Recreational Players view on the Party Debacle.... (Long)

Hello all, long time lurker here.

I just thought I'd throw in my 0.2c view on this whole Party "situation". Congratulations if you get to the end, it turned out alot longer than I thought it would!! [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

To begin with I just say that I haven't played on Party for a few months even though I have an Empire account with RB set up. I play most nights for about 2 or 3 hours.

OK before I go on and bore you all with my Life Story I'll just go ahead and have my say.

My thoughts on why Party don't want RakeBack is that it might get alot of the sharks away from the site. Which is good news to the Recreational Player. And as a purely recreational player (with dreams and aspirations of winning a nice MTT and possibly moving up in the levels maybe even winning my way onto WPT or EPT event and getting lucky, if Moneymaker can do it anyone can!) here are my thoughts.

Poker is my #1 hobby and I love the game, watch it on TV, read all I can about poker, books, this site and other such forums.

I would also say that there are a huge number of players like me out there, not playing professionally but winning a modest amount a year, maybe enough to buy something nice that otherwise I couldn't afford to.

As I say IMHO there are a huge number of players just like me, and we read forums like this, to improve our game and to see what is happening in the Poker World, To begin my point I'll start by saying that I try and avoid the sites where all the best players are playing.

e.g. I used to play on Pacific, solely because they only allow one table to be open at a time, therefore I knew that it would be unprofitable for the pro's to play at it because they couldn't multi-table. That's also the reason why IMHO it has remained fishy and quite profitable for players like me. Although I had to leave in the end (couldn't stand the software - but that's another days thread)

I used to avoid Stars because, for whatever reason I thought that all the best players played there and so thought I could find better games elsewhere, I eventually tried it out and found it not as tough as I had thought it would be, and realised I was just missing out on some of the best MTT's around.

Now I'll start on Party, "the biggest site on the net". To begin with the games were lovely, but when RB really started to kick off on the Skins etc. I decided to leave the site, because on any given table I could usually see there were 2 or 3 really solid players, after a while you get to know who the solid players were and they were normally multi-tabling 5 tables, so it was hard to find a game without any of these guys in them (obviously the guys with RB deals on one of the skins) and I felt that i could find a better game elsewhere.

I hope this isn't taken as someone who is afraid of competition, I simply consider it table selection, and with the choice available nowadays there's no need to stay at any table, or for that matter any site where I don't feel that I have any edge.

But now that Party has taken this step IMHO all it has done is cut off you guys here, (AKA the top 5 - 8% of the Poker Playing Community) and leave people like me i.e. people who's RB wouldn't be big enough to warrant leaving a site because I lost my RB deal. I wouldn't like to lose it, but if the games are more profitable for my 200 or so hands a night I would happily play without RB. And in fact I would probably find the site MORE profitable because all the players whose RB is so big that it would be -EV to play without it. Having said that I haven't gone back to Party YET just in case there is some rule later about not playing for 6 months to make RB possible.

Now I realise that it will be pointed out that these players are the High Volume players, who bring in X amount of rake each day. But IMHO it is the players like me who are the bread and butter of a poker sites business and these players are merely the jam to add that extra bit of flavour. (I could be wrong so please don't be too harsh with your criticism on this point, I'm in a bit over my head on this comment, it's just my take on it)

Now to move on, players like me and my ilk, read forums like these (and gleam invaluable information and skills from the posters here and am eternally grateful for all your time and patience imparting knowledge for free) and if it looks like none of the "Big Boys" are playing on Party it makes it so much more attractive for me to play there, safe knowing that I'm pretty much alone with the fish and similar level players and we can gut them to our hearts content...

This is why I think Party has taken this step and why I commend them for doing so. I also realise from reading various threads that some of the more prolific players, will be getting some sort of quasi RB deal from Party to keep their rake at Party, but having RB not so widespread is good business to me, trying to make it more of a bonus for the "Whales" who they want to keep, just like a Vegas casino offers comps. etc. to their big players so they don't go next door and spend their money there.

To use a Dinosaur analogy ( [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] yes I know odd but anyway) they decide to keep the T-Rex's and lose all the Raptors, and so if RB is not as wide spread and alot of the smaller RB players will move their business to other sites where they can get their RB. IMHO this kind of thing has to be happening right now in the back ground, and these "whales" have been told to keep quiet and that is why there has been no definite clear rule thus far in relation to RB spoken about here. The end result being that at the lower levels, such as .25/.50NL up to .50/1NL where I inhabit, there will be a smaller % of the very good players then before, and so meaning a more profitable game for me [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].... and thus for Party too, especially as more and more of the slightly above average and recreational players (not sharks but not fish either) will migrate back to Party.

I'm not sure if this makes sense but I just think that for every RB player they lose they'll gain more average players, who individually won't generate more rake but collectively will.

And then there's the other more blatently obvious reason too, that it will all be their rake and not going to Empire, etc. and a % back to the player!!

Just a smart business decision and one that I think will work out really well for them.

Let the Flaming Begin!!! [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]