First

Holy Shit

mmmm you're so hot when you're excited, niall

third! GOOD LUCK PHIL

sick

Awesome Phil, but if you want to just burn money please just send it to me instead man. I'm telling you, and I know you're smart and hopefully spoke to a lot of people about this, but I have a long list of pro's with decent VC's who couldn't get a poker site going.

I have other things you can invest in if you're looking to expand poker knowledge and make money. If you do end up doing it (and again, I wouldn't advise it), I hope you're successful. We need more poker sites run like this.

WHAT. A. MAN.

Holy Moly. Will this be available to players in the US?

Good luck man. This brought a small tear to my eye. I have been saying online pros should do this for years. Even tried it myself a few times and couldn't get it off the ground.

I hope this works. I hope you run it like I think you will.

Much love Phil

Are you hiring?

Best of Luck!

This is awesome. GLGL!!

Everybody likes and trusts you Phil. You will succeed at this because you are smart, have integrity, and know what a good poker site should be. Can't wait! The biggest problem I see is that the players you will have on their first will be total sharks making the games the toughest online. Hope you have a way to get the casual players involved. Poker dies when new players stop coming. That is the lifeblood of poker, so you have to constantly have a stream of new players. Essential.

Good luck dude. The poker world badly needs a site with your outlook.

You need a brilliant marketing guy. You know what a good poker site should be, but the key will be attracting newbies. Marketing will determine your success imo

Thank you everyone for the kind words and suggestions! Poker players, especially you guys here at RIO, are invaluable resources and I'll be listening to each and every word posted.

This is definitely an awesome idea.
I don't know how receiving a license work etc. But there should be a 3rd party who has the authority to have access to your administration so that's they are able to check the financial status. We don't need another Full Tilt poker, and I rather trust in a system than I do trusting a person if you know what I mean.

Very excited! Best of luck to you, sir!

Phil, I think you are one of the most trustworthy people in the industry. I honestly believe that you will give everything you can to achieve your dream.
I believe in you. Best of luck!

Quick question, would the site have the option to Run It Twice? :P

So excited for this! best of luck Phil!

Will you offer 5 card Omaha?
Please consider it :)

this gunna be sick

Wow. Ever since I read the "I need the 'Z' to go to the Zoo" analogy I knew you were something else. If anyone can build a site that a player may feel 100% in capable hands it's you.

Well done and Bon Chance.

Damn, thats gonna be awesome! Best of luck Phil, you are an extraordinary person.

Good stuff. Maybe it's too early to ask, but i'll do it anyway:
How is the new site going to tackle the problem of seating scripts and waiting lists? I much prefer regular tables to rush/zoom poker, but it seems a pain to get a seat in any desired online table in certain stakes if you don't engage in some sort of script/tech battles.

What about rake/rewards/bonus, how will it follow in comparison to the rest of the industry? Will it reward players by volume, certain afilliates, a flat structure?

I hope you guys have a budget high enough for making a great software and for doing marketing to attrack new players. Boa sorte!

Holy shit this is amazing! When I saw the title I was hoping it would be a preface to this kind of announcement and I'm glad it is!

If I had to pick someone to run a poker site I think Phil would be my man - someone who cares about the game deeply and understands what the players want.

Best of luck to you Phil and the team - I know I'll definitely be giving it a shot!

P.S. You definitely should not be able to run it twice ;)

Great idea Phil. I live in New Zealand, and all my poker crowd used to play on Stars that is until it turned into a 'clip joint',is the name I believe. Daniel Blogged last year that he was aware of what is in store for 2016 at Stars as a 'substitute' for the new methods of 'clipping us', but as yet they have failed to materialise,thus making D Negs's statement last year,lack any cred! I would think that he would be annoyed at this as he is a man of his word, and he endorsed what Stars led him to believe was going to happen.It's pretty poor of Stars to do this to him, as he is a loyal ambassador for them but it does not surprise me that they are mucking him around too. If they could implement the changes they did, so sudden and unannounced, and doing the dirty deed on those who had already done enough grinding to get them to the level they aimed for was unconscionable,what a pack of no-hopers.

Phil when your site materialises, i for one won't be able to sign on quick enough,as will my buddies once I have made them aware,they too would love to play on yours.You are very well respected globally in Pokersville and as a consequence I feel you will attract the players, and in no time yours would become the #1 Poker Site on the planet and soon as the US allows poker, the US grinders would sooner be at your place Mr Galfond.

It will been an immense challenge to continually attract enough casual recreational players beyond the natural training site member base. Good Luck!

Can I invest?

Hey, Guys. I've received a few questions about what our policies and offerings will be. I expected nothing less, and I expect many more!

Initially, I didn't want to announce our impending launch until much closer to our launch date. However, we reached a point where it was becoming difficult to prepare for launch while keeping this a secret. Potential employees like to know where they're applying. Potential marketing partners need to know, when talking to us, that this isn't a random startup with nothing behind it. Basically, it had to get out sometime soon, and I wanted you to hear it from me.

As we're still several months from launch, there are some policies that haven't been decided on yet, and some others that we don't wish to reveal this early. We also will be making some of our decisions based on the opinions and feedback of the community, which we felt was one of the biggest benefits to announcing now rather than later.

As I mentioned in my initial post, transparency is one of our company's core values. It's very important to me that with every big decision we make, we also include our reasoning behind it. Some of these decisions will be very difficult. We won't be able to please everyone all the time, but we will be ready to explain each of our policy decisions when we announce them.

Our plan is to release policy announcements, as well as requests for feedback from the community, over the course of the next several months. This way we can present our ideas and reasoning and give each issue the attention it deserves.

I still welcome questions and feedback, but please understand that we can't answer all of your questions just yet, and that we will share information as we're ready and able to. Thank you!

Hello Phil

Long time fan, first time poster. Seeing this link from a friend I had to come read and post for myself(and hope you respond haha)

Serious question though, are you guys hiring? I for one would love to be involved with something like this even in a support capacity.

I myself have experience playing online but stepped away from playing as much as I did in the past this year due to the changes made on poker stars. I for one can't wait till this opens to at least play and if not maybe get involved working behind the scenes.

Good luck and I look forward to when this opens.

grrrrrr I hate to hear this as an european player in a regulated country (France); I hope something will change soon to explore your futur project. it becomes very boring to be able to play only on 2 sites. will you ask a license for france, italy and spain?

I hope also, you will keep RIO alive and at a high level, because I guess this kind of project will take a big chunk of your energy.

good luck

Hi Phil,

I am extremely pleased to see this post from you and to know that you are working towards it. I am from India and am part of Start-Up ecosystem here. I have been playing poker on stars and some of the Indian sites and all of them are focused on making quick money rather that truly promoting the game. A couple of weeks back, I had a detailed discussion with my professional poker friends in India on what a Poker site should be like and a lot of ideas that we discussed resonate with your post here. Would love to share those ideas with you and help in what ever way possible. All the best!

Hey Phil and co,

I saw the tweet and thought it was just another statement trying to put pressure on existing sites. Which is nice, but like bringing a rubber spoon to a gun fight. But a new site! Exciting!

My initial concerns (which don't need answering) are:

• RIO is more a 'reg' site. Is an offshoot poker site of that going to be able to attract enough recreational players?

• General poker site startup barriers to entry: regulation, licensing, policing of bots, getting critical volume, software, etc. This looks so scary.

• The poker environment of poker as an increasingly 'solved game'. IMO the next super successful sites (perhaps industry) are going to be ones that brings new games that are not easily solvable (and therefore bottable), such as NL and to an extent PLO, yet still incorporate all that poker 'goodness' which made poker such a successful game over the last few decades. It makes me happy that at the very least you understand a little of this 'goodness' and plan to implement it as a core part of your project. Unlike current operators, whose new games appear to be predatory, gambling rake traps.

It would be great if your site could shake up the status quo of the industry. I hope you can go on and be wildly successful. Good luck, I'll be one of the first to sign up!

Also this is my cover letter to apply for a role on teh 'new games team'. :D

wow this could be huge.
With your experience, reputation, skills, dealing and energy your capable of putting into something. I wish you all the best and will definitely give your this site a shot.
Good luck and greetings from Germany

Does a poker site offer one of the quickest and most secure ways of processing payments, also known as Bitcoin?

Awesome! #makepokergreatagain

oh boy. that's some pretty sick news. GL Phil

I have been thinking long time ago to sign up but have been postponing it giving priority to other poker related stuff.. I guess the latest news have been a good opportunity.. all the best from Greece.. hopefully you will take care of a licence here as well..

Exciting poker news for the 1st time in a long time!

I as a rec player who plays every day I would like to put a few point in:

As a microstakes player I as a rule don't really care about the rake in my games and believe this is the general consensus of the pool but I do like a decent reward program in the form of freerolls and tourne tickets.

If we could possibly have high stakes games and the posibiltiy of pro level RB deal, just so the tenuous dream of becoming pro is possible.

Lastly can we consider great games such as 2-7 TD and maybe 8 game, as a hobbiest I loves these and for variation to keep the interest.

Thank you Phill I will now be a RIO net depositer.

Great news! Good luck to RIO Poker!

fuck yea!!! Good luck Phill!!!!!!

Joe you just have to invite Phil on one of yourpodcast again now ! haha

I wish you the best of luck !

Great news! Good luck Phil! You have the potential to create something truly great!

Good luck, Phil! You are a real role model in the poker community, and I have no doubts that you would succeed in any endeavour you pursue. I will definitely play on your site when it launches!

Absolutely buzzing for this! Can't wait! Any idea for a date of release or not decided yet?

FUCK YEAH! I hope it works out man!

Obviously this is going to be a difficult task but if any team/label will be able to pull enough traction its RIO. Would switch over from stars in a heartbeat if there's any volume available at all, and I imagine I'm not alone in that. This could be very, very major. Good luck guys

Good Luck Phil! Everybody was waiting for someone like you to try to save the regs. Thanks for trying!

Good luck with your venture RIO��

You've created the greatest poker training site with some of the best pro's, I have full confidence you'll create the best poker site.

'A poker site shouldn't obsess over where poker was five or ten years ago.' loved this bit, poker is really great NOW, regardless of where it once was.

If it were literally any other person on the planet launching this I'd put it down to a doomed ego trip, but because it's you I back it 100% to succeed. That might seem far fetched, but I know you wouldn't do this without a firm belief that you know what you're doing and that it's going to be +EV.

Best of luck!

This is awesome, Wish you massive success with this

When can we expect more details? If you want community input, you might want to define a starting point for discussions.

Great Phil, love the idea. Is this gonna be an independent network? I sure hope so!

This is so awesome Phil.
Thx for doing this whichever way it go´s!

I think you guys are doing a good job in the UI department here at RIO so i expect nothing less from the poker site. This will give you an edge over many (reasonably big) sites with terrible UI.

I think you just got too much know how about how poker works,
that this gives you a big edge as well.
For example Amaya is clearly not getting its not so viable for 2/3 strong players to be table starting when they pay the same high rake 6 handed w a fun player.

This will make the product very strong, the UI will be good (i assume) and its run by ppl who understand poker. So all the annoyances for pro's but for fun players as well will be eliminated. Think of the high rake table starting, the endless stalling in tournaments near bubble time etc.

I only hope the marketing department will be strong on this so that it ppl will come.
This will be a big challenge as well as it looks like a hard thing to do in 2017.

Best of luck!

AWESOME, if someone can succeed its Phil! Wish you all the best luck and success!

Sounds awesome. Best of luck, Phil!

That's the best news for online poker during last years....

I have two reccomendations for you and I hope you consider them seriously and understand why they are really so important to keep the game alive and don't dissapoint me.

1) Use reasonable rake caps in microstakes for No Limit Holdem and PLO. 3BB or 2.5BB rake cap in microstakes is reasonable and fair. Pokerstars 15BB rake cap in NL10 is not. New players who start playing from microstakes are being destroyed by so high rake caps , dissapointed and quit the game forever.

2)Use appropriate rake structure in 0.50/1 and lower Limit Holdem , Limit Stud variants , Limit Omaha and MIXED GAMES (HORSE, 8 game etc), and use PROMOTIONS also, to make those games playable again ! One of the main reasons those games became very unpopular in small stakes is the WRONG RAKE STRUCTURE and ZERO promotions.

The maximum rasonable rake in Limit games up to 0.50/1 should be around 3.5% and something like 3% would be fair. 4.5% rake on those games (pokerstars structure) is out of any reality .

Pokerstars rake is kiling limit games and mixed games in small stakes and forces begginers (who love to start from Limit games) to lose their bankrolls very fast and stop playing any online poker game soon , and never have the opportunity to play NLHE etc.

Analysis:

-Why care about microstakes?

To make the poker dream alive again! To make it possible for somebody to start from NL10 in and grind it up to NL200 , in the year 2017.

-What are reasobable rake caps in microstakes?

In NL200 , Pokerstars rake cap is 2.75$ per pot. That is 1.35 BB

Let change NL200 rake cap and make it 15BB!!!!

That is 30$ rake cap per pot

How would you feel playing this game?

Could you call this game as "poker" or it is not poker but a black hole?
Of course it is a black hole, and it is crazy .

So why having 15BB rake cap per pot in NL10 is not crazy?

MPN (microgaming poker network) was in 14 position in pokerscout in may 2015. Ipoker was in 3rd position....

they decided to change the rake structure.
MPN was the first online poker network introduced reasobable rake caps. They now have 3BB rake caps in all microstakes from NL2 to Nl25

Ipoker increased the rake in microstakes to somehting corresponding to about 14BB/100!

After just 1 year, MPN became the largest online poker network, moved up fro place 14 to place 5 in pokescout. Ipoker colapsed now is placed 9th.

-What about the rake Limit games , stud , Limit holdem, Mixed games?

It looks like that people who decided the rake structure for those games in Pokerstars, have never played those games and can't understand how they are played and what is the difference with No limit Holdem. They use similar 4.5% rake in all Limit games up to 0.50/1 , the same they use to NLHE.

That's crazy , and thats one of the main reasons those games became so unpopular in our days comparing to NLHE.

Try to ask any high stakes limit holdem player to play 0.50/1 on Pokerstars or try to play it yourself and see what happens

The edge is so huge ... but the rake is also so huge...Even top players on the earth would see 80% of their winnings on those stakes going to the rake!

Possible winning rates in Limit games are restricted by the game structure.

Limit games are is not NLHE where some players using bumhunting and get 100BB stacks as a gift from fishes every 5 minutes to pay the rake.

The highest reasonable rake in Limit games (Holdem, Stud, Mixed etc) in Limit games up to 0.50/1 should be 3.5% maximum and 3% is really fair. Pokerstars 4.5% makes those games a black hole for all recreational and inermediate players, and very unprofitable for advanced players .

Nobody can play limit games on those stakes our days to build a bankroll or make a profit and that's a reason those games became so unpopular comparing to NLHE.

Players love to start from lower stakes, for training and begginers love to start from Limit games because they are easier.

If the begginer tries to play 0.50 /1 LHE or Limit Stud and lose huge amounts from the rake, he will quit the game soon and he will never come back again.

Please make Limit cash games playable again in stakes 0.50/1 and lower. And please offer some promotions to those games also...

Yes, I .love Stud variants, mixed games and Limit holdem also and I need a poker site where I can play those games online again without throwing my money to a black hole called "rake". If a new poker site helps me play thise games again, I'll do everything I can to reccomend it to friends and support it.

Thanks .
.
"Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live."

Proverbs 15:27, Bible

As I work here, I'd normally try to respond to any threads with a certain standard of professionalism. I am prepared to make an exception in this case however and simply say, "Fuck Yeah."

On a side note, if you comment on one of my vids in the near future and don't get a response (especially an old one) please pm me.

My notifications feed is going to be swamped after having posted here.

**Not gonna tell u how to suck eggs sir but to point out some obvious things just in case. The nut most critical part of this is the software first of all. Needs to be better than EVERYTHING out there and as close to Stars quality as poss. INSTANT actions when you click fold, raise, whateer it may be, and instant dragging of pots to winners, instant new deals no strange wtf pauses between every hand, I mean even Stars stalls a fair while when blinds go up. Hotkey customisation like Stars making it easy to multi-table without having to introduce 10 third party softwares to make this possible.

The next most obivous is the rake, need to undercut Stars, need to be the smallest rake in the world for any chance of mutiny on the bounty man u know this. Also I think SnG leaderboards would be nice, or similar to Stars old BOP concept which allowed recs to win bonuses over a very small number of games. I'm rambling- Alan Partridge.**

Will you join joey on a podcast to discuss this?

I think the real question is, can we run it twice?

Very glad to hear and excited to see what's coming in 2017 Q1.

Props to Phil and the coworkers who are pursuing their dreams!

I really can't wait to see how it looks and feels, i have high hopes in that regard.

I think when you can take away the annoyances from pokerstars, while having great software and service you have a good shot at this.

Then the only other thing is marketing, marketing, marketing.
Somehow these crappy sites still get some traffic,
but their marketing budgets are probably big.
I hope there is financial backing to do such.
From the Podcast it sounds like Phil is a big believer in reinvesting earnings,
that approach will definitely help.

Anything is possible, it won't be the first time some major player loses big chunk of market share.

Will it make sense to include features like, straddle, seven deuce game ?
It will prob make rec lose faster but it may make the game more enjoyable so that they play for longer, come back etc.

Poker site should be run 100% on Bitcoin. If you are really looking to be future of online poker you need to go that route.

We need an internet poker site run on internet currency and open to the whole internet

Are you planning on buying licenses for Denmark?

How will your balance in focus be between cashgames and tournaments? Are you planning on having a good program of GTD tournaments and maybe your own series?

And thank you for this big initiative.

Hope the site will be available in the netherlands. I will immediately open an account. Because from what i've seen from you I believe you are trustworthy and because I really hope you manage to be a serious competitor for pokerstars. Real competition is necessary for online poker to have a future. Good luck phil!

Run it Twice feature available?

Think it might be very reggish at very beginning given most of the players would be RIO members.
Is it available for players in China? And will there be any convenient ways to deposit and cach out for Chinese players?

Awesome! best wishes and thanks for doing this!!

That´s awesome news.I really hope it will work out.Good Luck Phil

I hope this is successful, but I do worry about how you will attract recreational players to the site, people that don't have RIO subscriptions. I'd imagine the games on RIO poker could potentially be very tough.

Also if you want to get Japanese players please keep in mind they soon will not be able to use Skrill or Neteller to deposit and you can't use a Japanese credit card to deposit on an Internet poker site. They could use something like Entropay, webmoney, or Bitcoin.

This should be good!

Im excited!!
Best whises!

Hey Phil, that is great news, really hope the project will be succesfull... When are you sharing info about available markets? Is Slovenia included?

Interesting :)

Greetings from Greece,
I am gonna start streaming for that reason...
Lets hope RIO poker site will be as it is prolonged!!
GL !!!

Awesome, Phil! So inspirational!

I just wanted to pop in here and thank you all for the support. The team and I are overwhelmed by the enthusiasm you guys have for this project, which we've been passionately working on in silence until last night.

Any suggestions/ideas/wants you guys have, please keep them coming. We are listening.

Thank you!

The best news I ve ever heard for online poker! Good luck to all the people working for our dream. We are on your side!

Hi Phil,

I wish you the best of luck on this project. I had actually approached DANIEL Dvoress about a year ago about a site we had laid out and wanted to discuss it with you and your team.

What is proactively planned in the site software to prevent botting in all its forms? For example, built-in variability in site graphics to facilitate only human-readability. For example, built-in security preventing Bots from using Windows programmable interfaces to read hand histories and automate play undetected.

I ask because moving forward Bots will be a serious threat to playing the game at all especially in essentially solved games such as hyperturbo 25BB HUSNGs.

More generically, will HUDs be allowed or banned? Will players be limited to 4 tables or 24? What enforceable software usage restrictions apply? Will seat scripting be allowed? Will third party queuing tools like Sharky/SpinWiz be allowed? Will seating cartels be allowed or preferably actively prevented by built-in software features?

Amazing, gl

gl phil we need a site for the players by someone who understands the beauty of the game.i wish you every bit of positive energy in this endeavor .poker need a new landscape and not from a purely money making point of view.but first and foremost from an angle from a players view.glgl

Awesome news. GL. I think every technical aspect of it can be solve by money but competing with PS cant be solve by money. They do spend alot on marketing and you will have to find someway to market more efficiently without trying to out spend PS. Surely easy to get regulars to play on your site but it would be tough to reach the recreational market. I suggest leveraging social media a lot, especially before it launches so ppl are signed up even before it launches.

Will you allow deposits or withdrawals in bitcoin?

You should strongly consider offering Openface Chinese as it is the third most popular game in poker. Tonybet and other sites offer it, but they lack traffic. Most people play it on the phone. Furthermore, the pineapple variants are far from being solved:)

Sign Isildur. If you are looking for money get Guy Laliberte involved. Keep venture capitalists far away. Hire isai scheinberg as a consultant. The key to your success will be how many good honest smart people you can surround yourself with.

oohh im so excited to sign up and have the choice of almost any screen name. i wonder how long it take for Isildur1 to be snapped up...
on a serious note, I'm very excited for this. reg thing may be a problem, but if rakes lower and softwares good i wouldn't even care about that tbh. just gotta get better :P
everyone hated Party Poker software even just a couple months ago, they have updated it recently and it actually looks super nice. the bet slider etc.
so long as its nothing like 888 then it can't be that bad lol.

who am i kidding anyways I've got to have the same SN as all the sites i play on anyways...

And btw, I'm 99% sure that you and your team will have discussed this already but ill say it anyway, i think you HAVE to open a Runitonce Twitch channel. why not do it 24/7 for the first couple months? get your message across.
have longer streams with the biggest name pro's on RIO- yourself, Sauce, Fedor etc etc. then spread out the stream time between all the other pro's- like even just an hour each per day cos you's easily have >24 pro's.

mix it up, give it as like a little intro to the training site- you'll get more sign ups to that, as well as obviously to the RIO poker client you's are playing on.
i mean, hell i'd play for an hour or two on the channel if you's were short lol. I'm sure some of the sicko posters would be better suited and also keen to help out.

IT'S ALSO BASICALLY FREE ADVERTISING!!

gl

Really great news cant wait for this! I just hope greek players could play

This made my day. I genuinely smiled when I was told about this. #WhiteWednesday anyone?

If anyone can do it, you can Phil!

What is your feeling on having the poker site be the same namesake as the training site? It doesn't seem like the best idea to have less experienced players/rec players/new signups automatically know about the training site when they sign up to play @ RIO Poker. I'm sure your team has thought about this -- would be curious on your thoughts.

Will it be possible for europeans, who live in a country where poker is regulated to play on your site? It should be worth it because most are recreational players/ will be net depositors.

A poker Site Should provide multimillion dollar loans to its pro's to get nosebleed games running. Just like in the old days.

Hey Phil, I had a serious request, that would revolutionize the cash game omaha hi-lo 8 or better world, that I would want you to really consider and take seriously. RAKE FREE SPLIT POTS. Often times in Pot limit omaha hi low especially, there are situations where pots get so big where it is obvious that both players have the same high and low, or that one player has the nut high, and one has the nut low. This is often discovered by one player on the turn, and one on the river, and the pot gets buried with stacks, only for both players to get the obvious split, and raked all the way. It can happen in Omaha hi as well, when there is a straight on the board or something like that, but it is most common in the 8 or better variants. To compensate, raking scooped pots a little bit more would be okay. It's just that the rake today on these sites are so absurd that you have the smartest players in lower stakes sometimes making huge folds early, knowing that the %5 rake of their stack would be a larger value than half of a small pot. Rake should not influence the mechanics of the game, and in no game does it more than pot-limit omaha 8 or better.

Hey Phill. I think it's smart to have some kind of introduction video. This connects the player with the site.

Good Luck

Good Luck. Can't wait. I hope there are zoom games on the site :)

i know there are a lot of questions but maybe this one can be answered with ease;

Would there be a selection for mixed games like draw/badugi/etc and stud/razz/etc if this ever goes down?

The online poker landscape is warm, ripe, wet and dripping right now for a project like this. And has been now for something like 2-3 years. Well done for putting this out there, I hope you succeed.

I'll be in the NVG thread if you need me.

A couple of suggestions if i may..... in order of importance.
0) Avoid the affiliate model at all costs
1) Hire a retired Anti-Money Laundering expert with 20+ years experience from the banking sector.
2) You need to delivery the best Customer Service in the Gambling industry 24/7/365.
3) ONE free withdraw per month, any more and you pass on the business banking fee to the player
4) The UK is your primary beta testing market because of its friendly gambling laws. Beta test via a ring fenced invitational only player pool. And expand the pool slowly.
5) Rake the shit out of High Stakes Poker from Day 1

xposting this from the NVG thread that will undoubtedly imminently become a shitshow....

I don't know how difficult the following would be to implement, but I thought this was a great idea when Ansky brought it up during the SNE/Stars debacle

Another part that I think you, and many others are missing, is the value of reg vs reg games. The SNE program specifically promotes the idea of that, a game that is pure profit for Stars. Stars would love if there were more games between net withdrawing players, surely. One of my main issues with slashing SNE benefits altogether, is that I feel like a more clever and precise restructuring of how benefits are accrued is a vastly superior method of redistributing benefits. Essentially: not all VPPs are equal. A VPP earned playing in an all pro game, is clearly more valuable (to Stars) than a VPP earned in a game that is only running because of a fish. That game would run with players regardless, and therefore Stars doesn't need to reward the pros for playing in that game. A random example of how Stars might implement my idea, would be something like the following: A six max cash game- if there are 2-5 players playing, they get 1.5x VPPs. When the game fills, they all get .5 VPPs. In this case, you are incentivizing the pros to play with each other while they wait for an amateur player. The obvious counter to that is the amateur gets too few VPPs, but I am pretty sure you could work around that and come up with a solution. For a sit and go: how about a bonus if it runs with only SNEs?

Hey Phil,

have you thought about making a rerun of e.g. something like Poker After Dark or Highstakes Poker - to promote your site / brand?

You surely know enough elite players that would join, and this could attract a lot of recreationals perhaps? Obviously it might not be easy to get into touch with some television channels that would run the show etc.

Just a random idea.

Phil Galfond the new Messiahs! He will guide us to the promised / glory land!

Is your team conscious that a healthy ecosystem pass trough reducing considerably actual poker sites greed, since rake is an insane abuse in most sites?

For instance: let’s say a std poker site keeps 10 € rake from a 200 € pot. From this 10 €, they reinvert 1 in capting new recreational players and cover expenses, and keep 9 for their own benefit. As inversion is low, not enough recreational players come to the site, and as rake is very high, regulars also leave the site because they can’t beat it; that’s what is happening in most poker sites nowadays.

Now imagine from the 200 € pot you keep only 4 €, and reinvert 3 in capting new recreational players. Now you have x 3 liquidity, and rake is 40% from what it was, so many more regular players stay, and traffic increases considerably. Your benefit per pot is lower, but now u’ll have instead six x 200 € pots for every one you had before. And more important, you have a sustainable ecosystem. The lower the rake, the less recreationals you’ll need to have a sustainable site.

Resume: the key is high inversion in capting players, low rake, no greed. Ofc maths are done from the counter bar, but I guess you understand my point.

I see a lot of people mentioning twitch as an advertisement. I think that might be a good idea, but it has the obvious problem that you will be playing on other companies' poker sites until the site is ready. I would suggest holding some live events, maybe a tournament or a cash game, or some of both, and putting it on twitch with RIO people doing the commentary and or playing.

Someone put reruns of High Stakes Poker & Poker After Dark on Twitch and that channel is often in the top 3 most watched channels even though it is repeating the same reruns almost everyday. Whenever Pokerstars streams an EPT event that is almost always the most watched stream in twitch poker.

People like to watch live poker more than online poker. So I would suggest doing something live as opposed to online poker until the site is up. It will get more views than someone sitting alone in front of a computer, you can have your commercials during breaks sort of like 888 did when the WSOP Europe was streamed on twitch, and you don't have to play on the other poker sites while trying to advertise for your own.

As much as I like Nick Howard, advanced concepts and cute animals, this thread must become the most popular.

my suggestion: run both HUD-friendly and HUD-free games.

Hey @PhilGalfond There is only one way to ensure that your site becomes the best and therefore most popular and therefore the most successful online poker site...
It is simple. Make it the most like the real game.
How?
By having a true shuffle.
What I'm saying is that in real poker, the deck is shuffled, and the cards are now in a fixed random order. The top card is set and the bottom card is set. Come the river, if you are hoping for the Kh, if the Kh is at the bottom of the deck, it's not coming.
In online sites such as PS, they claim their RCG is fair, but while it may be statistically random, it is NOT real poker, OR truly representative of correct poker as it is played. Depending when u call or how u move your mouse, that Kh can always come on the river, whereas in a real deck it can only come if it is the next card.
If you went to a home game and they wanted to shuffle the deck before dealing the river card, would you be ok with it?
Just because it's 'random' doesn't make it right, and IMO, doesn't make it real poker.
So summing up, make your deck fixed on every hand, and you will have the fairest most accurate online game, and as a result, the best.
(PStars claim the continuous shuffle is a security measure, so no one knows what cards are coming, but this is a horseshit argument and disingenuous at best. PotRipper showed that knowing the hole cards is all you need, and on PStars, obviously they claim the hole cards are secure. If the hole cards can be kept secure, then logically, the deck can too. You can't have it both ways)
https://youtu.be/-DkHzOUzDjc

I think it would as word passed around about its more reasonable results.
Word of mouth is very fast, and it won't take long for many players to realise that seeing 4 of a kind 5 times in 2 hours of single table play is not normal.
Most players will appreciate winning a reasonable % of the time when they should, and likewise losing more often (when they should)

When you log-into the client, you're promoted to click a button stating whether you will be one-tabling this session or multi-tabling.

If you're one-tabling, you're only shown cash tables and MTTs where other players are also one-tabling. If you click multi-tabling, you're presented with those tables only available to people multi-tabling.

One tabling recs are turned off by one or two regs at the table draining their timebanks EVERY HAND. This eliminates that problem and dramatically improves the recs' playing experience.

Players from Europe will be allowed to play ?

Lausbub 10 months ago

Phil Galfond not replying to this thread means he is actually serious about this topic and we will see a new pokersite coming up in 2016/17. You can quote me then-

http://www.runitonce.com/chatter/dear-mr-phil-galfond/#/comment-156507

Amazing news and best of luck for this new endeavor!

I hope you'll be able to get a really good finance team as handling deposits/ withdrawals for players from different countries all over the world might be a big challenge for a new pokersite I imagine. Maybe getting some visionary fin-tech guys involved would be dope.

For actual game play, not being able to table select effectively/ not having waitlists like on partypoker would be cool imo.

Thank you Phil. Fair, honest and transparent! I wish you all the best, and seriously hope that I can help in anyway.

I think you should look for experts from blockchain domain industry's help/advice/consultation in building a fair/honest/transparent gaming site with the use of blockchain technology. Be it from account authentication, rewards token, currency deposit/withdrawal and etc.

Be sure to check out http://www.peerplays.com/#features and NEM blockchain (http://nem.io and its forum https://forum.nem.io/)

Tks sooooooo much Phil. This is an account from CHN. I am really excited to tears for your news. We hated ourselves for the past year. We can do nothing about Amaya for its unreasonable policy due to no alternative choice. Really really hope all your best and look forward to seeing ur success.

I thing I would love to have in a poker site would be tournament transmission with live cards and commentary as you see in live tournaments.

Best of luck in the new site!!!

Probably safe to assume the rake will be fair.
Please don't underestimate the importance of getting the Software right though, as I think this will be a huge factor in determining the success/failure of this.

Wow....that is ballsy.

Lots of perils awaits you though, esp regulations costs... please don't underestimate the time/ressources this implies. Each country in Europe (and probably elswhere) has now their own complicated regulations, licenses.... a lawyer's dream - and a nightmare for everyone else.

If I were you, I'd go for a Bitcoin only site, distanciate myself from the company (e.g. being only the "image", as an employee), have the company offshore, open shop to the world as a whole, gansta style.

Actually this is the only way I see it working tbh, unless you have $500m + of VC money....

Just my 2c's ofc, and most of all : GLGL

subbed. best of luck

Good luck.

this should give us one more site to play in

Here are my 5 cents about an attractive poker room which would make a difference (also some business thoughts)

Rake
A progressive rake model, that is easy to beat with decent winrate in micro/small/medium stakes. Everyone should be able to grind from the bottom to the top.

High stakes action
Nosebleed heroes and big wins attract rail birds and they inspire recreational players and semi-pros to grind more. Poker news agencies are constantly generating content about high stakes games and the swings. If you offer nose bleed games, you probably get a lot of press coverage for free of charge.

Bitcoin as an payment option
Bitcoin payment option would be interesting choice and probably would bring a lot of interesting players to the site :)

Ask identification documents before first deposit - not after
I think one of the most painful customer experience is, that when you try to withdraw winnings for first time as a new customer, your account FUNDS WILL BE FREEZED AND YOU WILL HAVE TO SEND 5 SCANNED DOCUMENTS TO PROVE YOUR IDENTITY AND MAYBE AFTER 4 WEEKS YOU GET YOUR MONEY OUT. This has happened to me to like 10 times in many poker sites and really spoils the customer experience reduces trust.

However, there are two exceptions to rule: Winamax poker and Pokerstars.fr. Before you deposit on these sites, they kindly ask you to provide a copy of your id/bank information as you register to site and make an account. After delivering these documents, you can make the deposit. Everything is working after that and you can freely deposit and withdraw money as you like and they deliver money like laser fast. Best gambling customer experience ever!

Rookies Room and Pro room tabs
I think a player should have a choice: playing with the best and trying to be the king of the hill or playing in softer games. Here is my suggestion: Rookies room and Pro room tab in the software. This does not mean that the player pools should be divided. Player just can surf from place to place inside the poker site.

Rookies room tab
- all statistical software HUD's (HEM, PT4 etc.) are disabled. You can track your results but cannot use hud.
- seat scripts are disabled
- players must use one nick name only since anonymous tables attracts to collusion play
- bots are disabled
- in addition to basic game selection (nl, plo,mixed etc.) fun games like chinese poker, pineapple express etc. are available
- play money games available
- real cash stakes up to 25/50 NL and 10 / 20 PL
- funny avatars for players to use :) (a lot of design work to do, but meh it is an investment..)

Pro Room tab
- statistical softwares allowed
- seat scripts disabled
- king of the hill seating system for hu and 6max tables. like 20 tables cap per stake. 1 table per player per stakes level.
- stakes up to 2000/4000 or some crazy like that
- low rakes ;)
- wide selection of games

Simple and motivating loyalty program that is easy to understand
I think Winamax poker has by far the best loyalty program ever made. You simply "run miles" when you play poker. When you run enough miles, you can turn them to cash or other prizes. At the same time you get fixed rakeback. Really easy to understand. Benchmark this.

For instance loyalty program of Party poker is horrible. They have really strange way it works and the loyalty level you reach once, is taken away from you very soon, unless you play more. Also they have a strange rule, which disables the prizes you have earned. For instance you can spend just a fixed amount of loyalty points each week, and if you don't hurry and play more, you can lose the value of your loyalty point collection entirely!

I once grinded the palladium level (the highest loyalty level of Party poker) and tried to transfer my collected points to cash. There was 500 usd prize limit for a week, and I could not realize the value of my entire point collection, since I lost my palladium status in 3 weeks! I had points valued somewhere 3k usd and was unaware of these weekly prize limits so I lost some value of my "work". This was really disappointing.

Sign the top influencers in the business along and use social media
isildur, Doug Polk, poker life podcast, poker forums, 2+2 heroes, old school heroes, run it once forum, the lovers the haters..... Poker community is world wide and the people have waited for something to happen.. Some phenomenon that could crush the Pokerstars monopoly and change things. A phenomenon that gives poker back to the players! Use this community!!! Your team will have an realistic edge for the industry, if you can utilize your social & human capital, make things go viral and drive the change and offer something new and original. And last but not least: Value customer satisfaction: no tricks, unpleasant surprises or barriers.

Asian people
Try to attract Asian people also: "Mirrions to win pokkeeer sirr! YA-TTAAA ARIGATO HAJAI-KU!!!!"

Maybe Hottest thing in gaming industry at the moment: Stream your gaming
Playstation4, xbox one, twitch, youtube etc. are investing a lot of money for social sharing and streaming technologies. There must be a rational and profitable reason for this. Maybe you should go for something like this too and help people to stream their play in twitch and youtube! Everyone wants to be a youtube star these days.

If you look at the poker sites like ipoker and Party poker, they made some superficial upgrades to software a couple of years ago to drive "social gambling" aspect. Nothing special actually happened and the user interface changes they made were pretty awkward. At Ongame there are still the same software bugs there were in 2009 and almost the same table layout design which is not responsive for screen resolution! At ipoker they throw you out from empty table if you are inactive for 40-60 mins: and this is just a recent update they made about 6 months ago... Anyways these cases shows how far current poker casino R&D teams are from the true player community. How they cannot (or not interested) solve the most important issues for the players. Almost every pro I know see status quo as a fixed and never ending state. This is definitely your chance to create something more customer oriented poker business!

Best of luck for you all AND HAVE FUN! I really hope your team will succeed and you can execute your vision and create something original!

@Phil, a quick thought on the PS new 'VIP' program?

This might not pan out but if there ever was one guy to bring a second coming of poker it would be the allround nice and extremely smart guy mr Phil Galfond!

couple of things mr Galfond

1 Good luck!
2 Dont sell out
3 Laugh like the god damn Joker all the way to the bank when you have crushed the sorry souls over at Stars!

The best news ever in online poker and the best "thing" if/when it becomes true! I strongly belive in it and I am willing to help in any way to bring this dream to a life! Please, just dont give up, ever. Im pretty sure "they" will try to shut down you and your site on many dirty ways, but Im sure as well that you are aware of that. Be transparent about that too: If it happens, we will fight back. This is really important, not "only" for poker world, this goes beyond! Congrats, You rang My Lord:P:)

A request / suggestion for your new site below. I would describe myself as a fairly serious recreational player, and I am well aware that my preferences will be different to many of your subscribers, but here goes anyway.

I play almost exclusively tournaments. I was a winning player 5 years ago, but am now a net depositor on Stars, although I am still good enough to make occasional final tables in the big games. I play the bigger Stars tournaments, typically $100 to $500 buy-in. I have experimented with huds, but get no pleasure from a computer-assisted game, so choose to play without one. It is a hobby for me, which I can afford, but the frustration of playing with one hand behind my back against assisted players is on the point of driving me out of the on-line games.

I would ask that - rather than choosing between a reg-friendly or a rec-friendly strategy, you offer both. I think the mud-slinging threads where regulars look down their noses at "fish" who don't use huds, and recreational players complain about "cheaters" who buy HH databases, are a waste of time. I don't see any reason why you could not offer some tables or some tournaments that deplete the value of huds, and let each of us choose which world we want to play in. There are enough people who dislike the feel of anonymous tables that there will still be plenty of easy money to go round for the pros. Perhaps you will come up with a better option than anonymity, but it is a tough nut to crack.

Whichever way you go, good luck. I can't think of anyone who has a better combination of judgement, knowledge, and respect from the community at large, so I will be watching excitedly.

@ Phil

on collusion/botting/cheating
Your security team should be really small but competent. IMO the best combo is 2 poker theoris along with 2 DB experts. It is astonishing how much you can achieve quering the DBs in a powerful way, and really I don't know why it isn't an active practice for any poker site.
All the bot scandals were dig up by 2p2 users, or some player that made a pool analysis, that's all. With the right team you can catch pretty much any cheater

on HUDs
A good way to make sure winners is going to win less is provide the same tool as professional are using. You can't effectively ban HUDs, you know that, it's impossible, and this is open up a black market for cheaters.
If you thought about make an internal HUD, with only a few stats and allow only it, again you can't enforce it, and cheaters will have an edge
IMO you can contact the owners of PT and HM and make some deal, then let's say, after a player raked 1k, you can give him a tracker for free.
Many player will be equiped like others, edges will be somewhat smaller and this should level the field a little bit.

Obv, I'm more than sure you thought all what I've said, I just want to make a conttribution to the thread. Again, best of luck

Hello, Phil! My name is Maria, I am a representative of EvenBet Gaming (Enterra Inc), international gaming software vendor. We can help you with your potential poker site if it is still necessary.

We provide customized high-quality online poker and casino software. It means that your project, from back office to design, is worked out corresponding to all your wishes and possibilities. Just for you.

Moreover, we provide a wide range of most popular cash games as Holdem, Omaha, Stud, Chinese poker and others, which can be installed on your site.

If you are interested in our proposal, please contact:
Maria Grischenko, marketing and PR for EvenBet Gaming (Enterra, Inc.)
mariya.grishenko@enterra-inc.com
8-929-330-42-73
Skype: maria_grischenko

@4 Star General

I agree with your comment that messing with the user interface will not stop scraping - I am a developer myself. It makes it more challenging but the technology will get there quickly.

The other point you make, that banning trackers would take the skill out of the game, makes no sense to me. The whole point is that without trackers each of us is relying on our own observation skills, rather than letting software do that work and giving an edge to those who choose to buy hand history databases. The very fact that huds allow pros to multi-table big numbers profitably shows that normal poker skills are being diluted.

As I said above, my preference is to provide both environments - some tables where huds are allowed, and some where they aren't.

If poker is a game of skill than no anonymous tables. Anonymous tables turn poker into gambling. There are so many gambling opportunities other than poker and there are so many sites offering anonymous tables. If Phil's site is from poker players for poker players than no to anonymous tables.
What also makes poker nice is the history that you have with a player and is not a cold game like machines playing machines game.

Serious suggestion - make all games rake free. There are other ways for the site to make money in the long term eg time charges or advertising, and you would win a huge market share very fast, especially at micros. A large customer Base gives so many advantages to a company, and a lot of leverage when going to advertisers or other tech companies.

This. Rake free or maybe 1% and probably no RB, a lot of money can still be earned by poker site and this way casual players survive longer, those two things alone would attract masses to play on such a site. So rake matters more than RB if properly assessed.

There is no one in poker that has more integrity than you Phil. Your reputation alone should bring people to the site. Go get it!

I will now touch one more important issue which is mainly avoided and that on its own is a bit "suspicious" to me. I hope RIO poker room will be different and will take/consider this seriously.
I will first post a text I found on one forum about 4 years ago (my English is not very good and this guy explains the problem, I have noticed too, better) and in my opinion is one of the most important issues of online poker.
Quote (his nick scl1975): hi all,im letting BRMers know first.i have applied to the Australian government for a grant to independantly check 3 of the biggest sites software after the RNG has done its job.what this means is the RNG[random number generator]is only checked and verified after the hand has been delt,not after the flop comes out.in other word the cards delt are random,but the sites arnt checked for what the software does after the dealing to players.is there manipulation after the deal.this is the unknown entity to online playing.the australian government has sent me airfare to meet with the reserve bank about the grant,which means the are interested,and provide them with more details.they have said also that the federal police would like to send a computer specialist with me if grant is given to verify all results.this may have far reaching consiquences to all online .the hard part is going to be to get the sites to agree to the though intrusion of there software,while also asking for million of millions of played hands to check all data outside of what the RNG does.its going to be a massive task so wish me luck.if they have nothing to hide access will be granted. Then finally online if the results realy are true and random,with no manipulation,can say they are not rigged.will post with updates as i find out more details. Smile End of Quote.
After I red this and heard none of poker sites allowed this testing I stopped playing online poker. I dont want to speculate anything but I decide to boycot nontransparent poker sites (untill now all of them) whom only goal is "profit over the dead bodies" and are prepared to do anything for it. If they really are fair, as they like to brag about it, they should welcome such tests, but they didnt. So, I think it is very important how those RNG certifikates (tests) are done and by whom (and that is another story). I strongly belive if RIO poker room will do proper RNG tests, from deal to river/end of hands with possible later audits, that will have very positive impact on all poker players (with proper promotion of this tests it will bring even more players to poker site, fishes too:)), but will sure not get so positive reaction from other poker sites and their promotors. Yes, it will probably cause "turbulence" but thats how changes are made and I think it is worth to fight for. This is important for poker game on larger scale.
And please dont make "rigged/non rigged" thread from my post now (some will probably try to blur a problem, to defocus). It is not about that, it is about how strong, powerful, honest, etc. tests of shuffle&deal engine should/could be. Better and improved tests cant harm anyone (exept cheaters), we all only benefit from it.

Hi Phil,
I am as many others very excited about the project. I am sure you have your feelers out there on 2+2, ps.de, here etc. to grasp what the community is asking for. There have been a lot of good posts here concerning legal and financial questions, software questions, marketing, game spread, rake and rakeback, structuring of TOS and enforcinh these.
I am sure you and your Team have looked into that previously with a lot of effort and are still continuing to do so. And I am sure you are/will be doing a great job.

My main concern is still one that has already been aired here and that is the anticipated toughness of the games. I just do not see enough recs joining the site in the beginning. I am sure when you open up, you will have more people playing than you would have even expected. But as soon as regs start realizing that it is a mere regfest, they will start quitting, big MTT prize pools (they do attract tons of recs) will be cut and you have a spiral...

People were already posting good ideas to cope with that in the thread (social media, streaming, Livegames etc. ) While these are all kind of standard-ish ways of marketing for online poker, why not go old school and put some $$ into print media or the good ole handling out Flyers in front of universities, shopping malls... I am sure you could even find people hre on the forums who would do it 4 free (although prolly not).

Definitely wish you good luck and hope you will manage to catch up to the expectations. By being yourself you have set the bar very high.
/asskissing

Hi all!
Phil, Ongame network closes, buy their software, will come to you all who love Ongame, or their specialists take a job :)

P.S sorry my bad English

Hey Phil ;). I think it would be a good idea to have an easy way to report a chat abuse in the client that can be accessed within couple of seconds after someone is berating people at the table. On the other hand some system of rewards for the most chatty and positive people would also be nice.

A poker site should have a progressive rake model that actually allows people to grind up from micros to low/midstake games. Right now micro stakes players pay a lot more bb/100 in rake as players on mid/high stakes. I think it would be beneficial to lower the rake on micros, while it's probably fine to keep it the same on NL200+. I also believe it's fair to charge higher rake at stakes where professional players play (think cost of doing business).

Dear Mr.Galfond,

If you wish for Online Poker to survive, and make no mistake, online poker is dying in it's current state, there exists a solid foundation you must recreate. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker winning the World Series of Poker seemed to spark a buzz through the planet - the message was simple - anyone can become a millionaire from this game.

In the early days, the games were soft and the money flowing. Many people built a fortune with skills and tactics that wouldn't get them past .05/.10NL / PLO nowadays. This is the fundamental problem. As poker grew in popularity and the skill of the players increased, the rake did not decrease in corresponding fashion. Most online poker shops have focused purely on profit. How to squeeze every dime out of a short-term model, rather than the long-term health of the games that could hold profits for decades to come.

So how do we solve this fundamental problem? The answer is quite simple.

A) You build a Rake Free Poker Site based on the Netflix model.
B) Charge customers $10-15 per month.
C) Charge deposit fees
D) Charge a minimal fee for all customer service unrelated to financials (i.e., deposit, withdrawal, error correction will be exempt and free)

How do you get customer buy-in?

A) Duplicate Pokerstars UI as much as possible. This is possibly more important than anything else. That website has the best feel by far of any place to play.

B) Show the customer what it costs to play poker anywhere else. Announce yourself as the cheapest place to play.

C) You achieve B by putting the estimated amount of rake per 100 hands played on the other major online sites. Customers will quickly do the math and realize they pay $50 an hour to play PLO 0.25/0.50 on Pokerstars, for example. They will say why the heck would I ever do that when I can play on Galfond's site for $10 a month and pocket the rest of that cash?

D) Every pro in the world will play on your site. Instantly. It will be better value. That will bring you immediate brand recognition that you can sell to customers. Every other poker site dies because no other model can compete with you.

E) The dinosaurs at Pokerstars die as fast as Pacific Poker, Party Poker, and FullTilt Poker before them, because they will refuse to adapt until it is too late.

Do these things Mr. Galfond, and you will have a successful business for the rest of your life. The world will have Online Poker forever. You will have created a new career for thousands of people because it will actually be possible to win for a significant number of people - rather than the tiny portion who can beat the incredulous rake in an environment over-saturated by skilled players as it exists today. The weaker players will hear about their weak friends making money, and the legend will grow. Do this, and they will come. Do anything else, and you're just another Poker Site that charges rake run by a dude hoping to take his cut before the whole thing dies.

Cheers,

Benjamin

guess you've already thought about this and decided for/against it but just incase:

"I think at some point the professional community needs to dream up and popularize some new variants involving multiple game mechanics (door cards, variable pot size, >52 card deck, drawing/discards, different hand values, 4+ streets, variable rules) with an eye to creating poker games that don't just push back the solvers for a few years, but which reward human ingenuity for decades." - sauce123

Just make sure that software of your site is at least 90% as good as PS, or you will be just another ipoker, 888...

And make that rake thing smaller for all games, all limits. We players dont look for some crazy promotions / bonuses, just make that rake smaller in general. Its insane how costly it is to play online poker nowadays. Its almost as costly as playing live. Makes no sense. Compared to PS it should be lowered by 50% minimum. It still will be MORE than enough to make supergood profits for the site, and it will be fair to the players as well.

I love this idea of creating a new poker site, new place where regs can make more money and recreational players have more fun and dont lose so fast his money....but do you think this is the right moment to make a new poker site? Dont you think NL holdem is going to be full of robots soon because of this solvers? or solver will be so fast that players can use it in game...this scares me alot as a professional player.

any update?

This is awesome.

So many messages that I doubt I will read them all. But in my opinion reasonable rake for micro players needs to be a priority if the dream is to be kept alive.

For the last 13 months I tracked the rake I paid at Bovada now Ignition. 99.9% of hands I played over that time frame were NL25 Zone Poker. The rake there for NL25 is almost identical to PokerStars (at least the last time I checked so if this changed in 2016 [doubtful] then perhaps not any longer).

Across the 382K hands I played the average effective rake was 7.51 bb/100. The low in a given month was 6.67 bb/100 and the high was 8.38 bb/100. In no month did I play less than 19,000 hands. These rake calculations are good and valid.

7.51 is usurious but more importantly it drives recreational and hobby players away from the game. It is nigh on impossible for a recreational player to have any chance of success versus such a rake structure. And people aren't dumb. They get this. And they quit playing.

For example, the rake structure at Bovada/Ignition for NL50 is so usurious that NL50 Zone Poker has exactly zero players all day every day until late in the evening on weekdays and on weekends, and even then there are often zero players. People typically look at Bovada/Ignition as a very soft pool and I'm sure they're right. But there are good players, too, and they almost never start up NL50 Zone Poker (it's a good bet that only good, confident players open the action in an empty "zone").

FWIW, I just last week relocated to Costa Rica to be able to play international sites. So pretty soon here I will be on PokerStars, Full Tilt and maybe Party Poker. If RIO sets up a poker site I will definitely play there.

Hi Phil

Wish you the best of luck in life, poker and poker business.

I would like to submit an idea for your new poker site that I believe is not only good for online poker but is also a unique concept for an online poker site.

The idea is that there is a special lobby of cash game tables on the site that caters for a player who wishes to play one table cash game poker against other players who are also playing on one table. Once a player sits down at one of these tables they would be unable to sit down on another cash game table within the lobby.
Playing against multi tabling players can not only affect the play but also the time of the hands played in the game. I believe the one table poker cash game would be a great option for the members of the site.

Good luck Phil and thanks for everything you have contributed so far to the poker world.

I think software should be a priority and next is a great team that totally understands poker yet they have ethics and morals. The problem is that those that understand poker sort of live a degenerate lifestyle and those that are office type of people capable of putting in 9-5 each and every day are clueless about poker. That's why you see a lot of those "poker room managers" and "tourney directors" so clueless. Fulltilt was a great site in terms of nearly everything from design, game availability, catching bots/cheaters, etc cause it was by poker players for poker players, but it had one problem; horrible money management because poker players can be degenerate gamblers.

Sort of a catch-22 when starting a site. In regards to some people mentioning NL sort of dying, that's why you need brainstormers to come up with new variants that are harder for solvers and software to exploit yet has level of skill/fun ..... and you don't want it to be all cluttered like pokerstars with so much crap.

This is going to be so freakin hard to do lol probably need at least a $10m investment to start off prob more to create the "perfect poker room"

Hey, guys. I still don't have any updates, and I won't for a little while, but I'm still reading every post here and I appreciate the support, concerns, and ideas. You're awesome. Thank you!

I'm not sure how to say this without offending anyone and it is merely my opinion.

I love NLHE whether FR, 6max or HU or 3-player or tourney or SitnGo or Cash but I don't enjoy any other flavour of poker. I tried and tried to like PLO but I can't stand it. I don't like stud. I don't like Razz. I don't like Limit Holdem. I have tried and just don't like any other form of poker but I love NLHE. There's just something about NLHE.

I don't want lots of variants of poker. I just want NLHE. I suspect there are a lot of players that feel like I do.

Just sayin'.

ALL SITES I have tried has the same pattern!This is what I and others have realized after 5-10 years of playing!When you are new on a site you win,then you win,lose,win,lose!After this you only lose for a long time!It dosent matter if you play exactly the same!The owner of a well known site even admitted he rigged the card dealing to attract more fish!Yeas they sucked out alot!

If you make a new Pokersite,then the RNG has to be 1000% honest and similar to real life dealers!If I notice the same bullshit as on the sites running today,then I am out of there real quick!

Many people want to play MTT's or any other game and make it their living!Not possible on todays site when Jokes are standard!Full house,str8,quads,set vs set on a low flop!Higher PP's on a low flop!AA vs KK QQ JJ = flop KQJ33 and one guy holds 33...Standard bullshit to create action and make people leave tourneys = reg a new MTT to create more rake!

Successfull NEW SITE = NOT RIGGED

Thanks for the word - RIGGED TO THE BONE

Hi, wish you best of luck with the new site. You've probably already thought about the following: You should consider working together with the guys who uncovered the bot ring on Stars/Party.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/153/high-stakes-pl-omaha/massive-bot-ring-pokerstars-party-how-spot-them-1537778
Their data analysis methods should be a great help in finding the bots. Maybe it also has some positive effect on the reputation of RIO Poker when you announce working with the guys that spotted bots on Stars whereas the Stars staff was not able/willing to do so.

OHHHHHHHHHHHH, I am so hyped! I play to 100% only on your site, but I want hu cashgames back (minimum 10NL+). Not like on Pokerstars(only Zoom).

Can't wait for this! I really hope you can make it a success and create a fair and transparent poker website.

Use Bitcoin as a form of currency! It will definitely remove the hassles of fiat currency. Also having a charity section would be great. Where 10% of the rake goes to charity for those specific games. Good publicity.

Be a lad phil and put in as many mixed games as you can. thank you :)

This will go against everything this site stands for, but...... i think there should be a run it twice button

Someone is making a move!

It's encouraging that some of the (more recent) posts in this thread offer the hope that a new poker site won't be populated 100% with grinding regs.

Called in here to check for any updates. None yet, so I'll rant a little.

One thing that's been bothering me recently is the new offerings from poker sites with stuff like stars 'beat the clock'.

A cash game that is raked 10% every 5 minutes. This isn't beatable. It isn't poker. Isn't a game of skill. It's a casino game. A nefarious, unbeatable game that is marketed and provided as poker. A skill game.

Poker sites shouldn't do this.

1. This should be illegal. Casino games should be a segregated from games of skill.
2. A poker site should be proud of it's winning players and open about their win rates (or lack of) and publicly provide this information. This should be mandatory to class a game as a 'skill game'. Because if there are no winners, by the default of game design (i.e. blackjack) OR because the game provider removes too much money from a skill game so that the game becomes unbeatable, that game is no longer a skill game. It's a casino game.

I hope you accept Chinese players.

Hey Phil, very excited to read that your plans of entering the poker industry are so concrete. I did hear some news previously but wasn't aware of the seriousness and depth of the project. As a business major I'm very interested your plans for establishing a player base. I think that anyone can see that attracting the more serious player base should not be a problem; professional players are feeling left in the dust by the direction of the major players in the market. For them any slick and trustworthy pokersite is a serious consideration. However for almost all of these players there is an extra requirement, they have to be able to make a profit to play. So to ensure significant traffic a casual player base is required and that is the component I'm interested to hear about. Given that this playerbase is likely they unaware of the upcoming existence of your site and may not be as interested in migrating from their existing pokersite, could you elaborate a bit on your plans to attract this playerbase? Im very excited to follow the development of this project and wish you all the best luck!

I see that some people advise RIO to merge and link with other poker sites and poker communities. I`m not sure if that is really good thing to do. I know it cant be avoided completly, but at least RIO should be quite picky in deciding with whom to potencially cooperate and to what extend. I think you should be as independent as possible and you should for sure avoid any serious linking with 2+2 because they are mostly pretending to be there by players for the players and they are for sure very good at camouflaging this. Of course they have a lot of good stuff to offer and do a tone of good work as well, but Im quite sure (at least I hope) that RIO and 2+2 in general do not share/have the same vision.
Just stick to your own plans and goals and you will be fine. The main problem at the moment is probably "time". You should not take too much time anymore to start operating because info of a new RIO poker room went out a while ago and once "rumors" of some event are out it should not take too long to that event happen.

Doug Polk and Tollerene play eachother at 500/1000 nlcap on opening day. That's my suggestion.

Xmas update plz :)

Yes! Would like to know how far is PS (casino) from bankruptcy!

Hi Phil! Bring back the nosebleeds please, thanks!

Hey!Phil. Im so excited. Could you Please accept Chinese poker players? China has the largest population in the world and I believe it has a huge poker market potential.Thanks!

I hope you can accept bitcoin deposite and withdraw.Thanks!

Hey! Phil. I think using the rake to pay for the sub of RIO is a good idea.

I believe now is the TIME! PS has done everything wrong at least couple of years now. If RIO team (or whatever other team) play their cards right they WILL be biggest company in the industry in no time. Mark my words!
This 4 billion casino will be worth less than 1 billion inside 5 years if they continue like this.
Just there are lot of things newcomers have to do absolutely perfectly.

List of those things is very long of course:
I add some of my thoughts.
- I mean first of all using the rake to pay for the sub of RIO is a good idea from our friend from China. If its possible this coaching site and software should be somehow connected. Brings lot of new starting players to the site.
- Software should be better or similar to what FTP had. No point to hurry things and start with some BS old software.
- Supernova Elite system was big hit for PS so something similar is a must. Dont forget that lot of poker players are gamers in heart so achieving something level by level is a big magnet to lot of them.
- Good rake of course.
- No scripting and other BS.
- Lot of cash tables including Zoom.
- Big market all over the world including biggest countries like China, India, Russia, USA as soon as possible.
- No casino BS. This casino BS is why USA goverment and other goverments all over the world think that poker is gambling. Those two should be separated from each other. Poker with reasonable rake system is a skill game. If PS wants to be biggest casino in the world let them be.

All the best to the RIO team!

I wanna bring up the topic of PLO rake again...the Great Game of PLO needs to get a haircut when it comes to the cost of the game. The lower stakes are not really beatable enough for money (and players) to flow up the stakes. The stories are not there at the moment, even though it's the most action-filled and exciting game out there. Good times for regs and fun players alike. I'm tired of reading about the rake trap on SSPLO forums. Time for change.

I have brought this up before with PokerStars that PLO rake should more or less equal NLHE rake in terms of bb/100. It's ridiculous that that at lower stakes PLO rake = 2xNLHE rake and few players are moving up, some of them mostly based on variance (bang bang).

Here are threads with discussion and support on the topic:

Rake analysis between PLO & NLHE incl. Zoom

POKERSTARS: Time to treat PLO and NLHE as different games!

Petition - PokerStars: Lower the price of PLO Zoom

View: Negreanu should look into the PLO rake situation as promised on J.Ingram Podcast

There's a chance to make a huge difference here.

I'm a rec/fish and I have no idea how I ended up here. But after reading this thread, I couldn't help to create an account just to let you know that I'd love to be on the new site.
As a fish who plays recreationaly for one month a year, where I usually bust after tilts. I can say I don't agree with the people who say this won't attract us recs.
Pokerstars looks aweful now, all the platform and games are design for us fishes to put as much money as we can, as quickly as we can. It's full of games that make us feel we are playing bingo, or lottery, and that we end up tilting and busting in minutes.
If you can manage to make a site that make us (fishes/recs) feel like we got a chance - even we all know we actually don't- you can do great. And I don't mean all the rigged part. I'm just talking about the games, the design, even the stakes. We like to feel that we can play 20 or 50 dollars, and at least we can have fun with it for a while. We know we will bust eventually, but we feel that we are paying that for entertainment. If I put 50 dollars I want to feel that even if I play a little bit outside of bankroll management, i can still play for a little while.
We recs love what Pokerstars does, that makes us belive that with a $0.25 mtt we can get to be champions of the WSOP, we like promotions, even free-bonuses-bankrolls for starting. But we don't like to feel like we feel now... that they just want to suck up your money in 15 minutes.
I think a good focus would be what people is saying in this thread. Focus on skills, not in gambling. If you make sure us recs know it's a game of skill, and not of luck, it would encourage us to continue. What makes online computer games so popular now? They are based on skills. What if you create leagues with a ladder system? What if there was a real motivation to get skills? What if us recs, could play to people of our level for a chance? Not saying to take the chances away from sharks to destroy us, just saying that maybe there's more than just money in the game, if you can see it as skill and not money for gamble.
This would take the rec game to a whole new level. (Remember that facebook poker game? It was free, and it was massive in traffic!!! Why? Cause you played your friends for honour, not to take their money away. If you manage to merge that concept, with our money, you have our hearts and our wallets :D

At the moment there`s really only one shark its Pokerstars with their puppy named Daniel!

A poker site should exclude poker AI.

Hello. Im a big fan of you Phil Galfond.
Everywhere I can read about Your plans about the poker Provider Project. But since many month there arent any News about it. Im sure youre Site will be great and i want to Change to it immediately. Im sure it will many promotions and something like that arrive when it goes online but is there any site or Newsletter where i can get some News about the process? I mean:
How Long we Need to wait, Sir? :-)))

Let them do their thing! You have plenty of time to enjoy it later! ;)

Yes you are right. :-))
Im new to this Community and Im very proud to be allowed to watch these brilliant Videos.
For me a lot of useful informations from the Elite of Poker.

Best wishes and hopeful we will see us soon at RIO Poker ;-)

Is the site going to be USA FRIENDLY?

Just took a look into the Pokerstars lobby yesterday evening the busiest time there is and there were only 5 pros playing and one of them played play money games. Things have really changed a lot, I remember when there were around 30 pros playing on Sunday nights. This is what you get when you screw your customers right in the a** with all those bad changes, even pros don`t see any value playing online anymore. This is just sad, pathetic and funny at the same time. Lesson of the story is that greediness gets you nowhere. Its just all downhill from now on.

Awesome news, Phil can u from time to time maybe post a little update even if u can't tell that much;) ?

Please finally set an industry standard of making the rake appropriate to the game. I.E. slow long level tourneys 10%, reg speeds 8%, turbos 6%, hypers 4%. Something that makes sense and has a direct correlation with the amount of time the tournament and play is actually hogging resources on the server instead of the money grab most sites go for. Also please do not become a heavy psko site, keep the gimmick stuff limited.

Can we please have some updates? It's almost the end of Q1 2017 and we haven't heard from you guys in months. While I agree that overhyping something is not a good idea, letting the hype die completely isn't a good idea either. Will we see RiO poker come out this year? How's the development process going? Tell us something, anything.

In Phil we trust.

Launch a 1st strike nuclear attack on Pokerstars. Make the rake 2.5% of the pot up to $3. You'll wipe Pokerstars out.

Wondering what the deal with Australian poker players will be now

plz tell tha the site will be available in greece

Yeah send it up Stars rear big time and usher Poker into its second coming!

@Phil Galfond On launch day will it be available for Romania?

How do you like Malta Philly?

Just make sure it's available for Canada!

I am soooooo hyped!! Like in the old days with CoD. Hello from Austria Phil, I hope I can get a HU pro on your site ;)

up

Hey, RIO.

I've been getting a lot of questions on the progress of the Run It Once Poker project.

A little over half a year ago, I announced that Run It Once would be launching our very own poker site. Our estimated launch date was Q1 of 2017, which has just passed.

Just under three months ago, I posted a story on RIO's history, the RIO Poker company, and an update that our Q1 target seemed out of reach.

You haven't heard from me since the last update, which is because we haven't yet reached a point where I'm comfortable offering another launch estimate. I've learned time and time again how unpredictable the development process can be and how quickly things can change.

I know that delays in development are normal and that many companies announce launch dates, miss them, and then announce new ones without a second thought, but I don't want Run It Once to be one of those companies.

In my last update post, I talked a lot about how exciting all the work we're doing is and how proud I am of Run It Once's journey and of our team. Those things are just as true today as they were then.

I'm in the middle of a near-three-month trip to Malta, and it has been even more exciting than my last trip. I'm absolutely loving creating things, making decisions, and problem-solving with this team. I cannot wait to launch and see our final product in action.

However, to expand any further than that about my excitement and optimism (even though I easily could!) feels disingenuous. The point of this post is to update you all on our progress, and the reality is that we aren't as far along as I said we would be. I'm sorry, and I don't want to 'spin' or distract from that.

We restructured our development team towards the end of 2016, and with that came a change in approach and a change in scope. As a player, I know just how important good software is, and I don't want us to launch until we get it right. We've been growing our development and product team, and I feel great about where we are headed; It's just that we're headed further than we initially expected.

I hope my next update will be a much more interesting one. Trust me - I very much look forward to sharing all of our ideas and decisions with you. I actually spent two hours last month talking to my webcam, "updating" you guys on everything going on within the company, even though I knew I wouldn't be releasing the video anytime soon (or perhaps ever).

I can speak for the Run It Once team when I say how thankful we are for your continued support. We can feel people rooting for us, and it means a lot.

We remain driven by that, and by our goal of providing a viable alternative in the online poker market with enough relevance to impact policy, across the industry, for the better.

Thank you for your patience. You'll know something when I know that I know something!

hi everybody and soory for my english in advance.i want to sa my opinions about what i would like from a poker site as a poker player at live and at online poker for over than 15 years.
1.i woould like a site that offers micro and high stakes players the same benefits.for example 3% rake and 3bb cap to all stakes.a pro is a player from high stakes for sure but also a pro could be someone from thailand who is playing nlhe10 and 10dol is two days paycheck for him.
2.for promotions i would like to see 30% rakeback weekly paid every monday to people who have looses at the previous week.also for the people that looses a specific amount of money a big tourney with free entry every sunday.for example two if you loose 40d then all the players will play a toyrney ad the half get 40dollars,or the 20% of the player pool.and for more another one for 400d and so on.all players will receive an email every time they are credited with a ticket or rakeback so they can return to the site.so weekly winnning players no rakeback.
3.second the most important thing is fairness of your game.don't make the mistake and use an already algorithm that is for sale.i can't see anymore that flops that everyone go for everything.i can't see anymore tables that winning with card it's not an option because of an rng that gives action in every flop,and i can't see anymore to win all the pots with aa when my opponents fold and loose every time that they call.that kind of tricks are not passing anymore and that's why poker is shrinking,because every site favours action but they didn't understand that fish are gone and play forex and not poker anymore.so help good players to trust you and put all their money to your site.me for example i have 10000 for example deposit 20dol online and when i make them 200 i cashout because all of the previous reason.i prefer to travell 200km every weekend and lpy live because there my aa wins and i win hands with top pair.fishes are gone,help good players to go high is my opinion or give them a suffle like live poker and they will go by their shef.fish hit and run(cashout).good players hit and play bigger.it's time for the online poker to understand that all of us know the maths of the game and we have a ton of experience from live games.things have change.ty and sorry for my english

ignore my previous post
hi everybody and sorry for my english in advance.i want to say my opinion about what i would like from a poker site as a live and online poker player for over 15 years.
1.i would like a site that offers micro and high stakes players the same benefits.for example 3% rake and 3bb cap to all stakes.a pro is a player from high stakes for sure but also a pro could be someone from thailand who is playing nlhe10 and 10dol is two days paycheck for him.
2.for promotions i would like to see 30% rakeback weekly paid every monday to people who have losses at the previous week.also for the people that loose a specific amount of money a big tourney with free entry every sunday.for example if you loose 40d then all the loosing players will play a toyrney and half of them get 40dollars,or the 20% of the player pool.and another one for those who have lost 400d and so on.all players will receive an email every time they are credited with a ticket or rakeback so they can return to the site.so weekly winnning players will not receive rakeback.
3.the most important thing is fairness of your game.don't make the mistake and use an already existing algorithm that is for sale.i can't keep seeing flops that everyone goes for everything.i can't keep seeing tables that winning with high card it's not an option because of an rng that gives action in every flop,and i can't keep seeing my aa win every pot when my opponents fold preflop and loose every time that they call.that kind of tricks are not acceptable anymore and that's why poker is shrinking,because every site favours action but they don't understand that fish are gone and play forex and not poker anymore.so help good players to trust you and put all their money to your site.me for example i have 10000 but deposit 20dol online and when i make them 200 i cashout because all of the previous reasons.i prefer to travell 200km every weekend and play live because there my aa win and i win hands with top pair.fish are gone,help good players to go high is my opinion or give them a suffle like live poker and they will go by their shelf.fish hit and run(cashout).good players hit and play bigger.it's time for the online poker to understand that nowadays everyone knows the maths of the game and we have a tone of experience from live games.things have change.ty and sorry for my english

your goal should be a poker site from poker players to poker players so that remind us the old good time.you must be the site that gives a fair enviroment in which the best players will shine.you must give the world the next generation of high stakes players that destroying live poker too,no favoured rgn players that go to play live poker and even the chairs laughing with their play....

much love to you guys! seeing the current direction of online poker you have our sincerest support. good luck

@Phil Galfond - How are you going to structure the rake / rewards system at RIO? I think this is one of the main reasons a lot of people will switch to your site and also encourage others to switch when the time comes, especially given Stars recent abandoning of rake-back for regulars. Can you address it now?

Will you be able to RIT on RIO?

I guess the plan is now to wait until WSOP? Makes a lot of sense from a marketing standpoint as all the interviews you will be giving are gonna be kinda free advertising. Remember to produce those patches and maybe you can even get a deal with one of the casinos to openly advertise your site (however this may look).

A poker site certainly should not slash rb by up to additional 85%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-9eSNCqIg4#t=03m41s

I think launching the site at same time with WSOP would be a great marketing move and also I think that we all (professionals and also recreational players) should try to help Phil as well as we can, after all he is trying to do this for all of us. This is for a good cause and everybody should give their best to help even a little bit.
I really feel this is the only profession in the world right now where dedication and hard work is so underestimated. Look at all the other professions where successful people make millions and they deserve it because they are dedicated, they give their all to be as good as possible at what they do. Look at all those athletes, businessmen, actors, bankers aso, the list is endless. Why are poker players punished for being successful? This makes no sense!!!
Yes its their company and they can do whatever they want but so can we! We can leave at any given time. I think its time to leave the sinking ship as soon as possible.
I really think that PS owners have gone bananas!

While we are waiting Phils next resurrection I will continue with our chatter. So, I think one offer (among other options at RIO poker site) should be tables with disabled use of PT4, HEM, etc. during a game. No need to be anonymous tho but such NO HUD tables is must to have for any poker site in my option. This is vital to increase player pool (especially with valuable players) and bring some fun, human touch and lifeness back to the game.

Once again, for non-coders users:
HUDs cannot be banned. Period. That's a fact.
Now if you want a HUDless site, while I respect your opinion, your wish is naive.
It is way more easy to detect BOTs and ban them, than to stop HUDs.
It's unfortunate that people still believe this is possible in 2017

Using a HUD is kind of a cheating on its own and it is killing a game. So it should be banned DURING A GAME (actually I suggested an option, tables with and without huds so one may choose). I am PT4 user btw, but not while I play. And I never siad hand history should be banned. I strongly support and even demand an option of donwloading hand histories after session. So any player could download his hand history to review and analayze it later. "Problem solved."
Sure, I agree, we should fight against bots and all other kinds of cheat but if genuine desire for such a fight really exists, a lot can be done without using a HUD during a game.

I am sure that RB system is one of the key points when putting up a site. The whole poker environment is at a turning point where old rakebacks and affiliates are slowly getting replaced by new stuff. If RIO-poker implements just plain old rakeback, based on the amount you rake, it would be a bit old fashioned.

The key to success is to have recreational players. And they don't care that much if the rakeback is 23% or 28%. Most of them might not even understand fully what rake is. But if they get tickets, avatars, money bonuses etc. from playing, they are happy.

Or they need some other things, if the rakeback is old-school. Easy-to-achieve promotions, deposit bonuses with instant rewards, money drops on tables etc.

If you combine those two, then you have a pretty recreational friendly poker site. But to put up the volume and offer some higher stakes action, you need to satisfy regulars too.

Launching during the WSOP is probably the best marketing decision, and if somehow RIO-poker would be available to US players it would be an instant success. Not sure what is the situation with sites that do allow US players, how legal that is?

OK, easy guys:) Quido you made really biased analogy with Ancient Greeks which mostly ppl do when they try to find an explanation to fit their conviction (sorry about my English I hope I dont sound rude, just please try to see my point). Ancient Greeks didnt have shoes so they run without, we now have shoes and we run in them. When there were no computers we (or ppl back than) played poker only live. Now we have computers-internet and we (can) play ONLINE poker (with no HUDs in it yet). That is it. This would be right analogy you tryed to lean on. Shoes doesnt help runner lift their legs and run faster and computer on its own doesnt help poker player to make decisons and play better. HUDs are very different thing, like implanted engines in the shoes (advanced shoes). But lets forget about it. I brought all that on cuz I know quite many players (most valuable ones from online poker business point of view) who now only play live poker and they explicitly pointed out that they dont want to play online because they must play against opponents who are using HUDs on them. Anyhow, if you all see that my suggestion had been made from selfish reasons to improve my bottom line (btw Stealth-Donker, this goes other way around as well, players supporting HUDs may doing so from selfish reasons to improve their bottom line cuz without HUD they cant play), I am now stepping down of it. If you all see HUDs as an improvement of online poker than I vote for HUDs ON.
Strictly from my point of view I really dont mind if players are using HUDs, so: Long live the HUD!:)

And btw 4-Star_General you didnt really read one of my posts above very well. I never said I am for banning HHs. It is completley opposite, I "demand" that every player has an option to download his HH at any time!

Stupid question, is this site going to accept U.S. players?

I`m pretty sure if anybody knows how to improve the poker environment its Phil and his team. So we just have to wait and see whats going to happen!

Will definitely join if this starts. One, maybe bad, idea would be to have twitch tables (sngs, tourney finals, cash) which would stream with hole cards exposed either with a lag, or recorded and then released. I realise not everyone would want to play in those games but I am sure some people (particularly more recreational players) would like the idea of being on twitch even at the micro/low stakes. Being able to watch their session back might encourage people to try again rather than just losing money, being puzzled and never trying again. If there were concerns about people getting reads on the players in those lineups by watching the footage you could also use a different screenname for the twitch tables.

Phil, I don't know whether you can answer to my question, but I'll post it anyway.
The main concern, especially on 2p2, is you lacking funds to compete against well vs PS and other rooms. Even if you won a lot, running a site and getting player requires a lot of money yo be invested... so may I ask you if you are alone in this project or some big investors joined you?
Ty anyway, and obv best of luck

I hope you get there. Pokerstars is the best option at the moment and they dont have any real competion. I also hope you crush them.

Doug Polk slips in a little diss. Hope he is full of shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elsE1_ecgDo&t=130m20s

Pokerstars is BIG RIGGED JOKE!I am sure they have their own people sitting playing at FT's!Their own bots and they are all winning most of the big money in promotions!Impossible to go deep in MTT's no matter how good you play!ALL IN and AA have lost every time when 10-30 left in huge MTT's!AA vs 3,7 a donk call ALL IN = flop 33Q J3 - AA vs AQ flop QQQ,AA vs AA he get flush,AA vs JJ flop J37 **,AA vs KK flop Q68 JK!Waste of hard earned money!Make the new site honest and alot of players will join!Players only stay at Pokerstars because of the huge amounts in certain MTT's!Maybe you are lucky once a year,the take the winnings and run!

Pokerstars owners should be taken to court and prosecuted for fraud!The RNG is not working honestly!People complain but they say it is random even if smart people say it's not!Professional pokerplayers winning live can't win on that site!WHY?RIGGED!

This isn't 2p2, rigging conspiracies don't belong to this forum. Post somewhere else, everyone here will be glad

phil if your site will accept people from greece.if you do you must have an deposit option that works for us.we can only deposit money to a poker site via payr,paysafe and the best option viva wallet.i hope to look and have a deal with them.ty

For the humble comments above concerning rigged sites to be posted elsewhere!I DON'T WANT A RIGGED SITE!That was my opinion and priority nr 1!If you can't read between the lines,not my problem!But that was the deal with that post!Fair and square!No bullshit and the new site will be a sucsess!If you don't agree,please post elsewhere:)!

Look, you have to realise that rigging the site is NOT in pokerstars' self interest. They can make a ridiculous amount of money off rake while remaining completely legit. Risking it all to make some extra $ would be a terrible idea.

Also, if we were in some alternate tinfoil hat reality where Phil plans to rig the shit out of RIO, I doubt saying that you don't want a rigged site will change his mind.

Although it was in caps so you never know

https://peerplays.com/

Would be sick if this is it. Rake free texas holdem poker :)

It has been two month since last update, time is really running fast:P:)

There will soon be a beta version of the software?

I hope so, also when it is only play money.

It would really be nice if RIO wouldn't kept us so much in the dark. Any "word" here and there would be appreciated:P:)

Thank you soo much phil for making a new poker site, if its anything like RIO training, the software should definitly give pokerstars a run for their money.

wow I just saw in German TV the "Pokerstars Latenight" show - where two extremely over-enthusiastic and annoying hosts (probably their job though - no offense...) are playing 3 Spin&Gos live on TV vs online qualifiers for TV jackpots.
It's just so similar to former TV call-in "guess a word" late night quiz shows and they emphasize that you don't have to know anything about poker to win this spin and go. Haha so true but this shows once again for what Spin&gos were intended...

This show is so ridiculous...I firmly believe PokerStars will do a good part themselves to drown their site if they go on like that. I don't believe attending pokerplayers want to be treated like idiots.

Let's go RIO...ready for takeover. Poker should not be pushed into the lottery-environment just to attract money so desperately.

Knock knock knock on the RIO`s door:P:)

Hi phil, I think you should delegate responsibility for updating the news and the progress of run it once poker room on someone of confidence in the world of poker. Is Negreanu still working for pokerstars? ;)

please phil hurry up we can't play at riverstars anymore.it's so unhealthy

for those of you, who haven´t filled out the survey yet: https://runitonce.typeform.com/to/nnFa75?source=twitterriot

An interview with Phil Galfond, looks like he does not want to give out information yet.
https://www.facebook.com/MaisEV/videos/10156367168667564/

Im hoping that soon as you launch phil your also going 2 clean out the couple of guys from twitch that were slating pokerstars last week for these chests and now they are pokerstars online pros.
bring on the RIO Pros streaming on twitch and cleaning up shop :)
we will be getting empty pokemon style chests 2 open like stars for our rakeback though right???? haha

I hope they open someday, i'm going crazy to play solitary

Well at least from that interview we can see that the project is moving forward. As Stars have abandoned ship for real now I suspect they are really hustling to get of the floor and grab as much leaving players they can get.

Hi, after month and a half of my absence still nothing new here, so my humble suggestion to this "A Poker Site Should" thread would now be: "Open.":P:)

add short deck poker

It feels like our creators abandoned us for good. Not nice feeling. 5 month from last update and after that complete silence. I am aware RIO team is very busy, but this kind of ignoring makes me more and more sceptical.
I think it would be really nice-good if any RIO team member would show up occasionally, even if that would be in a manner of slap: "Kids, dont be so impatient. Go, clean your room or something and let mummy and daddy to finish their job!":P:)

I think they lack money. and now I hold a pessimism view about RIO poker, even they give out the poker room, because if you get improved, your competitors will improve too. same theory with the evolution of poker.

Silence is generally either very bad or very good, meaning that launch might be months away or really-really close. I´m a positive person so I believe that launch date gets closer and closer every day thats why there`s no news.

Jungleman in his podcast mentioned some big news coming up about online poker that he cann't talk too much about: ~1:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yC710q2ohA&t=5051s . So maybe, there's hope...

1st-Even you have some good ideas, other poker rooms will copy those, for example "Rush poker".
2nd-Based on you lost your technical advancements, it will become the competation of business skills, Galfond doesn't have very large edge on this aspect.

Just made this account to say Im super hyped for the release of RIO poker, and also very amped for an update which I assume will come around September 1st

LET'S GET ONLINE POKER GREAT AGAIN!!!

This project is dead before it even saw the light

September 1st approaches.....

IDEA: Get a official Bitcoinminer into the software and make it rakefree!!
plus add on screen in 5 minute break in a tournaments for example
we mine bitcoins for u and pay no rake

Re-read the original post. Such great stuff. So hope it sees the light of day.

This waiting of RIO poker site is more and more similar to waiting on Nibiru planet:P

Hey, guys. I gave this update on twitter the other day...

Not the update you were hoping for, I know. I promise I'll let you know when we know something solid.

Mr. Phil Galfond, thank you sir, any update is much appreciated. I was a bit worried already that something bad had happen to you (like you got married or something):P:)
And as Ernestas Romeika said, probably a lot of us is prepared to help in anyway if possible. Best wishes.

Guys if you havent listen it yet heres absolutely fascinating interview with Phil Galfond imo. http://www.thinkingpoker.net/2017/09/episode-229-phil-galfond/
Phil talks about his rise to the top, about Run it Once training site and his current efforts to launch a real money poker site. This might answers some of your questions you all have been waiting for. Good stuff.
Phil I wish you all the best in your business ventures! I wish there were a lot more people like you.

The update everyone has been waiting for, the domain is up:

RunitOncePoker.com

1Live stream with Phil Galfond and joeingram1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQzvreJgUdA

Sorry for my english guys.

Even a semi recreational like me can see, poker industry get tougher over the years. Thougher for the players and the providers too. There's is soo much negativity out there in the last couple of years most of the people slowly lost their motivation. It's slightly comes from the game itself, because poker is a really challanging game. Sometimes skill gaps can be huge, sometimes really short in thougher, high rake lineups.
Variance is really good for a highly skill besed game to give a weaker player something. Good old variance always work, at least some amount. If it too much it just start confuse and depresse everybody make evolving as a player so much slower and harder especially for weaker, or recreational players.
Nowdays there are so much things in the gaming indrustry to keep the players in the game, inspire them to play (even every day), but most of the poker services out there, just really abuse variance. Do it in a really harmful way to everybody, to get the most money out there from the shortrun. In a big picture, they slowly kill the industry. Every service die out except for the biggest, strongest who milk out every remaining money until it worth. Then the poker fauna regenerate itself hopefully , or not (and poker became just an another game in a casino, where the house takes all the money, from the people). At least it seems like that.

I admire people like Phil and his team, who at least try to make things better. They really brave and as he said they try their best, wich in itself is respectable in this field. They want a successful business obviously, but they also have a huge love for the game and for the players. That's a pretty good combo in a longrun.
Look at it as a one time chance, and come with a service that as good as they think it can be is really smart. I can feel it is a huge project with a lot of expense and big challange, but take as much time as you can, need. The gaming experience have to as good as can be. Need to be smooth, fun and also nice. Look at the gaming and esport industry, we can learn a lot.
Lot of games comes out every year, some of them even legendary names, but success and quality comes in hand in hand and can't be separated. Easier said than done, I know! I don't intend with my words to put more pressure to Phil or anybody! I wish you the best!

Aaaaa noooo, 4 years is a bit too long, some of us are old, don`t be selfish youngster Rapid:P;) But ye, do it right...and fast!

What Party has been doing lately isn't anything new is just what Stars made to get to the top. Large tournament schedule (even though their start times need improvement), good service, good looking software, hire the best pros, listen to the customer, quick cashout. Don't need to reinvent the wheel, just do what made they climb to the top.

Now...maybe RIO poker room project is stopped for whatever reason, maybe they are still working on it or RIO on the way realized that future of online poker is moving towards decentralized poker, which will really happen IMO and that is good in general (sure depends who will be providers and how will be done, but that is always the case and every start is hard), maybe that is why they need that much time to launch a poker room...btw if you (RIO) are really doing this I think you should (I am not sure if possible but I will shoot anyway) use tangle formation instead of blockchain (at the moment all other upcoming new "crypto poker sites" are based on blockhain). It seems tangle formation would be much much faster, and no miners involved, therefore no fees <- cheaper and probably even more secure, but probably Etherum platform is needed and they run on blockchain.
And one general problem is how to attract players to decentralized poker because all of this is yet uncommon practice and majority is still quite skeptical without good understanding of that subject, but this is almost unavoidable future and I believe that is good for poker players even if at this moment looks scary:P:)

I love this project! Good luck Phil, it looks like you are taking a good approach on this!

You have contributed so much to the game of poker throughout your career. Inspirational highlights of your success, a highly developed online poker community, sharing enormous amounts of strategical advice to help players progress, and now your very own online poker site. Thank you for everything Phil.

Yop, stay positive about the project. It just needs its time.

I understand that you guys are planning on launching runitonce poker in 2018 so i will put this question here: you have any plans to get into regulated markets who have a universal pool, markets which would require you to get a licence(Bulgaria, Romania etc.) ?

darkrideee - We won't be launching in those markets initially, but will look to add them as soon as it's viable for us.

@everybody else - thank you for all your encouragement and your patience. We're still working very hard on RIO Poker. I'll update you as soon as I feel confident about what I'd be telling you.

Ok. Thank you for the answer. The offers(the legal ones at least) for poker in those markets are extremely limited. That is why i'm asking.

Phil Galfond visits Elías' youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDX8mEUL-aE

PHIL GALFOND'S ONLINE POKER SITE FINALLY SET TO LAUNCH IN 2018?
https://www.highstakesdb.com/8413-phil-galfonds-online-poker-site-finally-set-to-launch-in-2018.aspx

...(potencial) poker site should update their customers at least here and there, any info (or even info about not having any info) would be appreciated. It seems one can find more debating about RIO poker site on Twitter or elsewhere on the internet while it`s own community is left completly in the dark. I find this a bit odd. I understand this is complex project but non the less. At the moment to me looks like RIO are intentionaly cooling us all off so they will be able to more "peacfuly" announce that they quit from making their own poker site.
I really hope I am wrong and that RIO will slap me with big fat new poker table they just made:P:)

Guessing It wont be available to Australians??

Will it be available in greece?

GameTheory 8 months ago
Looks like this thread will continue in the way it has for months to come.

Guess who was right?

''As of today, residents of the following countries are not allowed to create an account on RIO Poker: Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany (State of Schleswig-Holstein), Greece, Guyana, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Syria, Uganda, United States of America, Vanuatu, Yemen.''

What does it take to get permittance to provide Rio Poker to these countries?