|
|
|
|
#1
10-10-2005, 09:38 AM
|
|||
|
|||
The case against RB
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? 
|
|
#2
10-10-2005, 09:55 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
Obviously rake should be defined as the amount a player actually paid, not as 10% (or whatever) of the total amount paid at the table.
If done properly, rakeback for high volume players makes sense. B&M casinos provide lots of expensive comps for their high volume players, from luxurious hotel suites to tickets to shows, free plane tickets, meals paid for, and god knows what else. Online casinos can't offer things like that, but what they can do is kick back 25% or so of rake. What I've heard is that 25% is the amount of the average player's losses that B&M casinos kick back to players in the form of comps.
|
|
#3
10-11-2005, 02:35 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
[ QUOTE ]
Obviously rake should be defined as the amount a player actually paid, not as 10% (or whatever) of the total amount paid at the table. [/ QUOTE ] A poker network is going to have an agreement governing how the different skins divide the rake when their players share a table. That agreement will inevitably determine how rakeback and other affiliate payments are computed. No skin wants to pay an affiliate for revenue that the network never credited them with.
|
|
#4
10-10-2005, 09:58 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
Just one quick note:
Affiliates make money for referring whomever. Anyone who does not sign up directly is diverting money from the site regardless of whether they are a fish or a shark. The economics of the situation, as interpretted by most sites, is that paying people this commision to wrangle business is better for growth than just reducing rake across the board. Given that said rake is effectively taken from the site, but that the site's rake is the same, it does not really matter where it goes after it is diverted. Basicaly there is price discrimination for everyone who signs up through an affiliate from the sites perspective regardless of what happens to the money once it disappears. It is a shame the analyses the sites have done did not suggest just slashing rake by a third or something, because that is best for everyone around (except the affiliates and maybe the site itself, since sites profit from players being ignorant of the price discrimination aspect of affiliates.)
|
|
#5
10-10-2005, 10:02 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
Am I the only one that did not understand the point of this? What exactly are you trying to say? You raise pretty cards in position? Yawn.
Why do people have to keep going on about the fish/rocks in the poker economy. We all know how that works.
|
|
#6
10-10-2005, 10:12 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
[ QUOTE ]
Am I the only one that did not understand the point of this? What exactly are you trying to say? You raise pretty cards in position? [/ QUOTE ] That having fleets of profitable 8-tablers subsidised by RB creates table textures that aren't very exciting for the fish because you no longer have to play as much poker to take enough money off the table to generate a profit.
|
|
#7
10-10-2005, 10:34 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
the fish don't know about table texture
they don't care about the pros they just wanna play poker in their pajamas
|
|
#10
10-10-2005, 11:59 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: The case against RB
[ QUOTE ]
the fish don't know about table texture they don't care about the pros they just wanna play poker in their pajamas [/ QUOTE ] If two of those three items are true, does that make one a fish?
|
 |
|
|
Hybrid Mode
