Why TAGs are undesirable

HesseJam,

Well put. Interesting points. Can we agree that all in all there is an optimal balance somewhere?

Off Topic: Playing in these all TAG games vs. Party return

When a player begins to reach higher levels like 30-60 and up, aren't pretty much all the players TAGS? A fish arrives, gets his tushy spanked and then goes away. (Probably to lower levels). Do the high stakes player worry about the fact that all the players are TAGs? I'm guessing not. You would exploit the particular weakness of certain players, find the most "fishlike" player and try to mix it up with them more, etc.... I have a deal through multi. Multi has that reload madness. That combo is pretty much the eqivalent of double RB. When weighing out this situation, against going to party and following the fish, can I add value to the multipoker scenario because of the all TAG table training I'm receiving? I tend to think so, because in general this type of table is to be avoided per lack of fish, therefore some might struggle with it, or in the least be uncomfortable with it, when they are eventually faced with it. When you have goals of moving up (Ive been on 5/10 for the past 50-60,000 hands), you are indirectly having goals of moving to more all TAG tables.

I'd like your opinion on this. In no way is this an argumentative point about any previous posts. I just think you're well thought out, and I respect your opinion.

[HesseJam]

While I might have some ideas about poker room economy, I am definately still a bad poker player who bottom feeds up to 2/4 with the occasional urge to get his a$$ spanked at higher levels. I am probably not competent enough to comment.

[sqvirrel]

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If Party paid me $10,000 a year to play there it would be a bargain for them. I have paid $33,000 in rake this year

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The question you aren't asking, and the point that everyone is forgetting is 'so what if you paid $33k in rake, how much of it did Party get?' If you are playing at Party with no deal then sure, they are gettting all of it. But since you've been whining so much I'm guessing you play through a skin with a nice deal. How much of the rake do you really think Party gets from the skins? 50%? 30%? 0%? I don't really know and I doubt you or anyone else that has been posting knows either.

I am guessing that Party analyzed this pretty carefully and decided that they would be more profitable collecting 100% of the rake from fewer players. I suspect well over half of the skin traffic would have to leave the network entirely before this would be a money losing proposition for Party.

Does anyone really expect that to happen?

[MaxPower]

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If Party paid me $10,000 a year to play there it would be a bargain for them. I have paid $33,000 in rake this year

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The question you aren't asking, and the point that everyone is forgetting is 'so what if you paid $33k in rake, how much of it did Party get?' If you are playing at Party with no deal then sure, they are gettting all of it. But since you've been whining so much I'm guessing you play through a skin with a nice deal. How much of the rake do you really think Party gets from the skins? 50%? 30%? 0%? I don't really know and I doubt you or anyone else that has been posting knows either.

I am guessing that Party analyzed this pretty carefully and decided that they would be more profitable collecting 100% of the rake from fewer players. I suspect well over half of the skin traffic would have to leave the network entirely before this would be a money losing proposition for Party.

Does anyone really expect that to happen?

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I agree, short term this will let Party keep more of my rake. It is only in long term that this can hurt if other sites are successful in luring away players who were addicted to rakeback.

I don't know what the skins were getting, so I don't know how much more they will be getting.

As recently as three years ago, Paradise Poker was the dominant site by a large margin and Party was tiny. The new Party Skins on their own are gigantic compared to Party 3 years ago.

No one at that time was predicting the demise of Paradise. It can happen to Party if they are not carefull.

By the way, I am not whining. I don't really care about rakeback much. Its nice to have, but not essential. I don't think Party owes me anything, but a certain amount of comping goes a long way toward building loyalty.

I just get a little exasperated that many 2+2ers think that a poker site would be better off without multiabling TAGs.

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]

The question you aren't asking, and the point that everyone is forgetting is 'so what if you paid $33k in rake, how much of it did Party get?' If you are playing at Party with no deal then sure, they are gettting all of it. But since you've been whining so much I'm guessing you play through a skin with a nice deal. How much of the rake do you really think Party gets from the skins? 50%? 30%? 0%? I don't really know and I doubt you or anyone else that has been posting knows either.

I am guessing that Party analyzed this pretty carefully and decided that they would be more profitable collecting 100% of the rake from fewer players. I suspect well over half of the skin traffic would have to leave the network entirely before this would be a money losing proposition for Party.



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ROTFLMFAO


--Zetack

If I were to start a poker site, I'd make it as shark-unfriendly as possible for these very reasons.

They'd rather have the fish bounce money around and slowly lose it all to rake than have sharks take it off the table forever.

[MaxPower]

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If I were to start a poker site, I'd make it as shark-unfriendly as possible for these very reasons.

They'd rather have the fish bounce money around and slowly lose it all to rake than have sharks take it off the table forever.

[/ QUOTE ]

It depend on what your goals are. If you want to have a nice little site like True Poker and make a few bucks that is a good plan.

If you want to have a huge site like Party and be a public company whose revenues are expected to grow, then that won't work.

[dibbs]

I don't see what this really has to do with affiliates but whatever.

I feel this is incredibly over simplified. Also, I have no proof but I imagine sites make more money from players that play there longer. It doesn't matter if a good player amasses the most chips at a table, he's gonna pay rake for pretty much every pot he wins, just like everyone else. Who lasts longer, good players or bad players?

If a bad player only lasts for 10,000 hands and a good player lasts for 50,000, the good player makes them more money.

If the games become absolutely infested with tight players, there arent as many raked pots of course which would cut their profit down, but this lack of balance is seen relatively rarely.

[Chillout]

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Party Poker is a large site. They know very little about poker, but very much about business.

When you run poker games, all you want is players . Lots of them. There is only one sure fire way to get them and that is by making the games good and available. I ran a poker room for 5 years, and believe me when I tell you that sharks are NITS. They want everything for nothing and they make a living doing it. I'm not saying that they aren't valuable to the games or the rake, but they will be there if the fish are there.

Now, from Party's perspective, volume players are what they want. If everything was as cut and dry as you guys say (i.e. sharks vs. fish), then you all have valid points from both sides. Unfortunately, there are many more types of players. There was a study done in 2004 showing total number of winners for the entire year from all poker sites. I think 92% of accounts showed a loss from January 1st to December 31st. Only 1% of accounts make 5 digits or more for the year.

We are such a small percentage of the poker world, but forums like this make us feel like we're everybody. Also, we're not the only multi-tablers around. There are fish that multi-table, there are average players that multi-table, there are breakeven players that multi-table and there are PLENTY of LAGs who think they are winning TAGs. Party didn't allow 10 tables just to bring TAGs back. They don't even know what a TAG is. All they know is that people were playing on skins for these reasons:

1) The skins allowed them to play more than 4 tables at once
2) The skins affiliates had visible trackers and offered rakeback.

Party knews this and made the necessary changes to their software and affiliate accounts. Party always had and always will have a "no rakeback policy". They let affiliates see their trackers again for a very good reason. They want affiliates to offer rakeback (for now) to bring not just TAGs, but players in general back to their site. They will never openly advertise rakeback for the simple fact that not everyone is aware of it. Most winners know about it. Some average players know, some don't, and the fish just don't care. Also note, that rakeback doesn't come from Party Poker. It comes from affiliates. And affiliates are not Party Poker. They are players just like you and me.

As far as allowing 10 tables, they know people went to the skins so they could play more than 4 games. They don't know or care what kind of players did that. They just want those players too.

The sooner we can grasp this next concept, the better it will be for all of us:

Party does NOT evaluate poker the way we do, but they are far from being dumb. They know about marketing. They know to have the best games. They know to be on the cutting edge of all software features and accessiblity. They know that the players that play the most are more valuable, and they don't give a rat's ass about who wins or loses.