Re: Rake Free Sites
 

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No, people tried, it didn't work. Dutch Boyd's projects failed and Gus Hansen has a nice site with 50% rakeback, but there has been like no traffic there.

People go were fish are, fish don't understand rake, so rakefree doesn't do anything to get them.

You need money and fame to start a poker site. No one will put up the money if they don't think they will get money in return.

The existing poker sites have a vested interest in keeping the rake scheme. They will try to crush opposistion.

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I agree, It will take a wealthy company who is willing to pur lots of money into advertising in order to get it off the ground, however, once the site is off the ground it will be a smooth and fast transition. The market is ready for a shift. The fish dont care aobut rake, but they want games. We are the players that creat the games, we 8 table, we make up a strong portion of the player base, they come with us, we determine the market.

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That is part of the problem, you cannot effectively market a poker site in the U.S. because of restrictions on promoting gambling. I am not arguing whether that is really legal or not, it is just the way the big TV companies perceive and apply it. No new site is going to challenge Party w/o U.S. players and a new site is limited in getting new players through advertising avenues. Personally, I think Party loves the advertising restrictions in the U.S. because of that.

Vern

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

If all the winning players moved from party, the fish would follow. Note the fish think they are winning players, they want the best deals too. The fish wants lots of games and lots of players. 1 winning player has the usage of 5 fish.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

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The market is ready for a shift

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No it's not. I (and many others here), wish the market was ready for a shift, but it's not. Like others have said, the masses don't care about rake enough.

If a rakefree site is going to succeed, it is going to have to have a regular name, like partypoker, pokerstars, etc.... and have some type of rakefree scheme that goes along with it. It will probably need to start out high, like after you pay $1,000 in rake per month the rest of the month is rake free (so they can afford to offer bonuses and other promotions), once they have a big enough customer base, then they can gradually reduce the monthly fee.

Any new site that comes out with "rake" in it's name will most likely be destined to fail. Also, it's main focus can't be reduced rake. That will attrack the sharks and mega players like us that will go there anyways. They will need some type of promotion to attract the masses. Which, as demonstrated by many new sites today, is very hard to do.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

I'm not sure what the restrictions are here in the US, but here in Wa. State, where online poker is banned, PP underwrites NPR's all things considered. Pretty ballsy if you ask me

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

Geez, what is the different between a rake free site and a normal rake site?

At a rake site, you pay as you play.

At a rake free site, you pay up front. A rake free site is not truly rake free if you pay that rake in advance.

I would rather play at a rake site.

Meow.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

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What power do we have, "Hey all the good players are gonna leave so all your weak players won't lose as much to use, play more and make you more in rake!" I don't think if the entire 2+2 community left Party we would even be a blip on their radar, at least a negative one. If the rake gets to high to make a profit, as in your example, then yes, I move on, but if Party, after rake, is still the place I can make the most $/Hr, then that is the place I play. Sure I want the rake reduced, but the chances of that are slim and I don't see us as having any power to affect it.


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It is possible for say a site to cap your monthly rake at 500 or even 1000 per month and return the rest of your rake to high volume players. I am sure some site might be nice enough to let me only pay 12,000 a year to play poker. Seems like a lot of money to me. I could get a vacation house for that. Things like that will only happen if the level of disatifaction rasies. Teach the fish that excsive rake sucks, I hate those users.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

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The market is ready for a shift

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No it's not. I (and many others here), wish the market was ready for a shift, but it's not. Like others have said, the masses don't care about rake enough.

If a rakefree site is going to succeed, it is going to have to have a regular name, like partypoker, pokerstars, etc.... and have some type of rakefree scheme that goes along with it. It will probably need to start out high, like after you pay $1,000 in rake per month the rest of the month is rake free (so they can afford to offer bonuses and other promotions), once they have a big enough customer base, then they can gradually reduce the monthly fee.

Any new site that comes out with "rake" in it's name will most likely be destined to fail. Also, it's main focus can't be reduced rake. That will attrack the sharks and mega players like us that will go there anyways. They will need some type of promotion to attract the masses. Which, as demonstrated by many new sites today, is very hard to do.

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Why the hell would they start to gradually lower the rake, I would move to a site that capped rake at 1k a month, just hope they wouldnt gradually raise it.
The poker market is ready for a shift, the players are becoming smarter. Realize that the "fish" are intelligent people often very smart businessmen, people that think they are winning players. Both types of fish would enjoy lower rake. It is the BRAND NEW PLAYERS that dont understand rake or care, not the fish. When i was new, i signed up with the first site whose name i saw. After that, while I was still a losing player, I knew what rake was, and knew I wanted to pay as little of it as possible.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

Yeah, they do small things, PartyPoker.Net gets a couple of commercials in, but the big networks, TV and Radio, will not take ads even for these. ABC grudginly lets ESPN & Travel do it because they are making money off the poker Fad, but they won't let a commercial, even for PartyPoker.Net, on ABC. Imagine if a new site could advertise during March Madness, the superbowl, primetime TV (halfway through ER a new site makes an offer), etc. Then a serious heavyweight could make a challenge, right now, making a challenge is very difficult because of the restrictions in place.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

Maybe once or twice per day, each of us here on each of our tables makes a comment like "Man the rake here is so high, i would be a winner if it wasn't for the rake"

Eventually, we might get the general fish population believing that too.

Re: Rake Free Sites
 

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Geez, what is the different between a rake free site and a normal rake site?

At a rake site, you pay as you play.

At a rake free site, you pay up front. A rake free site is not truly rake free if you pay that rake in advance.

I would rather play at a rake site.

Meow.

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often you dont pay up front, they simply start raking you after the monthly cap is reached, 30 bucks at the curring no rake sites running. you dont pay up front.