What makes the Poker Economy Chug?

Posted by Verstehen

May 28, 2008

I’ve recently switched my primary playing location from from one major poker site to the other; let’s call the one I left the Full of multi-tabling TAGs site, and the other one hopefully will be a Moneymaker in the long run (Pokerstars, obviously). These two sites are the big players in the US market and aside from PartyPoker, probably the biggest sites in the world.

Technically, the sites are quite similar: both offer smooth-running clients for multiple operating systems, with all of the attendant abilities to tile and cascade tables, automatically set buy-in preferences, locate “friends” on the site, and quickly contact support. As far as the interface, there’s not too much difference between them, although I think Pokerstars has the better client and I get disconnected far less frequently.

However, it seems like the two sites have a different online poker philosophy. I hesitate to compare these two sites to cultural touchstones like Mac versus Windows, but there’s definitely a fundamentally different approach to the game. Full Tilt is the unofficial site of the multi-tabling TAG; the official link with Cardrunners only makes this more obvious. Pokerstars appeals to a broad range, serious players but also tournament specialists, amateurs, and devotees of odd/borderline obsolete games.

Full Tilt offers very generous sign-ups bonuses, with a 100% match of your deposit up to 600 dollars. Pokerstars offers a meager 50 dollar maximum deposit bonus. More importantly, Full Tilt offers a generous rakeback plan through affiliate sites, and Stars does not.

Why play at Stars? For a long time I didn’t. But I tried it for a couple of reasons. First, I’d heard that the games were better on Stars; I think there’s something to that, the small-stakes NL games are certainly good. Second, I’d always heard they had very responsive and professional support, unlike a lot of online poker sites. Finally, the site with the highest player volume just can’t be bad, in terms of finding games at all times of day (I’m on the West coast so sometimes I’m not synced with “peak” times) and playing less popular games (every once in a while I go back to playing Stud Hi, but the player base is quite small overall). Although I don’t play MTTs much, Stars obviously has a nice lineup there too.

One other objection I had to Full Tilt was that they take a rather lax stance towards bots. Aside from obnoxious teenagers open-shoving every hand at small-stakes games, bots are the worst thing about playing online this side of Absolute Poker. I’m not sure that any site has really rooted out bots effectively, but from what I understand Pokerstars actually investigates accounts that are accused of colluding, multi-accounting, or using bots.

But the real difference is rakeback. Rakeback dramatically changes the complexion of a site. I’ve heard justification from both casual and serious players; casual players say “I don’t get to put in a lot of hours, so I need rakeback to make it worth it on an hourly basis.” Serious players say, “I take this seriously, so I’ll take every possible addition to winrate that I can get.”

However, there’s something paradoxical about the exodus of TAGs from other sites to Full Tilt. They largely end up playing each other to a standstill. I know at least two good players who are killing small stakes games ($0.50/$1 No-Limit Hold ‘Em, for example) but refuse to play at any site besides Full Tilt. Why? Because they want the best possible edge, which means rakeback (available at many sites) and passive datamining (if you’re never heard of this, and I hadn’t until recently, look at this link). Full Tilt is, I believe, the only site that offers both of these together; the only other is Absolute Poker and I don’t think many serious players want to get involved with that site right now. In short, they want to “get the best of it.” The problem is, they are playing against others who want to optimize in the same way. They want perfect information, and a rake refund from every pot they play besides.

I obviously have no objection to gamblers trying to get the best of it. However, I’m thrilled to be moving in the opposite direction as these thinking, dangerous players. I’ve asked both of them about Pokerstars and their answer has been “Yeah, great games, great software, great support, great rewards program…. but I want rakeback and datamining.” (Please note: I’m not hocking Pokerstars but it is indisputably very solid in all of those categories).

Sure, at the micro-levels there are people who selected Full Tilt just because they’ve heard of it, or because Phil Ivey is cool, or because the intro sequence to “Poker After Dark” has jammin’ music. But as you move up to the level where people might be making a serious profit, around $200 NL or so, players start seriously looking around at what the sites have to offer. For fishiness, I’ve always heard Bodog and PartyPoker were best; for sheer volume Pokerstars is the winner; for bonuses UltimateBet and DoylesRoom seem to be the most generous.

Full Tilt thrives for now because the bonuses float the poker economy and artificially double the bankroll of every fish. That doesn’t last long, though; $600 isn’t going far, even at the 50 cent games. But I wonder if it can last, attracting the rakeback-seeking datamining multi-tabling TAGs to play against each other at the mid-stakes games. To sustain itself, every site needs to attract losing players as well as winning players - the money has to come from somewhere.

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