WSEX: Official Monthly Thread: July. (#11 of 12.)

[DAC_]

My suggestions:

1. Seriously look into decreasing the rake, especially when games get short-handed. The rake per person at a full ring 3-6 game is about 2 BBs/c ($12 per 100 hands). The rake per person at a 6-max 3-6 game is 2.5 BBs/c ($15 per 100 hands). So we're talking about a 25% increase, which is very significant.

2. AAs never lose - your best promotion and where you're investing a lot of money... automate it! Players, especially casual ones, do not want to be bothered to find the hand number, write an Email, and wait for a response. It's also a waste of your resources to manually check the hand ID and credit users' accounts. This may not seem like such a big deal, but believe me, it's huge. Consider this:

Today: someone gets AA cracked... half the table doesn't even notice... user grabs a pen to scribble the hand #, etc... yawn

Future: someone gets AA cracked... big bolded red text in the dealer box saying, "Player xxx just won $xxx because AAs never lose today at wpex!". Now there's a buzz... people notice... people want to play, especially on AA never lose days. Newbies are intrigued... buzz... this is marketing 101.

3. HUDs - I think you're swimming upsteam on this issue, but creating two types of rooms is an awful solution.

4. Tiering the rakeback by FPPs earned, as suggested earlier in this thread, is a great idea. You need core players, and this would be a great way to reward them... something like a sliding scale from 75% to 85%.

[jafeather]

[ QUOTE ]
If our rake structure is vastly different from the competition, we will adjust accordingly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think if you look into this, you will see that there are areas of your rake structure that can use some improvement.

WPEX Rake Structure

PokerStars Rake Structure

As you can see, you NL rake seems to be in line. You FL rake seems fine at the smallest levels, but gets way out of line as the levels increase. The WPEX rake seems most out of line at the FL .50/1.00 level, where your max rake is $1.50, while Stars is $.50. The next level higher seems quite out of line, too, at 50% higher max.

Although not listed in the above links, there is at least one Tourney entry fee that seems considerably out of line. The $5 MTTs have an entry fee of $1.00 instead of $.50.

[Choparno]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm considering offering parallel rooms. One with full names in the hand histories, chat, and seats, and the other with fully anonymized seats and everything.

My people don't like it. What do you think?

Fred

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure about the merit of parallel rooms, as anything that divides the existing player base is probably bad. However, I think allowing full names in the hand histories - thus enabling HUD use - is a must.

I have not read WPX's reasons for opposing HUD use, but all the major sites allow it. I think it can only encourage more players, albeit serious ones. If the major sites don't think HUDs will drive away recreational players, then I don't see why WPX should hold this view.

Also, it's a fact that there are programs available that allow you to write the names into the hand histories anyway, enabling HUD use. I don't use one out of respect for the site's T & C, but if there is a percentage of serious players getting around the HUD ban anyway (as there obviously is), you may as well just open it up to everyone so we can all compete on an equal footing if we choose to do so.

It is a shame to see the end of 100% rakeback. WPX has been one of my major sites for 12 months now and your 100% rakeback has probably been the biggest factor in my building a bankroll. So, thanks for this. I really thought WPX would take off, but the player base is no bigger now than it was a year ago. Whatever it is that makes major sites successful, whether it is just advertising or whatever, I really hope that 25% rake goes towards making WPX one of those sites.

[Choparno]

[ QUOTE ]


2. AAs never lose - your best promotion and where you're investing a lot of money... automate it! Players, especially casual ones, do not want to be bothered to find the hand number, write an Email, and wait for a response. It's also a waste of your resources to manually check the hand ID and credit users' accounts. This may not seem like such a big deal, but believe me, it's huge. Consider this:

Today: someone gets AA cracked... half the table doesn't even notice... user grabs a pen to scribble the hand #, etc... yawn

Future: someone gets AA cracked... big bolded red text in the dealer box saying, "Player xxx just won $xxx because AAs never lose today at wpex!". Now there's a buzz... people notice... people want to play, especially on AA never lose days. Newbies are intrigued... buzz... this is marketing 101.



[/ QUOTE ]

QFT. When I'm donking around at low stakes limit and discuss the AA promo, several times someone has said "huh? what are you talking about?" They haven't even heard of it. This was how I learned about it sometime last year - at the table. I initially thought the guy was joking. So, it should definitely be publicised at the table, and an automated process. Can only be positive.

[David Solomon]

The suggestions being made by assorted submorons in this thread are absolutely hilarious.

1. Switch to contributed rakeback. Full Tilt uses dealt rakeback. PokerStars awards everyone dealt into a hand the same number of VPP.

2. Don't allow PokerAce HUD. Full Tilt allows PAHUD. PokerStars allows PAHUD.

3. Allow players to change their screen names. Full Tilt does not allow this. PokerStars does not allow this.

Traffic at Full Tilt -- 50,000

Traffic at PokerStars -- 100,000

Traffic at WPEX -- 1000

Newsflash! If you want a successful poker room, emulate what the most succcessful poker rooms are doing.

Newsflash! No grinders, no games. All you people who want to get rid of the grinders simply do not understand how poker rooms work.


David Solomon

[jafeather]

[ QUOTE ]
Future: someone gets AA cracked... big bolded red text in the dealer box saying, "Player xxx just won $xxx because AAs never lose today at wpex!".

[/ QUOTE ]

This idea is completely top notch. Please implement this quickly. Maybe even put something across the table top itself similar to the Party "Congratulations you won a hand woo-hoo yay mama." People love feel good [censored] like this.

[Repsychler]

[ QUOTE ]

These 25% are an incompetence-fee, nothing more, nothing less.

[/ QUOTE ]

Outstanding. When are you opening your poker site? It'll be the most perfect poker in the world, and you'll pay for it all out of your own pocket. Man, thats gonna be sweet.

[Guthrie]

[ QUOTE ]
Future: someone gets AA cracked... big bolded red text in the dealer box saying, "Player xxx just won $xxx because AAs never lose today at wpex!". Now there's a buzz... people notice... people want to play, especially on AA never lose days. Newbies are intrigued... buzz... this is marketing 101.

[/ QUOTE ]
Shoot off some fireworks, like Paradise used to do, and point a big red arrow at the player who won the bonus.
Marketing 201.

[Palomino]

I dont' think it's a good idea to allow players to change their screennames. I really would like to see HUD allowed, however I would rather there was no HUD than see people change screennames. I already have reads on a large portion of the people at the limits I play (along with extensive notes). If you allow name changes then I lose all the work that I put into it. It will be like playing completely blind. Horrible idea.

[gamblerNC1]

[ QUOTE ]
It wouldn't matter if we had 10,000 people a night. Unless the cross-over percentages went up and/or the money transfer costs went back down, it made no sense to continue with no rake. A loss leader is one thing, but it wasn't working and it was getting very expensive.

75% is still the highest unrestricted rakeback in the industry. If our rake structure is vastly different from the competition, we will adjust accordingly.

All comments and complaints are being passed on even if I don't respond to every one.

Fred

[/ QUOTE ]

On your first point Fred, it would matter if you had 10,000 players a night as increase traffic means more players that are nonchalant. The foundation of any poker room, online or B&M is the grinder. They in a way are like shills and props that the site does not have to pay. They make sure that wide ranges of games are always available to the causal player, but with no money to bring in these casual players, the pot boils down very quickly. If you had 10,000 players a day then you could cut back to 75% rake and demand I bet it all through the sports book before it went to my account and I would be cool with it. Everyone here understands that you are in business to make money. In fact, we understand it better than most. Just as we understand what a great deal rake free poker is or should I say was.

The cost of transfer of money is just a matter of bad timing. Not long after you went to rake free poker, the USA decided to crack down on online gambling. Not much can be done about this, but many players here are writing our congressperson and taking our objections to the ballot box to change this. IMO it is the online sites that backed down instead of doing there part to change this unfair law. Although, I do applaud your host country facing down the USA in the WTO.

This next one is going to draw a lot of heat here I am sure, but aces never lose on an ongoing basis is a very bad idea, at least the way WPEX has set it up. It was not long before I saw some players, not all, but many who limped in with aces to increase the chance of them getting cracked. WPEX often has pots that average less than 4 big bets. If the BB is $2, this means an average pot of $8. If their aces got cracked, they collected 12BB. It would be a lie if I said I was not pulling each time for my aces to get crack and everyone here, if honest, would tell you the same. Offering players a positive EV to get their aces cracked is nuts. Things such as this is what makes me and others wonder how well many of these ideas are thought through.

This post is already too long so I am not going to go into detail about several other things such as the banning of PT and PO, a traffic counter that is worthless as often over half that count are free roll players, setting up the new tournaments based on the all and nothing basis, software that looks as it is years behind other sites and so on and so on.

Some here say we who complain and point out these glaring problems and often criticize managements handling of this site are ungrateful for what you have offered players. This is not true. It is just hard to be silent when you see so many things that are just not well thought through. As poker player, we make our money by calculating how our other players will react to whatever action we take. To run a solid poker room management is going to have to do the same.