Here we go! <3

hi there. can we play from turkey or not?

<3 Nick Steiner

Here I was hoping we d get just another quick beta soon.

and 1 more question i have? when ll you publish software?

Here is a list of restricted countries:
Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, 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, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Uganda, United States of America, Vanuatu, Yemen

YESSSS THIS IS HAPPENING!!!
#HYPE #YOLO

So it begins! Yessss! Long Live Poker!

Long Live Poker :D

I m just happy I can stop obsessing about splash pots and actually play some soon. Its nearly all I can think about lol.

Congrats!
Watching from the side lines here in Sweden.

What are deposit and withdrawal options from Canada?

2 questions:
1. if i play more sites and just want to support run it once so i would play some tables on top of my other sites action but iam using hud on those sites will i be banned? i wouldnt use hud on run it once but would use it in same time on other sites
2. are players who have adress in allowed countries but want to play from czech republic allowed to play? i have slovakian adress but i would like to play from czech republic (party poker and winamax allow players from czech republic to play as along as they have adress from allowed countries) its not against law of czech republic as well just pokerstars dont understand it and dont let people play

When will you try for a license in sweden ?

Where can I apply for streamR?

I did my part :)

https://gab.com/LooseStool/posts/47821738

#Poker fan?

Do you doubt that online can still be fun?

DOUBT NO MORE.

#RunItOnce is launching NEXT WEDNESDAY!

https://www.runitonce.eu/news/8-a-poker-site/

I played the beta. It is awesome, balance of anon tables with built in visual HUD kinda.

Visit link above to see WHY this is unique.

The #Pokerstars lazy monopoly has hurt players. RIO will heal us.

Congratulations!!!
I hope everything goes as smooth as possible!

Awesome!

I know this is not a priority at all, but at some point could you add an option to play seeing big blinds instead of money? (like Starshelper does on Pokerstars)

Finally. Your second child will be born on Wednesday.
I promise to come by to wish him happy birthday.

Congratulations!

That was a pleasant surprise.

Hopefully Slovenia gets removed from restricted list and I can try out your masterpiece. Until then, best of luck with the launch!

Awesome news! Wish you a great release.
Do you plan on applying for Bulgarian license in the near future?

Absolutely fantastic news, and what a troll with the "only seven more months" line!
I look forward to seeing all of your anonymous friendly faces at the tables this week!

I believe I read somewhere that you will allow bitcoin transactions (after you've initially stated that your regulator does not allow them). What's the latest on that?

As an Israeli player who's very hyped for playing on RIO Poker, I really hope that you will find a deposit method that we can use.

With that said, I will continue to do what I can to promote your site.
I admire what you're doing and think it's great for online poker - Even if I won't be able to participate in the games myself.

No more marketing? Time for a podcast with Joey?

Congratulations!

What stakes will be offered on opening day?

:)

This is great news Phil! Wish you all the best and great success. Any updates when tournaments will be available?

Hi, I have one question. If I have nationality in one of the restricted countries but have an apartment, pay my bills and have a bank on my name in other country. Can I play from that other country? Or i still cant because of my nationality.

Thank you for your response.

What currency are the games in?

Oh, so fast after the last update! Nice!

Good luck, Phil Galfond!
Good luck, Nick Steiner!

Good luck, RIO Poker! :)

Im also wondering about tournaments and sitngo? Any progress on that department?

Good luck, unfortunately I am from one of those countries that won't be able to participate but at least I am hoping RIO makes PS softer.

I could have sworn I saw this somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. What are launch stakes?

this is Mrs Galfond and I just want to chime in and say YAYYYYY!! I hope everyone likes it. Go team<3

will the software run on mac?

Hey guys, Are you planning to launch in France one day ? (sorry If question has been already asked).

Congratulations on the upcoming launch!

I will try to record my next video on RIO poker , really exited to finally play on the site !

Do restricted conuntries allowed to download and view the action without log in?

Galfond said on joeys podcast he's looking in for a way to offer HU games, any updates in that front for the future?

Hello RIO team, will residents of Bulgaria be able to play on the site? Thank you

Hey Matthias Schüller , can you go into the deposit options for germans? Will you have paysafecard availiable on wednesday, as it's the quickest to get money on a site without needeing to verify an account anywhere first? Thank You :)

Will I be able to play from Israel?

Nick Steiner Will player to player transfer be allowed?

Phil Galfond Wednesday is a really busy day for me but I'll still commit to playing for an hour (or until I bust!)

Just wanted to say thanks for still believing in online poker when alot of others have cut everything of any benefit to players - fingers crossed this is the next boom!

Awesome!!! So excited! Congratulations, guys! All success to you!

How about the deposit options for Brazil?

Phil Galfond Nick Steiner I'm a member of the poker media and I'd like to know how to get in touch about media inquiries. Thanks and GL on the launch!

Cant wait for launch! got my twitch channel setup and ready to support your site 100%
I always been a mtt player but willing to make some changes, so ill play some cash game until mtt is introduce :)

come say hi on wednesday:)
https://www.twitch.tv/jimbosteam66

Will there be a 2-step-verification login feature? I would very much like to support the site, but I've been hacked once, and since then I'd rather be on the safe side of things:)

How about tracking my hands for review/stats? I know HUD is not allowed, but tracking is possible?

That s a nice surprise! I will be there playing tomorrow. Will There be first deposit bonuses? Also there wont be any rakebackdeals with affiliates right? Because if there will be any, it would be netter to not open an Account yet and wait for rbdeals. But as of my understanding that Was not something planned by you anyway. Sorry for English

When you wake up and realize.. it´s still not Wednesday

Only 10 hours til midnight for me, maybe they are launching NYE style right when the clock ticks over :) A naive thought, but I can dream!

what is the deposit options for turkish players?

Very excited and can`t wait to play. Beta was awesome!

Hi! For security, will be able to send later ID documents??

Yes see you all tomorrow...

Hi Phil, I really want to support your poker room and play as you start!

The question is, doesn’t it happen that those who register later can get a better offer from poker sites via a referral link or affiliate?

Will we not get additional information on first deposit bonus, client download etc. before the tables actually go live Nick Steiner ? It's Wednesday in a couple of hours for most of your market and we're still completely in the dark :D

Can Indian player play on this site?

I remember seeing this I believe in a 2p2 thread years ago after Phil‘s first post.I never lost this image and wanted to share this here:

Ride out with me!!! (well not me obviously) –> Youtube link

Any idea on what time the client will be available to download? Keen to support this venture but have a fairly busy day ahead

"Oh, it is the big day! Surely waiting the final few hours will be easy!"

I was wrong.

Let's play some poker :)

Please, please check out our Known Issues page in the help center. There are a couple of... well, issues... that it would be helpful to be aware of before you play. It'll only take 2 minutes.

Good luck everyone! Thank you so much for all your support. Let's do this!

#LongLivePoker

Holy shit he pushed the button. Let's go.

Watched a streamer just now, he said he wanted to be able to hover over the pot to see how much was splashed. Maybe something to think about.

Tables are live, come join in on the action!! GLGL :D

If you're unable to play but want to support us, you can do so by supporting people who support us!

Check Twitch Poker and find someone streaming Run It Once.

... pretty please - this day is a big one for us :)

Awesome stuff; smooth and high frequency of splashed pots. I now know what you mean when you explained that the system is low variance as it seems more than one in 10 pots is splashed.

One consideration regarding the generous deposit bonus: I think that it would be good if it were to match deposits until a certain amount (capped at 600 euro for example), and not be limited to only the first deposit.

I only wanted to deposit a small amount to begin with to see how it worked and to confirm that withdrawls are smooth.

In any case, a great experience so far and lots of fun.

Yes the day is here! Lets make this dream a reality. I'm streaming twitch and downloading the client now :) You have my full support

What a great job, congratulations!
(Can’t wait for it in France...someday...)

What stakes are avaiable?

Go go lets push RIO Twitch streamRs to the top!
Got 4 RIO Twitch channels open and joining the action myself now.
GL & may the splash be with you ;)

I haven't received my conformation e-mail. Don't suppose anyone from RIO can help? I'v clicked resend about 4 times and have nothing. I cant deposit or play without it

What are the hopes for a traffic in the first week?

Just when I thought I couldn't love RIO more I won a 1000BB splashed pot <3

Are there any public statistics available? I'd want to see how many people are online.

tried to cash in via neteller and it states global deposit limit was reached. Didnt cash in a penny yet

also there is a deposit cap of 2k for neteller. Cant you increase that? will be difficult to get 500 1k going. Cant wait to play a hand!

If I am still in the review process for being a StreamR, will any streams I do today and in future dates count towards rake back?

is VISA deposit possible?

deposit max is 600 until id and bill validation. thx @support

Hello!!
First impressions of the game are only positive. Special respect for the design of the site and poker room (very high quality and stylish!)

A few points that I noted:

• fonts in notes and bet boxes are too small;
  

• when you press "Fold to any bet" preflop on the BB, and you have a limp bank without SB. On the flop, we speak first, and the cards are autofold. it should not be;

• when manually entering the amount for the bet, buttons of bet slider stop respondin.

p.s. You asked to share impressions - I share)) (and sorry for bad English)

first hand i got dealt was AA32ds after pumping up the chat icons :D so the first hand was fun.

the next hand I was involved in a pot and rio crashed. I reconected barely in time. did this happen to some1 else?

on the other table I was sitting on Im on sitout and cannt sit in (cause of crash before?) --> leave and rejoin?

edit: yes

if you sit out you have 11 mins of sit out time. thats a lot, mb too much?

bet options dont work if I click on them, maybe I have to activate that though

love the software. only thing I really dislike is that I cannot resize the tables? Also cascade/tile tables would be very useful. But good job, I will stick around ;)

I'm soooo hyped and really hoping this goes well for you guys! Wish you all the luck and love <3

Sadly I'm living in Schleswig-Holstein (Germany). Are there any plans on getting a gambling concession?

Despite the (known) bugs I just love Run it once Poker!!!

Phil it seems like you just cured my depression with this amazing product!!! FOR REALZ.

YOU OFFICIALLY SAVED POKER!!! LONG LIFE RUN IT ONCE POKER!!1

I thought it was left very late to announce the opening time and also bonus details. There have been one or two enquiries concerning bonuses for beta testers. Mine went very well. My first attempt to deposit was rejected but after a phone call from the bank, the second was accepted.

For any beta testers wondering, I received my bonus straight away without problems. There is a pull down menu where your name is, and the bonus details were there under "Account." Your progress is listed under "First Deposit Bonus."

I realise the tremendous effort involved, but sometimes the simple things are overlooked. From the numbers who have been playing, this first day looks like a huge success.

Played quite a few hands and I love the software. One thing that could be useful is when its your turn to act (or your running out of time) it would be easier to see which table your timing out on if the border of the table flashed instead of just the players. Not a big deal but I think it makes it easier to multi-table.

Added Slovenia to TOS as country forbidden to participate in real money games. Oh god why :*(

Unfortunately experienced random flashing, and more importantly a missing card on the flop. Have e-mailed support, will hopefully be refunded for the hand since it affected my play.

Splashed pots are not a fair way to give "rakeback", as it favors a lot aggressive players and those who understand how the dead money in the pot affects the strategy. I would assume that in the long run most of the splashed money goes to the pockets of good players.

I like the software.

I am just going to write my experience and thoughts without scrolling through the entire thread.

I don't know if it's just me but i cannot alter the size of the tables. Tile table options aren't there yet i believe?
Also i would like the cards on board to be bigger. Now it's hard to quickly see the cards on boards and the suits. A 4 colour deck would be nice.

It happened twice to me when i dragged a table from one screen to another that i lost the table and couldnt recover it.

For the rest i had a great experience playing on RIO Poker! :)

Played two sessions since yesterday, experienced a client crack in both. The client just closed itself suddently. Luckily my hand was still there when I reopened the software. Besides that everything was awesome. STP was more fun than expected

Everyday 10 hours ago
Stop the slack Mark and take 2 mins to read this ;) https://help.runitonce.eu/kb/known-issues-beta/

Thank You!!
I wanted to write 2 problems, but they are known...

I railed a bit and think the site looks really good.

I am a tournament player and I will certainly come and play your tournament schedule when you launch it. Would love to deposit a couple of buyins and come and splash around in 20nl to try it out but then I don't want to miss out on the full deposit bonus. Likewise I don't want to deposit €500 and have it sitting there not being used until you introduce tournaments - so the generous but only one time deposit bonus has actually resulted in me not depositing yet. GL and I'm sure I will hit the tables soon.

Love the software, despite of some minor issues listed in Phil's post above.

I also strongly believe that RIO should start heavily promoting the site for recreational players only when the client will be issue-free and "option-wise complete", otherwise it may appear not appealing enough for recs, because one of the main things they appreciate is VARIETY (choice of games, choice of visuals etc).

i live in taiwan , why i can not use visa to deposit.

will it add in anytime soon? in stars its ok

just jumped into two plo tables and suddenly we stopped getting dealt hands. I assume some sort of update going on?

Maybe you should cap the play to 100bb or so when the huge splashes occur? would be tilting if you have been winning multiple buyins and then are forced to flip 3-5 buyins vs someone else running hot. Think it might scare and tilt recs very much also..

I have a feeling you lot wish the sit out/sit in button had been done before you got round to going live yesterday. I don't know how many times you were asked about that but my under/over would be around 200.

I thought yesterday was a stunning success and you'd be breaking out the champagne, but the response on Discord by those in charge was a bit muted. It far exceeded my wildest expectations (although I am a very negative S.O.B), There's tons for you to do yet, but players have been generally so positive about RIO, overlooked the blips, and turned up in their 100's. A RESULT!

Not only that, there were players at tables way into the night, at a time when most of Europe is in bed.

Players like me are pushing for tournaments, but you will need time to get it right. I can wait, but I will make a few personal observations, and a few requests. Everyone is different, so this may not go down well in some quarters.

1. When I play live, old school players like me, like a chat, so having a chat box is going to make it a better experience.

2. It's fun when you're with players you know, so breaking from anonymity in tournaments (even if it's only occasionally), would in my opinion, be a very good thing, as it would be closer to real poker.

3. Some like quick shove fest tournaments, but some of us like a really good structure, where you get time to play a decent game.

4. There are some very very slow players around, which is one of the reasons I play less hold'em nowadays. For some tournaments, please please have a fast clock, and if anyone misses their turn, force them to sit out a few hands. Have a clock for extra time if you wish, for those extra hard decisions.

Just watch the Joeingram podcast with Phil where they showed and was talking about the 2k splash pot which I might be wrong but I believe it was 1000bb? And they go on to talk about another 400bb splash pot.
It is hard to imagine how everyone is going to get their fair share of 51% when there is such big splashes but I trust Phil and his team and I assume they did the math.
However that is not my issue I want to bring forth. IMO this should never have happen. I am totally against any splash amount that would remove playing poker at all. When the pot is so big relative to your stack, there isnt any poker to be played.
I am aware that players did fold and there is money to grab but I dont even know if that is a good thing for RIO Poker since they want it to be fair. And I am also aware that this is probably really rare, but it should not happen 1% of the time, it should happen 0% of the time.
I think 5bb is probably the upper limits, it make a 100bb stack have about 15.3 STP ratio while without splash is 66.67 STP ratio.
I guess the point I want to make is for smaller size splash more frequently and totally removing spash that remove poker game play.

Also note that it created a situation where you have to flip for a big pot 6 ways with a insanely huge pot which is really crazy in term of variance. Sure while being a super rare situation it would not matter for average variance over the board if you do the math for all players, but for the particular player where this does happen to, it would matter quite alot I think. Its a 16 BI or a 10 BI pot, I have played 6 max for 8 years, I probably have only played an 8-9 BI pot like 2-3 times and it was at PLO.

And while I do trust Phil on the math, I still dont see it. The person that won the 16 BI pot at that moment is winning hundreds of times more rakeback than they should be earning at that moment. How does that later average out? I cant see how it does, can someone show me the math I am missing here. Now imagine if someone can get that lucky, it goes without saying that someone is also capable of getting very unlucky.

Which brings me to another question I have. When the other 5 players do lose on that 16BI pot, how does that affects their rakeback? I am guessing that it does affects their rakeback but not by much cause the cost of variance will be share by all players in the pool. So if a huge chunk of money is remove from the rakeback pool the cost is share among all the players. And the bigger the pool the smaller the cost and the 'huge chunk' to thousands of players is not that huge, but that is only assuming you have a large player base.

Edit: Ignore that last part, just when though the RIO Poker Post #7. I understand now how the splash is calculated. The only factor affecting splash is the rake of the previous hand of that table. And if I am understanding this right the way variance happens in the rakeback is the same as the way variance happens in poker.

When I marked the player with a color mark and wrote a note on him, after he left and after a while he returned to the table, the nickname, color and note remain the same. BUT sometimes on another table to sit down a player who already has a color mark with another nickname (no notes).

This is a correct color mark on the player, and the nickname is different, since he sets at a different table? or is it an software issue?

I have two questions:
1. Is there a eta for two step verification, or can you guys at least tell me if it has any priority. I would haul over my roll in an instant if I knew it was safe, regardless of any other hickupa you guys might have.
2. I feel an urge to show my support, especially after the words of borh Phil amd Farrah about making just a small deposit, but I wanted to know if the full bonus would still be available for when i get the rest of my roll on the site (when you guys have implemented 2 step verification).

Now I come to think of it, I have a third question, when will there be a new phase with more interlining stakes (10nl especially).

Oh and I dont agree woth the splash the poy critiques on capping potsize etc. Just get it in and run it once:-)

How's the traffic so far?

Please add mouse hotkeys. Right now the hotkey feature is pretty useless (are there seriously people who use their keyboard for playing poker?) I'm not used to moving my mouse to click the bet button anymore which makes multi-tabling very difficult.

Other suggestions:
- The 4-colour deck needs improving. The diamond blue and the spade black look way too similar and are hard to tell apart.
- Make the poker table bigger in relation to the window. The avatars take up a lot of room and the board cards and bet amounts are too small.
- I've only been playing for half an hour so I'm still getting used to the client obviously but I think it could be a little easier to follow the action (who's still in the hand, what is my position etc.). Pokerstars' Hyper Simple and Mercury themes should be the benchmark

Is there a way to import the hands into pokertracker 4?
I want so see my stats and replay the hands ;(

Changes that need to be made:
1. Add screen names.
2. Make the rake 3% of the pot up to $3. 2% of the pot on HU games.
3. Eliminate splash the pot.

Anonymous tables is a travesty. Skill has been stripped from the game.

You need to take 50,000 of RakeStars customers. Better yet take them all. Go with 2.5% of the pot up to $3.

I want to leave a comment on what i experienced so far, i started playing 3 days ago, and played at least 1k hands.
- STP:I really like it, it is really fun, brings something fresh and also rec players would love it. I think it is fine as a rake system, and in the long run players will have similar rakeback, maybe better players >51% and others <%51 but anyway it adds new factors that impact the way a hand could be played.
The only thing i would like to change about STP is to cap it at max 50bb so that it is not needed to go allin with any2 because of the odds. I think it is already enough to bring in some gamble. 1000bb is really too much: i expect ppl to all go allin and who win, wins like a jackpot (1000bb + other players stack so maximum 500bb, that means 1500bb total...). So the one who wins is super happy while the others are super salty cause they also lost a stack in a situation that happens really rarely. Some ppl would like it but the most would hate it.

• Anonimous play and no Hud: I read a lot of comments regarding this, some ppl say that it is super bad and i guess they are regulars. Huds are not good for the poker ecosystem, they only bring gto boring players and scare rec players. Rec players are not stupid and don't want to play in an unfair enviroment so they dont' like hud. So anonimous play is a necessity to avoid exploting programs. Some ppl said you could also use third party huds, yes of course, except it can't collect stats forever but only for those anonimous player on that specific table! After you leave, or they leave, you won't know who they were!
  So Phil is right on this and i really do support him. Poker has to be fun. Huds are not fun, using tools to have edge are not fun, bots are not fun.
  More fun=more recs, more recs=more winrate and a good poker enviroment. Pokerstars is the exaple of the abominion poker has become nowadays, it is brutal to see how bad it has become. RIO is probably the last hope to at least make poker fun and playable again for both recs and professional players.

Regarding all the other issues, its a beta, i hope they will be fixed soon.

Really looking forward to see RIO grow. Poker is a game of players, if a poker site doesn't understand the players and help them to have a better playing experience, that is no fucking service other than dealing cards！

I personally think the big splash pots are super fun. So would not like to See a 50bb cap at all

Bigger splash pot will atract more recreational players. It's a great advertisment on youtube for example (check out new RIO vid).

Having no idea what your opponents ranges and frequencies are in any spot is not real poker.

Spins N Go's are super fun. So is roulette and craps.

Large splash the pots is just flipping to win your own money back. It's -EV.

You should have tables with screen names and tables that are anonymous so players have a choice.

Not to be rude but all the comments of Copernicus are negative and not costructive. If you don't like anonimous play you can choose to play on other poker sites. The thing is, rec players don't like huds, maybe some don't even know what it is, but anyway they all want to play poker the simplier and fun way. Since rec players are a big part of a poker ecosystem, it is important to let rec players feel good about the enviroment. If you like to play with other players using fenquencies as you do, well you are welcome to go stars and play with russians. I agree that the skill in understanding frequencies and such is also a big factor, i feel you, but the more we go further with this kind of play, the more people are becoming like robots, trying to emulate the best gto style. If online poker continues to go this way (with solvers, huds, and all) it will die, there will only remain gto players and 0 fun players. If there are no huds in play, gto play has less value, and it is more fun since you don't have to do some plays that you "must" do in order to keet playing a gto style and don't be exploited. So rec players can also have fun playing with people and not with gto robots, and the most important part is that we all play the same fair game because if a player use a hud and the other player doens't, obviously that player has an edge on ther other. Huds are bad for the game now, it was fine before when the game was still fresh and new strategies could be implemented. But nowadays it only hurts the poker game. It's more fun to play without it, at least it is for me.
I really hope that Phil and his team will do their best to make RIO the most fun and fair poker site for all kind of players.

You can keep splash the pots, but make them always between 1/8th and 2 times the big blind.
Def need screen names, a million %.

Apoc 100% agree that there has to be a cap to any 25bb+ STP pot in my opinion. I just saw a 1000bb pot at mid-stakes. Couple of guys were almost 300bb deep and one guy had less than 100bb-s. Its so unfair when one guy is shortstacked and other players are so deep. It gets even more ridiculous at higher stakes, for example at PLO500 being 200bb deep you literally have to gamble with 1000 euros to win 200bb STP. Also saw so stupid things from regulars at PLO200, people were literally going crazy with rainbow trash to win 20bb STP-s. Raise+3-bet= All-in. Im no lottery expert but I´m starting to think that at this point it must be more profitable to fold, take that money and buy a pile of lottery tickets instead. Thats not poker, almost 0% of skill, just pure gambling.

Why not just play all small STP (1-5bb) pots and build a simple jackpot on the side for all limits separately.
In his post Phil wrote: "One or two of the plaques in the mix say “PLO Flip.” When that round comes up, we each put 10 big blinds in the middle, get dealt 4 cards, and run out a board."
The minute I saw it I thought this would be brilliant idea for big STP-s. I think that all Jackpots should be played like this.
Its pretty simple, the more you play, more chances you have to hit big Splashes. From the marketing point nothing changes and everyone has same amount of excitement.

Another thing about big splash pot. Thinking about the variance, it actually isnt a high variance spot in the sense you are risking little to make ALOT. The EV of the situation is enormous. The high variance comes in when the 1k splash happens so infrequent. If you only get one of those pots every month, the variance is never going to average out. You are going to be way ahead or way behind throughout the year on 1k splash pots.

I totally see where you guys are coming from with the "let's cap the splashes at 25bb", but the 1kbb splashes are too good for marketing and to attract rec players. Get used to them :)

WM2K twisterk At the end of the day its not about me or any other people who like or dislike current state of big 20bb+ STP pots its about the reputation of poker. Im trying to see the overall picture. People who love poker know its a skill based game but a lot of outsiders, politicians already think differently and try to tag it as a gambling game. Im sure they are not gonna change their opinion when they will see all those STP highlight videos. For a foreign eye it must look exactly what it is, 6 people are pushing a lot of money in the middle with any 2 cards.
On the other hand when there would be some kind of cap on big STP all-ins and it would seem like poker site is actually giving something back to the players that would be totally different story.
This is suppose to be a poker site not a casino lounge. I think this is unnecessary gambling and there a lot of other ways to make games more fun and enjoyable.

Hi everyone, especially Nick and Phil!

First of all English isn't my native language, sorry for any bad wording.
Second: congratulations on a very good software.
I wanted to play on RIO and was very excited. Now it's here I will not play and I will explain why.
I write this out of disappointment, but not mal-intent. I want this project to succeed, but I fear it won't, so I am giving you extensive feedback instead of just turning my back, I hope it is appreciated.
I have seen a couple of streamers (good choice for promotion) over the week or so, I have read through all the decisions and the reasoning behind it. You do actually get most of the decisions right, it is a really cool product with very interesting design choices, I like the dynamic avatars analogy to live poker, I like the database after 24h for self-study, I like the anonymity because it protects me as the fish that I am. I even can see why STP was a good compromise (though I agree with Kitsune that it will feel like more like a curse than a blessing most of the time) and the bot deterrent is elegant.

I absolutely hate the rake. Let me put it another way: I would play through the weekend, if the rake wasn't this high.

You came here with a mission: a site for the poker players. But you are bleeding them dry.
You tax a PLO pot with 5%? That is 10% of my winnings because you rake my money that goes in as well and what I put into the pot aren't my winnings! And my winnings are basically my stack!

Let's say I flip against another player on PLO10 (there the rake is "only" 4,5%) two times in a row.
10€ each, 20€ pot, I lose the first flip, villain now has has 19,10€, I rebuy.
next flip, this one I win, 19,10€ me (but I rebought), villain has 9,10€

in just two hands, we managed to lose 9% of our initial stack. Both of us. To you!
I read about "health of the player pool" and it's just the ridiculous euphemism of how much a site can squeeze out of the players before they dry out. Not thanks to winning players, or lack of fish, but thanks to the site owner making up excuses. In PLO the equities run very close, therefore I will flip a lot and lose a lot due to variance. Above example isn't some weird case study, it's happening every day plenty of times.
Phil, when you sit with 10k and have some 20k pots, 3$ rake doesn't really matter, but with 10$ and a 20$ pot - 1$ rake beeping matters!

Sure I get 51% back through STP...maybe if I get lucky. But it's a lottery really, not something I could count with. Not implying foul play, but it surely makes it dizzy if you add a lot of gambling and variance instead of just having a flat RB button like MPN has. But I don't want a casino to gamble on slots. I want a poker site! Don't focus on the regs or on the casuals, just focus on poker! But with this kind of rake you are focussing on your profits.

You can talk about industry standard all you want, Nick, but don't tout around that you are here on a player's mission. The industry standard is to make money. Lots of it. They do it pretty well, Amaya paid billions for that privilege. Do not think the players aren't aware of that.

The casuals don't want to gamble, or they will go to sports betting or slots. They want the game to be beatable! Or at least have the hope they can. They don't need another vampire poker site with an honest face to rob them.
I am a casual. But that doesn't mean that I am stupid or blind.
The pros like to gamble, but still fight over who has the button when breaking up a table. Nobody likes a software that just screws them over. Neither casuals nor pros.

What is your reason to have 5%+ rake?
Running costs? Ridiculous! Everybody who played with a poker tracker and looks at "rake paid" knows that those are huge sums.
Investment return? You cannot expect to make back your initial costs so quick!
There is a risk that if you lower the rake, Stars/PP will just lower it as well and run you out of business. I doubt it.
Unibet has 1% in the micro, 3% up to PLO25 and still decent rakeback - and they have it for a long time now and the big two never even blinked.
The transaction fees are steep? Just pass those down to your customers, they will choose automatically cash through the site that charges less than 4% and also will lower much of the transaction traffic, because they are paying for it.

You have an opportunity here! People will flock to your site if it's fair. Because it will be the only site :(
They will come because everybody says it's the place with a cool concept and good design choices and beatable rake. Do not attract gamblers or degens or fish or whoever, but attract the poker players! Who acknowledge the fact that on your site the game can be beaten. You know how many disappointed players are out there? Legions! You would not need promotions, word of mouth would be out in hours!
Make the rake 2% - or 3% with current RB structure. You will not make millions in a short time, but you didn't do it for the money, did you?

About my background: I play casual since 2007. I won a tournament once, since then nothing, my losses outweigh that win by far. About once per year I cash in max bonus on some poker site. If I feel like I can beat the game, I am willing to cash in more. After a while I started with a poker tracker. Since then I base my choice of where to cash in mostly on the rake. I am not poor, poker is a good hobby. But I do not like to burn money, I do never go to a site to gamble, I go to beat the game. I absolutely need to feel like I can beat the game or it's no fun at all. With rake like this I know I can not and never will. Better players can't beat the game. My calculation example above shows why it is just impossible. Players much more dedicated or talented have thrown in the towel.

I am sorry Phil, I will not play on your site under these circumstances. I will go to PLO4 taxed at 1% on pot / 2% on winnings on Unibet. It's peanuts but my peanuts and I don't feel cheated out of my money.

Peter

Hi Phil, I deposited on the site. However I no longer hold funds on the site.
I loved playing on RIO Poker, but I don't plan on depositing any time soon for only one reason..
My main problem is the exchange rate by banks as it costs a lot to deposit and withdraw
The workaround has been done by Stars and Party, where they allow funding via your currency and then can convert currency to Euro's/dollars etc when playing and convert back before withdrawing.
To give you an idea, my deposit of 600 euros cost me an extra £20 currency conversion by my bank and withdrawing would be around the same amount; which as you can see £40 is a lot to sacrifice