Zero Rake Poker Business plan

[goofyballer]

Tuff, I think it would be a lot easier for the 2+2 community to get behind your ideas if you didn't infuse them with the massive bias you have against certain types of online poker players. Even fish like to multi-table; you won't see many donks sitting at 8 tables, but I don't think 4 is an unreasonable limit. You really overestimate the effect that "multitabling nits" would have on the game. Also, you liken one-tabling to a real poker room - a lot of us play online because one-tabling in B&Ms can be ridiculously dreary at times.

Furthermore, I don't know why you're asking for our support to help get your idea off the ground when you don't want to cater to our requests. If multitabling nits are bad for the game, surely you think single-tabling nits are bad for the game too. Then why are you posting here asking for our support? Because having the support of the 2+2 community would make this idea more likely to come to fruition? Okay, so you want our support - why are you insisting on restricting the number of tables people play and then surprised when we're reluctant to give it?

I like the idea and I'd probably play on the site, but the way you present it here and are so resistant to the suggestions of the community you're trying to win over are going to make it a tough sell to everyone else.

[Benjamin]

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It would take a strong leader, and lots and lots of unpaid hours...

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... where are those for free?

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It would take the right person with the vision/obsession to make it happen, ... I said I don't expect it to happen, but I would donate some money if it got to a certain stage.

[Mitch Evans]

Ben, it's not the methods of raising money that I disagree with, it's the cause. Most non-profits are actually raising money for something worthy. Rake-free poker I don't think qualifies, and to get all these players you guys keep talking about is going to take a heavy ad campaign. That's the problem. You need a Gates to spend seven-figures on advertising, and I feel he would rather spend the money on something worthwhile, or at least something that's guaranteed to work. Nothing like setting money on fire.

[Mitch Evans]

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but I would donate some money if it got to a certain stage.


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That's the problem. It will never get to that stage.

[TheScientist]

Great idea, but one table max? Can we continue this conversation without Tuff Fish?
I honestly don't think Tuff cares any two ways about rake. (Anyone else recall his California Poker initiative where he at first set the rake 10%+?) He's just seeking support for his "no pro's allowed" site.

Having the PPA get behind this sounds good at first... but their role is more on the side of lobbying and politics than it is on setting up a rake friendly site. Even so, I doubt the conversation would get very far before some of their other 'influences' squash it.

[kkcountry]

i would be all for a rake free site that let people play as many tables as they wanted as long as they made the minimum vpip 30%

[El_Hombre_Grande]

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i would be all for a rake free site that let people play as many tables as they wanted as long as they made the minimum vpip 30%

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letsbump it to 45 with a preflop raise % at a flat zero and all aggro under 1. After all, we want it to be fish friendly.

[raze]

Tuffness,

I didn't read anything except the OP cause I'm sure it's full of garbage posts, but do you explain how this site would stay afloat?

[_dave_]

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Tuffness,

I didn't read anything except the OP cause I'm sure it's full of garbage posts, but do you explain how this site would stay afloat?

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OK, I am not Tuff himself - but here is an ill-conceived and likely badly flawed idea of how such may work...

IIRC Rakefree is a requirement for running legal homegames in the USA, this is the primary motivation - legal poker in the "Land of the Free"

Firstly, there is no "site" that must stay afloat.. this rake-free "homegame network" runs on similar principles to those of CounterStrike games - i.e anyone anywhere can host a table, and anyone anywhere is free to join.

There is at maybe a central payment processor / cashier / bank. This may be operated on a cleared funds only / cash basis, to avoid penalty of charge backs. This may be a central authority - or preferably it is greatly distributed... the host of a "bank" could potentially make money... this is probably the hardest part of the operation to solve. Game security could be implemented on a trust system... If the "bank" that holds your money distrusts the server running the games, no funds allocated, you cannot sit. EDIT: Maybe, one could use real banks - nothing illegal here, after all? /EDIT.

A Central game list is not required, game servers can be run with a p2p style ability to query their neighbors and so on - you fire up a server, once it connects to the "homegame network" it can discover home games that are running across the planet. Similar to Tor / FreeNet. Maybe a tracker style sysstem like torrent would be better, who knows at this point.

And so on. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

There is a lot of stuff in Ray Bonnert's "Honest Holdem" bot posts hidden among the spam, techniques that could be used to verify the integrity of the deal in an untrusted network etc.

I am fairly sure this could be implemented very soon for play money.. the real problem is the payments processing, and the trust required therein [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[apefish]

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i would be all for a rake free site that let people play as many tables as they wanted as long as they made the minimum vpip 30%

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letsbump it to 45 with a preflop raise % at a flat zero and all aggro under 1. After all, we want it to be fish friendly.

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And friendly friendly. No check raising dammit.