So who thinks Party was on the ball?

[pyedog]

So am I the only one who finds the Party games to be pretty tough now? The average 200NL 6max game has about 4 players with stats of around 22/15/4. Now I'm not saying that stats are everything, but these people are basically my clones. This makes it pretty tough to beat Party's fairly exhorbitant rake. So lately I feel like Party is making money off me but I'm not making enough to cover the rake.

I've heard that FT and stars games are even worse, so I guess it really just means that I suck. But I find that the average Canadian and Euro players are actually pretty good, and there are tons of solid multitablers now compared to the number of new fish. Non-American countries just don't seem to have the same culture of gambling and excess. I have found other smaller sites to be better though without as many multitabling TAGs.

[TylerD]

[ QUOTE ]
There's a 0% chance you are correct.

Party has a terrible reputation in Europe. And Mike Sexton is a nobody over here.

Pokerstars sponsor the most popular series of live tournaments in Europe, the EPT, and are renowned for their excellent customer service.

Stars will stay on top, although Ladbrokes will probably do very well too.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you may be a bit off the mark here, Keith. Sure PokerStars will continue to do well but Party has always been a marketing giant. PS may sponsor the EPT, but that has a small exposure to non-poker players (and casual players). Party on the hand sponsors terrestrial TV shows and has advertising boards at a lot of Premiership teams.

Not to say that Party will regain the top spot, I just think its a lot closer than 0% correct.

[MikeO/Party]

[ QUOTE ]
Online poker for Americans will never go away.

There are too many people who love it to leave it and move on completely. The casual player will continue to play and get money onto site via the numerous methods currently available and soon to come.

Poker has become America's favorite pastime. Some people will fall off but a majority of players including fish will continue to play. They see it on TV and the game is just too much fun to quit.

Land based casinos cannot compete with online sites in terms of game availability and ultra low stakes. The casual fish cannot afford to move offline. Compare an offline $1/$2 to online $0.05/$0.10.

Party will never again be #1. There's a reason why they focused on the US, it's where the real money is. Party will soon lose 2nd place to FTP for good and go farther down the list in the coming months.

They are good at spending money, but their marketing in general is very weak when compared to companies like FTP & Stars.

People will realize the level of CS offered is just horrible, the promotions are weak and in general they suck.

Those are my predictions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Instyle007,
Surely you are pulling our legs and you don’t mean what you said, right?

[pyedog]

[ QUOTE ]
Online poker for Americans will never go away.

There are too many people who love it to leave it and move on completely. The casual player will continue to play and get money onto site via the numerous methods currently available and soon to come.

Poker has become America's favorite pastime. Some people will fall off but a majority of players including fish will continue to play. They see it on TV and the game is just too much fun to quit.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well I've been addicted to poker for the past two years and have played tons of it. But I know that if Canada succesfully banned it and made it extremely inconvenient to deposit and withdraw then I'd have to quit. Especially if the games became much more difficult because only expert players were willing to jump through the hoops to create accounts.

I like playing poker online but if it changed so that the only people making money were the poker sites then I know I'd find a new hobby.

[Quanah Parker]

Tangent time...I remember when US players said if online poker was banned it would just be a matter of time before we'd have a way to circumvent the "system" and still play on banned sites. Maybe something to do with ISP address,etc. Forgive my computer ignorance here.

So, have any US players figured out how to play on Party since they left the US?

Could you tell the rest of how?

Admittedly I'm aware there's many other issues than just getting to Party, like getting them your money and then getting it back, etc, etc.

[NL__Fool]

[ QUOTE ]
Online poker for Americans will never go away

[/ QUOTE ]

I never said it will go away. Poker will always be around but not in its current form. There have been so many changes to online poker in the past few years that it is getting tougher and tougher and only the players who adapt will survive. The fish are drying up and the ratio of sharks to fish are getting a lot worse.

I have played online for a living for over 3 years. 2 1/2 of those were soley at Party When I started playing online for a living I could sit at 8-12 random tables and not care about game selection. As long as you were tighter preflop then your opponents and played ok post flop you were a guaranteed winner.

Table averages of 10-14 BB pots were NORMAL. 3 years ago if you played on a table and the average pot size was less then 10 BB it was a bad table. Average pot sizes for 2-4 games were $40 3-6 was $60 and 5-10 was $100. Compare this with the table averages of the games today and it is cut in half.

Then there was the switch to SH tables which killed full ring, then it was the switch from limit being replaced by NL as the #1 game.

Now it is the death of the fish which the pros and semi pros must contend with.

[ QUOTE ]
The casual player will continue to play and get money onto site via the numerous methods currently available and soon to come.


[/ QUOTE ]

Don't kid yourself, the average player who got burnt by neteller holding their funds for 6 months will not be so trusting and easily part with their money again. The casual player who is NOT a winning player will not want to go thru all the hurdles that the US goverment is going to force them to go thru to get funds online.

And what we truly really all want is a bunch of winning players only at our tables

Combine that with the fact that the US is being relentless in it's efforts to stop online gambling and you have a pretty uncertain future.

[ QUOTE ]
Party will never again be #1. There's a reason why they focused on the US, it's where the real money is. Party will soon lose 2nd place to FTP for good and go farther down the list in the coming months.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have your head stuck in the sand? Party is currently #2 Far ahead of full Tilt and not far behind Stars without having a single US player. The only reason that Stars is #1 is because thy are catering to the US market. Full Tilt is still in the US and PArty is far ahead of them.

[ QUOTE ]
They are good at spending money, but their marketing in general is very weak when compared to companies like FTP & Stars.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again do you have your head stuck in the sand?

Party's marketing team is 2nd to none. How do you think they became #1 to begin with? Their marketing team is top notch. Stars was online before Party was and Party quickly destroyed all competiiton, I wonder how they did that if they market as bad as you say.

[gonebroke2]

NL_Fool,

I think you are right on the money. Also, the UK is planning on regulating ads for online casinos. They will not allow sites that they deem to be rogue to advertise. According to the UK, PokerStars and FTP are rogue sites because they continue to serve Americans. This is going to benefit Party bigtime.

[Gregg777]

[ QUOTE ]
Soon it will be a lake full of Sharks all eating each other up to take the occasional break when the odd lone fish swims by, tear the lone fish shreds and then continue feeding on each other.

[/ QUOTE ]

Look at Stars 5/10NL and 10/20NL 6max.

It is like what you describe already.

However, the sharks are still sharks and the majority are still fish.

It's just that the fish don't realize they're fish.

Just adapt...

[fatshaft]

[ QUOTE ]
NL_Fool,

I think you are right on the money. Also, the UK is planning on regulating ads for online casinos. They will not allow sites that they deem to be rogue to advertise. According to the UK, PokerStars and FTP are rogue sites because they continue to serve Americans. This is going to benefit Party bigtime.

[/ QUOTE ]NL_Fool, you are spot on right through your last post.

[Instyle007]

Hi Mike,

I am sorry to put down Party like this but I actually do believe in what I wrote 100%.

In my experiences and in experiences of friends, the CS at Party is probably one of the worst in the industry.

The emails are not normally answered correctly or in a timely manner. When calling my friends tell me that when the CS rep does not have an answer as to why something has happended, they continually repeat the same sentence over and over.

For example one friend made a deposit but the bonus did not activate. When he asked why, the CS rep simply restated (over & over) that he did not activate the bonus. No matter how he rephrased the question he was given the same answer.

I'm sure that being an insider news of Party's poor CS reputation is of no surprise. It is sad to say, but the rumors are true.