[TemetNosce]

Why would GG bonuses be meant to draw and keep players at its site? I'm not sure I understand that at all. Sure, you can get $5,000 in bonus from GG in a 12 month period, but you can get at least double that by playing other sites in the same time frame.

If the bonus doesn't keep people around, then something else has to entice people to stay. That something is usually a nice selection of fishy games (see Party) or good tournaments (see Stars). And right now GG doesn't have that going for them. Most players just are not interested in playing games where the average pot size hovers around 4 big bets and being offered puny bonuses at the same time.

They really need to increase the bonus clearing rate to keep people and increase the player base. Word travels fast about good bonuses. If GG provided a better bonus, that would help things a lot. And increasing the VFP benefits back to 3x from 1.5x the BB wouldn't hurt, either. They lost some folks over that one, some I personally know.

If someone wants to earn bonuses while playing, why would they choose GG over other sites? Here's some bonus clearing per table hour rate estimates by site, comparing GG to the big four sites (I got the GG numbers from my time playing there and the other sites numbers from another website):

1/2 Limit: GG (bonus only) $1.50, GG (bonus + VFP) $3.00, Party and Skins $9.90, Poker Stars $5.51, Ultimate Bet $2.87, Paradise Poker $4.95

2/4 Limit: GG (bonus only) $3.00, GG (bonus + VFP) $6.00, Party and Skins $7.81, Poker Stars $7.81, Ultimate Bet $4.51, Paradise Poker $3.91

There's a lot of 1/2 players around. There's no reason for them to want to play at GG given the numbers above. Once you get to 2/4 and above, the bonus + VFP relative to other sites improves, but you can find more profitable games elsewhere.

Until they provide more incentive for players to jump to their site, you'll be playing against the same 20-30 players for a while...