Posts Tagged ‘Bodog’

PokerScout goes Offline – Bodog to Blame?

Sunday, July 21st, 2013

Throughout most of yesterday and part of today, PokerScout.com went offline. This popular site provides traffic figures on internet poker sites and also sells player data to their clientele. However, people were denied the ability to visit PokerScout after it was down for a 24-hour period.

At this point, there’s no word on if the big interruption was due to server problems or Bodog. The Bodog brand has a long-running feud with PokerScout over the latter’s willingness to sell player data. Through their “Recreational Player Model,” Bodog has made it a mission to protect amateur grinders at all costs. The idea here is to block third-party data mining sites and eliminate the use of “heads-up display software,” which provides stats and tendencies on opponents.

PokerScout’s insistence on selling stats on players undercuts the Recreational Player Model by giving pros the upperhand. For this reason, Bodog has launched an anti-PokerScout campaign and tried to get them booted offline. But again, it’s tough to say whether Bodog had a hand in actually getting PokerScout kicked offline, or if this was some kind of technical problem.

There are still a fair amount of online poker sites that do allow heads-up display software and third-party data mining. But with online poker traffic slowly declining across the board, many rooms are seeing the value in keeping recreational players around.

After all, amateur players bring new money into the industry with their deposits. And if these players are getting beaten badly by pros right away, it discourages them from sticking around. So poker rooms like Bodog, Party Poker and Lock Poker have recently made efforts to help amateurs while limiting the resources that professionals can use to beat their opponents.

Backlash over Online Poker Player Pool Segregation

Saturday, March 9th, 2013

The idea of catering to recreational players is nothing new in the online poker world. Bodog started this trend last year when they unveiled their “Recreational Player Model,” which prevents grinders from using data mining software on opponents. Months later, the Everleaf Gaming network took things a step further by preventing players who made over €750 a week from facing losing players.

As if this wasn’t going far enough, it was recently discovered that Party Poker have been segregating their players based on win rate – without officially telling anybody. So winning players have been unable to see losing players in the lobby, meaning they can only play against other regs and winners.

This latest move has really set the online poker community off with many pros voicing their complaints. A big thread recently opened up at TwoPlusTwo where various members have argued both sides of player segregation.

Two of the main arguments against player segregation are that it specifically targets winning players and seeks to create a break-even environment. The latter is key because players who compete against those with similar win rates will generally trade money back and forth while paying lots of rake in the process. The end result is that online poker sites are the only true winners from this scenario.

The big arguments for segregating grinders are that more recreational players will be encouraged to stick around after depositing, and bumhunters won’t be able to target weaker opponents all of the time.

As you can see, there are good points both for and against player segregation. But in my opinion, there may be no real winner after segregation has taken its course. Going further, it seems as if Party Poker and Everleaf are merely grasping at straws as online poker slowly loses more players each month.

It’s hard to say what the solution to a declining worldwide online poker player pool is – short of another Chris Moneymaker-type or federal legalization in the United States. So for the time being, it looks like we’ll have to let online poker segregation run its course and see what happens.

Josh Arieh retires from Poker since it’s “Really Tough”

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

Josh Arieh has remained a well-known figure in the poker world ever since he finished third in the 2004 WSOP Main Event and collected $2.5 million. He’s also managed to win two WSOP gold bracelets (1999 and 2005), which has furthered his reputation as a strong tournament player. However, it appears that Arieh has decided to retire from poker – save for playing in the WSOP Main Event.

The 37-year-old dropped this news by telling PokerListings, “I’m not thinking about it, I am (retiring from poker). This is my last tournament until the next WSOP. To me, poker is not what it used to be.” He expanded on the reasoning behind quitting as he said, “Poker is really tough. Kids got so good. Instead of poolroom hustlers and gamblers it turned into freaking geniuses. Kids that are making 1600 on the SATs.”

So how serious is he about retiring from poker? Well the Atlanta resident commented on this by saying, “I’m willing to take any bet from anyone. I’m the action junkie, everyone knows that I love being in action and I’m a complete degenerate. I’m willing to take any bet that I don’t play another tournament after this until the $10k PLO at the WSOP next year.”

About the only way that Josh Arieh would return to poker full-time is if the United States fully legalized the game. After all, this would bring a lot of fresh, unskilled players into the fold and give pros like Arieh a bigger edge. He echoed this sentiment by saying, “If poker gets legalized in the U.S. there will be another boom. It would be great again. That would make it worth what we go through.” You can read the rest of Arieh’s comments on the matter here.

Besides his aforementioned accomplishments and $6 million in tournament winnings, Arieh is also known for representing Bodog and Full Tilt Poker in his career. However, without a sponsorship deal now, it’s likely that this helped contribute to his decision to quit playing poker.

Segregated Online Poker Markets

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

One issue that’s starting to catch fire within the poker world is the possible segregation of the UK online poker market. The UK has always been one of the more lucrative markets because they have money, and their government seems tolerant to online gambling. But the way it seems now, the UK is looking to make its online poker market exclusive from the rest of the world.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because both France and Italy already have this model in place. And while you wouldn’t think that countries with 65 million and 60 million residents would make much of a dent on the worldwide poker market, their segregation has created a surprisingly successful environment.

Looking at PokerStars, they’ve done surprisingly well with both PokerStars.it (4th in online poker room traffic) and PokerStars.fr (7th in traffic). The iPoker network is another entity that’s taken well to Italy since their iPoker.it site is ranked 10th in online poker traffic. In short, exclusive poker markets in Italy and France have performed better than imagined.

This being said, you have to think that an exclusive UK player pool would do pretty well since their country is about the same size as Italy and France, plus they have a lot of online poker fanatics.

Looking at things from a broader perspective, there are pluses and minuses to regulating online poker markets. The biggest positive is that more fish are going to be encouraged to play in a system where deposits/cashouts are easily made, and where the government actually encourages play because they get tax revenue. On the downside, the world is being split from some of the best poker markets in the world, and the high stakes games will suffer as a result. After all, people with multi-million bankrolls aren’t a dime a dozen in every country.

In short, you have to take the good with the bad in these regulated online poker markets.