InterPoker trying to get rid of the bonus whores?

[phlup]

I just checked out the new rules for clearing the InterPoker bonus and noticed they dropped the hand requirements to 5 times the bonus.

BUT now raked hands are only counted when over 1 unit (their term) is raked. This means the pot has to be 20+ (dollars, euros, pounds). Are they trying to get rid of the bonus whores or what?

http://www.interpoker.com/promotions...ly_bonus.shtml

*Sorry if this is a dupe post

[HesseJam]

No, they want you to come over to the 2/4 tables. I guess they have been whored out very hard. I knew they had to do something when they allowed whoring on the .25/.5 tables.

Come to the 2/4s! You need maybe 800 hands to clear there. Let's say you loose 2BB/100 then you still make a profit of 26$.

[krimson]

[ QUOTE ]
*Sorry if this is a dupe post

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the 19th of the month, yes this has been discussed.

I asked customer support about this indirectly and got this rather civil reply.

[ QUOTE ]
We have been monitoring the effects of this rake change with regards to
our lower limit players. It is not our intention to target a different
market. It was simply a case of promotional funds costing us a huge
chunk of our revenue per month, and we wanted to find a way to make it a
feasible business model without excluding our lower limit players.

We are likely to implement a small change to the rake system in August
which will be aimed directly at lower limit players satisfying bonus
requirements.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Kind regards,

Ryan Hartley
Manager - InterPoker

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll be very interested to see what changes are implemented in August but have already let them know that I'm not going to play there in July.

[boose_bagina]

if its possible, i actually kind of feel bad for the site. I'm sure they are losing a huge chunk of money with their bonuses, and the only incentive for people to play at their site is for the bonuses...so as a business, what do they do?

[ QUOTE ]
if its possible, i actually kind of feel bad for the site.

[/ QUOTE ]

On some levels I agree with this. On more capitalistic levels, I think they're getting a bit of what they deserve for hiring bean-counters who set the bonus levels way too high at the low limits.

[ QUOTE ]
...so as a business, what do they do?

[/ QUOTE ]
Changing the bonus to 5x at the higher rake I think is also a bad idea. The micro-limit players that they lose probably won't be offset by the minimal increase in 2/4 and higher players that they get. Also, a 5x bonus still leaves them with potential of paying out way too much bonus money.

As a business, I think they should either try to get bought or borrow a ton of money to upgrade their software. From my discussion with the manager, their software backend currently does not support partial points for rakes of less than a dollar. I know other sites do support partial points for different rake levels and it is possible. If they can do this, then they can go back to $90 reloads at 8x or maybe even 10x clearance and be an attractive site again. They also need to push a big advertising campaign as their traffic usually sucks and will only get worse because of their mishandling of the micro-limiters.

Just my 2c, but I'm very biased since they sort of pulled the rug out from under me mid-bonus.

[Eegs]

yep, they successfully got rid of me

[PuertoKid]

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so as a business, what do they do?

[/ QUOTE ]

They are in a difficult situation and it is unlikely they will be around in 2-3 years without significant updates in their software. They need to get more players, but there are simply too many sites with much better software competing for those customers. They need to retool or they will die.

[timprov]

[ QUOTE ]
We are likely to implement a small change to the rake system in August
which will be aimed directly at lower limit players satisfying bonus
requirements.


[/ QUOTE ]

Anyone else suspect they're going to start raking $1 at $12?

[theben]

looks like they might add partial credit for rake at smaller games