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Online Poker Numbers Declining?
I have noticed the last few months that the numbers of players playing online seems to have declined. Further evidence of this seems to be the fall in the amounts offered in guaranteed tournaments Primo for example. I tend to play mainly on the another (moderator edit) network and this appears to have been hit more than most I thought the World Cup may be partly to blame but there seems to have been no increase in amounts offered.
Does anybody have any thoughts on this or does anybody know whats happened to all these players?
Apologies if this has already been covered as this is my first post!!!
Comments
The general concensus appears to be that the numbers will pick up when summer is over.
ipoker has its own particular issues at present so may be impacted more than some other sites/networks.
The guarentees being dropped so much is absolutely ridiculous.
The first england game of the world cup, there was quite a big over-lay, a mis-judgement on skys part. Since then it seems they are petrified of it happening again, and over-compensating.
Theres absolutely no need for such ridic guarentees.
The argument of guarentees not mattering if the tourny is getting alot of runners, is nonsense too, as if having a guarentee in place makes 1 player enter who wouldn't normally, then it's done a worthwhile job.
Nobody wins in this situation, the players/clients lose out, so do sky.
Someone in the office needs to sort it out....quick.
Just the tournaments seem to have declined which i think is due to the gurantee, hopefully this isn't for too much longer but only sky knows. i can understand its going to be less busy during the summer but i dont think it should affect the tournaments as much as it does, see at most i'd say couple of hundred people go on holiday at the same time but still unlikely they all would have played the open or what not
FACT is if the gurantee's remain low then will kill the tournaments on this site imo, i can gurantee(no pun intended) at least 80% of people will look at the prize pool and gurantee before they sign up but at the momment its just silly. also we got too many rebuys!
If the prize pool is over £12K then it is irrelevant if the guarantee is £8K, £10K or £12K.
I assume that we are crediting poker players with enough intelligence to work out the size of the prize pool and hence to know that the guarantee is not important.
No players lose out whatever the size of the field once the guarantee is met. They pay the same rake whatever happens. If the prize pool is smaller then there are fewer players to beat. It is unreasonable to expect Sky Poker to provide an overlay - it makes no business sense.
It is better for sky and for the clients, if the big tournaments get higher numbers, the prizes are bigger. There are meaningless pointless mtt's running through the day, which are really sit n gos disguised in the mtt lobby.
(£60 gtd, £11 buy in for example)
The main event, the more runners, the better.
If the PP is gt'd at £5k, and the number of runners equates to a prize pool of £10k, this can be used as a benchmark.
If the PP is then changed, and gt'd at 9k, do you think, on the same night, the number of runners will lead to a prize poolhigher or lower than 10k? - obviously higher.
I am not asking for an overlay, just a realistic guarentee to ensure that the maximum amount of runners for that night is achieved.
It makes absolute sense.
1 player put off by the lower (stoooopid) guarentee, is 1 player lost, therefore, in the case of the primo, £33 lost from the prize pool.
All these posts about lower guarentees obviously means it is affecting players decision on whether to play the MTT or not. One night recently I saw the main event guarentee was something like 2k!!?!?!? I think even Christmas day has more runners than 200. By putting a sensible guarentee will encourage more players to enter as it looks like better value even though once the guarentee is met its the same.
make the guarentee 3.5 - 4k and I guarentee you will see an increase in numbers
cant see how people can say that the numbers are down because its the summer and people go on holiday ,the world cup ,seasonal traffic and all that .............the primo will never be restored too £50000 gtd no matter what season it is ............and there is a lot less players on here now than this time last year ,i remember sky bending over backwards and listening to the deepstack players ,too change the blind levels in the open ,since theyve done that the numbers are way down ,and most of the deepstack players dont even enter it ...........the early start has backfired ,too early for people who r working and want 2 sattelite in ........revert it back 2 the way it was ,9pm start is the only way
All sites have at least one premier tournament each night with a guarantee. This brings in casual players and hopefully they stay on to play other games. I don't think the Open or Primo guarantees are the reason the numbers are down, just the opposite, the guarantees are down because the numbers are down in the first place. Dohhhhhhh's point is a good one and he's correct in saying that the guarantees affect the likely number of entrants. A 6k guarantee that has a pool of 12k would probably have had a pool well in excess of that figure had the guarantee been more realistic.
As far as the numbers of players on Sky it is down due to seasonal variances, which all sites suffer at this time. I think there are more problems than just that though and there certainly seems to have been an exodus of regulars over recent months. I have my own thoughts on that score but I'll keep them as just that, my own thoughts.
I suggest that you change the company that you keep if all you hear is such utter twaddle.
I can't comment as to whether or not the new schedule, which is more focussed on the website than the TV channel is sustainable long term, I can only hope that it is, because having played poker on a number of different sites, the sense of community and fun here is light years ahead of any others....I don't play poker to earn a living - if I did, I may play elsewhere, I play it to have fun, and I wouldn't want to play anywhere else....
Bingo is the future, there are no suck outs and you get dancing foxes, poker will never be able compete with that. RIP poker.
Ive had loadsss of hole in ones on Tiger Woods on the PS2 (old schoooooooooooool)
the main reason is play is massively improved overall and the fish no longer have even worse fish to at least win sometimes from
i have given up cash online to any serious degree and now play live 5 times a week a game that is similar to online was 3-4 years ago imo