good poster child for the saying:

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."

Party stock is down on this move. I think 10% so far today.
I'm sorry you've been scammed by the owners of party.

BTW - I am somewhat of an unwilling expert on how management scams it's shareholders. Trust me, this whole show stinks. Glad I don't play that game no more.

Good luck to you.

X

[Jim Morgan]

[ QUOTE ]

It's time to administer last rites to Empire/Eurobet/Multi/Intertops.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure this is true. On the other hand, I just got done withdrawing all my funds from Empire. I think I will wait a month or 2 to see how this plays out.

One thing confuses me about the Skins. Why did Party ever even create them in the first place? Seems like the skins could never really benefit Party. Why include them in the first place?

Jim

[Educator]

You are a good detective. I taught high school and 75% of the males in my senior class played on-line poker. This is their growth pool.

[MyTurn2Raise]

Looks like the high schools are the first place I'll be going to peddle sign-up bonus codes as an affiliate

[kyleb]

"I knew the business, and since Warren Buffet is a smart man and says invest in what you know, I bought."

*slaps head*

That is definitely not what he said. Warren Buffet is the man who is well-known for value investing. You're thinking of the stupid tagline that Peter Lynch used.

[warlockjd]

[ QUOTE ]
The impact on many pro's that are rakeback dependent multi-tablers could be devestating.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand how someone who depended on rakeback can be considered a 'pro.' Perhaps an illegal prop. Is an illegal prop a pro?