[Fnord]

I'm not very good at this sort of thing, but I'll get the thought process going and perhaps the more sophisticated can expand or refute my points.

Lets look at this from a poker economy perspective…

Fish input money into the system. Party foots the bill for advertising, etc. to bring them in and a bonus to spiff their account.

Fish plays, good players take their money and Party collects rake until fish busts or becomes a better player.

Consider that RB, was just another way of sending money to the players savvy enough to collect it when it was really intended to be spent developing new players. It was also calculated in a screwed up way. MGR was your share of the rake generated on the table. Not a % of the rake you paid. Hence, it became profitable to just camp out hands on as many action tables you can find since you were getting a cut of the other guys capping it off 6-way. There have been fleets of these guys at tables of all limits and it’s certainly more profitable than farming WoW Gold.

Consider the long-term implications of this towards retaining your action players. Do they want to play with these guys? Do you want a fleet of sustenance farmers taking up 4, 6, 8, 10 seats each?

It’s been hella fun playing at tables like this with such a split of player types. This has been a typical hand for me lately:

A fish or two limps with god-knows-what out of position.
I raise two pretty looking cards from late position.
Blinds fold (they probably have AA on one of their other 7 tables.)
I play a short-handed pot with position against god-awful players with dead money in the pot. Screw hand groups, it’s +EV.

…or I run into a hand, get 3-bet and call knowing I’m playing against a very well defined hand.

That’s got to be murder to the fish. At least in a 6 way pot they get schooling protecting their behavior and some exciting action. Not to mention that they probably like it better that way.

Finally, consider this. Is there much a difference between having a rake-back revenue stream vs having softer games to play in? Of course, this assumes Party really puts the money into keeping the pond fully stocked… Sure you paid $100 of rake today, but if that went towards spiffing a fish a bonus is it really a cost in the sense of what you paid for you lunch? If the fish hadn’t been there, would you have made the $50, $100, $200 or whatever of earnings? Will trimming the fleet of rocks help attract and maintain the players we all love?