iPoker network changes in detail

The rake in the limit games has been changed back to 5% from the 4% that it was changed to a couple of years ago. The rake in general in these games is too high and above the pokerstars rake even at 4% and should be lowered. At a min it should be put back the way it was. At the moment, the amount of rake being taken is at variance with what is listed on iPoker sites. Clearly this needs to be addressed.

Hi, fixthis1...
Welcome to PokerStrategy.com !

I'm pretty sure that no-one here can modify the rake rakes (unfortunately).

I think that the only way to have any effect is to express your thoughts to the rooms customer service.

Best of luck,
--VS

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Hi, fixthis1...
Welcome to PokerStrategy.com !

I'm pretty sure that no-one here can modify the rake rakes (unfortunately).

I think that the only way to have any effect is to express your thoughts to the rooms customer service.

Best of luck,
--VS

I don't agree. Have you ever talked to the cs on an iPoker skin? Even if I got one of them to understand what I was talking about trying to get a skin to go up the chain to Playtech about this would be an exercise in futility. Playtech owns your company. I'm sure the owners of this site or one of the many employees could contact the right people.

To be clear, iPoker skins are committing theft and fraud by listing one set of rakes and charging another. Is this something that doesn't concern you or pokerstrategy?

Hey everyone,

Our iPoker contact (HannesZ) is currently away on annual leave at the moment. He is not back until the end of the month and he will then reply to all your questions.

Best regards,
Gary

Originally posted by HollyMichelle
Hey everyone,

Our iPoker contact (HannesZ) is currently away on annual leave at the moment. He is not back until the end of the month and he will then reply to all your questions.

Best regards,
Gary

I look forward to some reasoned comment at that point, on my post concerning the 50-60% increase in the rake charged on basic level HUSNGs under the new regime, which is frankly demotivating.

Regarding the news about Twister SnG to be rolled out, I'll x-post my question here, so that I see the answer when visiting the forum and not the news: what are the official fee amounts on which awarded player points will be based?

This is a re-post from my individual blog.

Dudes - this is the text of an e-mail just sent to 770 support. I will post the reply when it comes. I have been playing the HUSNGs again, with no great enthusiasm. If anyone can report to me on the rake percentages for this format on other sites, that would be a kindness. The only thing that makes this remotely bearable is that I am still playing with PS's money rather than my own.

Subject - 1] deletion of tournament tokens 2] increased rake on HUSNGs 3] concealment of rake on displays.

Dear Sirs:
I write to call for comment and remedial action on the above topics.

First, I received 3 x $1.10 tournament tokens from you. One was as compensation for a disconnection in which I lost a buy-in needlessly. Two were awards in your recent Advent promotion. They have disappeared from my account without explanation. I believe this was one of the consequences of your switch from US$ to €[euros] as the main site currency, and the consequences of the switch for tokens were simply overlooked. I suggest that you really should replace them with equivalent euro tokens.

Second, I and others in the community had suspicions about the true motivation for the $/€ currency switch. Those suspicions were amply justified when I saw the new menus for Heads Up Sit and Go tournaments [HUSNGs]. At the basic levels ,where I and most of us play, the previous rake had been a uniform 5%. Under the new regime, there is a sliding scale of rake at those levels, depending on whether you play regular, turbo, or superturbo. In every case, however, the rake has been sharply increased, by around 50% overall. In the consumer world outside poker, a price increase of this level would be cause for severe opprobrium against the perpetrator.

Third, you have engaged in what you described as 'consolidation' of prices on your display screens. Previously an entry fee was visibly split into the fee and the rake. There is no split now: there is just one price, the result being that the rake increases have been concealed.

Taking the second and third items here together, they may justly be characterised as squalid and present the management in a customer-hostile and rapacious light. I wonder if you would feel moved to reverse or modify the decisions taken here?

I await your reply with interest. I am a member of the Poker Strategy community, and both this inquiry and your substantive reply will go up on the forum pages.

Yours sincerely,

Give them a break, the first thing is just a normal slip for a euro network and hopefully they'll restore the status quo once you've reminded them; the consolidation of prices is smth that Stars and .fr sites have done for ages to hide the fee, it's hard to blame iPoker for just following the industry trend. Just memorise the fees in those tourneys that you play regularly, play more to get bigger rewards, and you'll be fine.

Thanks for the language of your letter, I've learnt at least three English words from it :f_pleased:, the 770 staff members reading it will likely enhance their lexicon too

Originally posted by tonypmm
Regarding the news about Twister SnG to be rolled out, I'll x-post my question here, so that I see the answer when visiting the forum and not the news: what are the official fee amounts on which awarded player points will be based?

To close the topic, I'll repeat that the official fee in Twister is 7% of the total BI, that's what points are based on.

Originally posted by tonypmm
Regarding the news about Twister SnG to be rolled out, I'll x-post my question here, so that I see the answer when visiting the forum and not the news: what are the official fee amounts on which awarded player points will be based?

The fee is 7%. Points (VIP system) are also based on that. You will see this also in your transaction history in your poker client even with the part for the jackpot contribution.
So ie. for the $1 Twister Poker SNG it is $0.67 + $0.07 + $0.26.

Please let me know if you have any further questions about the new gametype.

Originally posted by microhero
Any plans to change that more tab in the lobby?

There's no more turbo tables and it'd be nice to filter out the 50BB and anon tables.

Turbo tables have indeed been removed. With the introduction of timebank in cashgame the differentiation became quite obsolete. Meaning that the time to act on normal and turbo tables has been harmonized to 20 seconds on No Limit tables.
Regarding the filters: this is indeed not possible yet. I fear that this won't be something which will get added in the next releases due other higher priorities.

Originally posted by Glopslart
Really, what is the sodding point?

I logged into 770 today and found that the HUSNGs have been converted from $US fees to Euro [€]fees. At the basic levels where I [and most of us?] play, the rake structure has also changed.

Previously, the rake was a uniform 5%.
1] The rake for the basic entry level €0.92HUSNG is now €0.08.
2] The rake for the basic Turbo €0.93 HUSNG is now €0.07.
3] The rake for the basic Hyper € 0.94 HUSNG is now €0.06.

Mutatis mutandis, the same goes for the next level up, and doubtless applies further up the food chain. I have not looked at other I-poker sites, but would guess that the fees are uniform across the Playtech empire.

What this means in plain language is that there has been a 50-60% increase in the price for playing this format on I-poker. From what I understand, the rake was already lower on other platforms.

The rake structure has been compared with most networks in the industry. ie. even on PokerStars you will see on the lowest HU SNGs fees up to 8.7%.

Originally posted by tonypmm
As you'll have to learn a new variation anyway, come play jackpot SnGs. The Russian mafia needs DoN regs as we're running out of recreationals

Or email your skin begging for 8-man DoNs. I'm not sure if they'll be running a lot, though.

That's indeed the problem regarding DONs especially 10man. Having game types in the lobby, which hardly ever run doesn't make much sense. It gives also new players a bad experience when they have to wait ages to get the game started - if it even does.

The entries below are in furtherance of my promise to post whatever the770 management said in reply to my e-mail. We are stuck with this. I am just glad that I am not using my own money.

Beatrice,

Thanks for replying to me, and I apologise for the lateness of my comments, there has been a lot on my plate in the last month.

Tokens.

Oops! Yes, now that I have looked properly, I see that one of my tokens had in fact expired. I also see that you have indeed completed the update process and I have 3x€1 tokens in my armoury - thankyou!

Rake and display of rake.

I note what you say about the displays and consolidation. With respect, this is not an answer to the point. Your display before was clear and informative - and now it is not. To say that other sites also adopt this unfortunate practice, of concealing the rake in the primary menu, is not a defence.

Amount of rake in basic level HUSNGs.

I see nothing in your reply which addresses the massive price increase. I can understand the currency switch, but you have used this as an excuse for other things. Perhaps you are too ashamed to say anything about this to us?

I understand that you have to make a profit, otherwise there would be no site for us to play on. Also, there are many fewer people overall playing poker than there once were, so you have to somehow keep up revenue. However, the size of the increase looks like a grab, and not like revenue maintenance, so it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Now the fact is that I am not playing with my own money, but with PokerStrategy.com's money, so that the sting of the situation is not as bad as it might be, but it is an unpleasant situation notwithstanding.

xxx

========================================
Message Received: Jan 24 2014, 04:09 PM
From: "Support Poker770.co.uk"
To:

Subject: Re: 1] deletion of tournament tokens 2] increased rake on HUSNGs 3] concealment of rake on displays

__________________________________

JAN 24, 2014 | 04:09PM GMT

Dear xx,

Thank you for contacting us!

First of all, we assure you that we sincerely appreciate your message as it gives us the perfect opportunity to shed light on the latest changes which occurred on our cardroom and which may be confusing.

First of all, we kindly invite you to consider that we are currently working on updating the tokens as well, so that they correspond to the new tournaments available on our room. However, if there are players who still have USD tokens, we have always encouraged them to contact us so that their tokens can be changed.

As a result, the three $1.1 tokens you had were replaced by three EUR 1 tokens which you will be able to use without any problems. Although one of the three $1.1 tokens you had already expired, it was replaced as well.

In what concerns your second question, the reason behind switching from USD to EUR is very simple: the iPoker.com network has more EURO users than USD

The network has been using USD as main currency for both cash games and tournaments because it was a "heritage" from the era when American players were allowed to play here. Since then, most of the players are Europeans and therefore use EUR as
currency. Consequently, switching to EUR is simply logical: there are more European players than rest of the world players, so why would there be tables and tournaments that don't use the currency that most players use?

Finally, in what concerns your third question, the display of the buy-in (without splitting the buy-in and fees) is simply to have the lobby more user friendly. Before it was way too crowded and players had a hard time navigating/seeing the info from Lobby. The split of fees/buy-ins is still available if you click on the tournament you are interested in, i.e. you will see it on the right-hand pane of the lobby. Therefore, we are in no way trying to conceal anything but only working toward providing the players a better and "cleaner" lobby. Last but not least, the consolidation of the buy-in is not done only on Poker770 and there are lots of other rooms who have adopted this practice.

Hoping you find this information useful we remain at your service for any questions you may have.

Best regards,

Beatrice

Customer Support Poker770
Click here to contact us
Get instant answers with Live Chat!

JAN 22, 2014 | 07:51PM GMT
Original message

Subject - 1] deletion of tournament tokens 2] increased rake on HUSNGs 3] concealment of rake on displays.

Dear Sirs:
I write to call for comment and remedial action on the above topics.

First, I received 3 x $1.10 tournament tokens from you. One was as compensation for a disconnection in which I lost a buy-in needlessly. Two were awards in your recent Advent promotion. They have disappeared from my account without explanation. I believe this was one of the consequences of your switch from US$ to €[euros] as the main site currency, and the consequences of the switch for tokens were simply overlooked. I suggest that you really should replace them with equivalenmt euro tokens.

Second, I and others in the community had suspicions about the true motivation for the $/€ currency switch. Those suspicions were amply justified when I saw the new menus for Heads Up Sit and Go tournaments [HUSNGs]. At the basic levels ,where I and most of us play, the previous rake had been a uniform 5%. Under the new regime, there is a sliding scale of rake at those levels, depending on whether you play regular, turbo, or superturbo. In every case, however, the rake has been sharply increased, by around 50% overall. In the consumer world outside poker, a price increase of this level would be cause for severe opprobrium against the perpetrator.

Third, you have engaged in what you described as 'consolidation' of prices on your display screens. Previously an entry fee was visibly split into the fee and the rake. There is no split now: there is just one price, the result being that the rake increases have been concealed.

Taking the second and third items here together, they may justly be characterised as squalid and present the management in a customer-hostile and rapacious light. I wonder if you would feel moved to reverse or modify the decisions taken here?

I await your reply with interest. I am a member of the Poker Strategy community, and both this inquiry and your substantive reply will go up on the forum pages.

Yours sincerely,

Originally posted by HollyMichelle
Hey everyone,

Our iPoker contact (HannesZ) is currently away on annual leave at the moment. He is not back until the end of the month and he will then reply to all your questions.

Best regards,
Gary

Is this person back from annual leave yet?

Please have a look above:
iPoker network changes in detail

I already replied to your post.

Originally posted by HannesZ
Please have a look above:
iPoker network changes in detail

I already replied to your post.

Apologies, don't know how I missed ur post

Hey,

For all tournament players at iPoker there are a few changes upcoming. Some major sport activities are to take place during March and the guarantees for a few tournaments will change according to the table below: