Fish: Do they run out of time or money?

[Custer]

There seems to be much discussion lately about the importance of us high volume players to Party. I'm pretty sure it all boils down to the question in the subject line. If the majority of Party's customers stop playing for the week, the month, the year, or for life due to lack of funds, players who regularly withdraw money are bad for Party. If the majority of Party's customers stop playing for the day or week or month because they run out of time (need to work, family responsibilites, whatever), then players who withdraw money regularly are every bit as important as players who don't (more important if we play more tables and more often).

I don't know the answer to this question. I don't think Party does either, or it would be clearer to them which path to take with regards to rakeback. Anyone have any opinions with evidence?

[scrapperdog]

Money ....

[StellarWind]

"The king is dead! Long live the king!"

Players who regularly withdraw money are unavoidable. Do you want to stick with the ones you have or go with the ones that will replace them? This ceases to be a hard question once you realize that the replacements used to be losing players and that you now have fewer losing players as a result.

Any poker game that has a reasonable rake will always have long-term winners. The winners will be the players who have the edge. If the players who have the edge now quit the game for some reason, other players will begin to have the edge and become the wnners. If they leave, the next group will win in the decreasing player pool. No site would ever want to discourage the winners, but they also won't cater to them any more than they need to.

You can shea a sheep many times but skin him only once.

Your average fish never runs out of money unless he gets involved in games too high for his bankroll. If a fish has the disposable income to lose $500 a month, he will likely continue to do so until poker no longer interests him or he gets married [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If he plays in a game that is too high for him and loses $2000, he might stop playing for 4 months until he is financially comfortable. This is known as the poker hospital.

[Custer]

"Players who regularly withdraw money are unavoidable"

This certainly has some truth to it, but I'm not sure its as big of a factor as many of you seem to think. If you took the very best 5% of players out of the games, there would certainly be new winners who would withdraw money regularly, but not as much money or as regularly as the very best 5% now. This is because the worst players wouldn't get any worse (we're not replacing the best 5% with an equal # who are worse than all current players). So, the players who are left are much closer in skill level. The difference betweent the very best and the very worst is MUCH smaller. Therefore, players who must stop playing because they run out of money could play for longer before they go broke, providing more rake.

[StellarWind]

[ QUOTE ]
"Players who regularly withdraw money are unavoidable"

This certainly has some truth to it, but I'm not sure its as big of a factor as many of you seem to think. If you took the very best 5% of players out of the games, there would certainly be new winners who would withdraw money regularly, but not as much money or as regularly as the very best 5% now. This is because the worst players wouldn't get any worse (we're not replacing the best 5% with an equal # who are worse than all current players). So, the players who are left are much closer in skill level. The difference betweent the very best and the very worst is MUCH smaller. Therefore, players who must stop playing because they run out of money could play for longer before they go broke, providing more rake.

[/ QUOTE ]
The top 5% are very fortunate if they collectively average 2 BB/100.

The horrible players who donate most of the money lose 10-15 BB/100. If you don't believe me I suggest that you take a PT datamining database and filter on > 65% VP$IP with at least 50 hands. Go to the Summary tab and look at the average results for that group of players.

The difference between a typical winning player and the breakeven players is much smaller than the difference between the breakeven players and the really bad players. Skimming off the best players would reduce the skill gap but not by very much. There will still be a huge disparity and lots of money will still be withdrawn.