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]

[tshort]

I think the vast majority of good players have already jumped over to Party. I don't know why someone would do otherwise if they were good.

While rakeback is a nice bonus, good players don't need it. Party's goal isn't to eliminate multitabling sharks when they allow 10 tabling.

[jrz1972]

I seriously doubt Party is deliberately trying to run off its high-volume players.

Rather, Party thinks that those players are so tied to their network that they expect them to switch over from whatever skin they were under even without RB.

Personally, I am betting that this is a miscalculation by Party, at least when it comes to small stakes players, but we'll see how things shake out I guess.

Firstly thanks for reading all that.

I didn't mean they were deliberately chasing away the multi-tabling sharks, but would it not be a bad play for a good player to forego RB if that amounts a couple of K a month guaranteed??

I'm sure Poker, as a profession is very stressful and if good old varience hits in for maybe 2 bad months in a row, at least they'll still have this guaranteed income, I know if I was playing professionally I'd want this safety net, if even just to cover expenses?? Although I'm not sure how certain income is from playing professionally. would a bad month be only winning 50% of your (very rough and guideline) target???
I know about not setting monetary targets, but surely you have a baseline amount you need to earn each month??

[NanaAnna]

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I seriously doubt Party is deliberately trying to run off its high-volume players.

Rather, Party thinks that those players are so tied to their network that they expect them to switch over from whatever skin they were under even without RB.

Personally, I am betting that this is a miscalculation by Party, at least when it comes to small stakes players, but we'll see how things shake out I guess.

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This could all be true, but I sense there is another side that is possible that many here haven't even thought about.

What's the key to Party's success? It's the many fish.

Party is now a public company and it's revenue are now public, so maybe they felt the fish were drying up, and needed to make sure they stay liquid, and thus keep their successful formula going. To do this they needed to weed out a portion of the high volume players that were very likely killing off the fishes.

I think the 10 tableing offer was to keep some of the high volume players playing there, but in general, Party needs to protect it's bread and butter, the fish, and to do this they needed "get rid of" some the high volume players by cutting off RB that they so dearly loved.

party has nothing against the high-volume winning players. I think the main target of their move is the skins who lured many former party high-volume players away uisng rakeback. Party wants those people back. right now party allows 10-tabling and also give VIP type promotion to those players. and it doesnt give VIP bonus to those recreational players who play 2 or 3 hours a week. It is pretty clear to me that party judges players based on the rake they contribute, not whether they are winning or losing.

This was my point basically, they don't care about whether a player is a winning player or not, but any high volume player is surely, by definition, a winning player, otherwise they wouldn't be playing very long so as to enable them to continue to contribute to the rake.
And as I said I think they are trying to protect their bread and butter, and trying to re-create the image again that it's a friendly environment to play poker safely, without worrying about having their money stolen by a rogue site, or to be the target of a card shark.

[fnord_too]

You all are thinking too deeply here I think. Party has had to cut revenue forecasts twice and there stock is plummeting. I think a lot of the move was driven by despracy. They obviously had the casino in mind, but rushed it out incomplete and ahead of schedule. Why? Probably because they are lookng for a way to stem the bleeding and are a bit on tilt. (Tilt happens in business, too. When Time Warner made their huge AOL merger blunder, they only did two weeks of analysis. I had to write that case in grad school, and I spent a couple hours doing the financials and came to the conclusion that Time Warner was on crack, and they are a much bigger, more experienced company than Party.)

Whether this turns out to be a good move or a bad move remains to be seen, but I think it was a poorly thought out and high variance move. Honestly, why did they do it at peak hours? That is just stupid. Why make a sneak attack on the skins instead of just warning them (which is my supposition)? That increases their legal vulnerability, even if splitting was within the contracts they had. Whatever they had in mind (there motive is necessarily to increase shareholder wealth) there execution seems very shaky. I don't think things are going quite the way they planned at Party (in general, that is) and I don't think they know quite how to deal with it.

[Sniper]

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Whether this turns out to be a good move or a bad move remains to be seen, but I think it was a poorly thought out and high variance move.

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This move was necessary for Party to combat the predatory practices of their partners. It was definately given alot of thought at Party, and was a clearly necessary move for a market leader to maintain its dominant position.

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Honestly, why did they do it at peak hours? That is just stupid.

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As a publically traded company, they had to make this annnouncement over the weekend, to give analysts a chance to figure out the impact.

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Why make a sneak attack on the skins instead of just warning them (which is my supposition)? That increases their legal vulnerability, even if splitting was within the contracts they had.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was no sneak attack! Senior management at the skins were well aware that this was coming. Party (along with Sportingbet, and possibly other unnamed suiters) were in talks to buyout Empire; this possibility was clearly discussed in those negotiations. If you listen to the Party CEO interview that coincided with last month's release of Party's financials, he clearly stated that a relationship with the skins was no longer useful to Party.

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I don't think things are going quite the way they planned at Party (in general, that is) and I don't think they know quite how to deal with it.

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Party remains the #1 poker room (by revenue) with roughly 50% market share!

[fnord_too]

I don't know if the skins knew the timing of the move or not. Knowing that it was possible is not the same thing as knowing it will definitely happen and when it will happen.

The assumption that it was clearly thought out is a big assumption. I cited a huge blunder (out of many candidates) that was made by a much bigger company for much bigger stakes where they did not perform due dilligence but got swept away with a notion. I am not saying PP didn't think things through, I am saying that they may not have and that as an outside observer it looks to me like a hasty move. (This is because it appears that they were planning this for first or second quarter next year when they finalized their casino, but then accelerated their plan and rolled out an incomplete product).

As to doing it on the weekend, they could have announced on the weekend that they would be spliiting, if they even had an obligation to do that. (This is more of an opperations move, albeit a big one, than anything else. It's not like and M&A move, or restating profits, or something of that magnitude).

Additionally, I don't know how you can say this was necessary for Party to fight off their partners. If there is material breach of contract by said partners, they have legal recourse. I have no idea of how the contracts between party and the skins are written, but if everything that went on between Party and the skins is kosher (from both sides) they must be pretty odd.

Also, the fact that PP still has the most market share does not mean that things are going the way they planned, or even well for them. I'm pretty certain they didn't plan on their stock tanking 3 months after the IPO, if they did I'm pretty sure that constitutes strong grounds for a shareholder suit. There is a commonly held belief that a good company implies a good stock and a bad company implies a bad stock (I'm not saying you believe this, but a lot of people do). I have no clue as to whether Party is a good company or a good stock, but I have my doubts about their vision and leadership.

BTW, I am not really affected much by the action. I am a pretty disinterested party though I still play on the site. I'm just looking at their actions based on the information I have, which is a subset of the information available. I still think those actions reak of despracy, (though the despracy may be baseless).