Cancel the First Purchase Special

I agree with this It will increase inflation and those earning chips by playing will discourage
I agree with original post of Joe dirk

i think you missed MY point. BECAUSE i value my chips here, I have tried to only put myself in a position where i am not worried about losing several hands or buyins. Whether it is a free chip game or a cash game, if you play afraid to lose, you will not maximize your winnings and ironically you will probably end up losing in the long run. By managing your bankroll you can comfortably accept the risk that comes from playing the game to win. That applies to both free and money games. Playing afraid to lose isn’t right in either case.

On the other hand, playing “bingo” style is stupid no matter what, but that’s going to happen from time to time on any free site. I guess if chips were more scarce, it would be harder for those folks to build up, but eventually they will from time to time. And eventually they’ll donk them all off again. Our job is just to try to figure out how wide open their range is and try to get it in good with them to get our share of their generosity. We might lose a few but eventually it should work out in the long run, as long as we can handle the variance.

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That is something I have discussed here before:

" my suggestion and what I use is to base my play on the table and how much risk I can absorb as to how many hands I play.

For example: If I win a pot I know that I can play approximately so many hands at a certain bet before I eat into my original stack.

As long as I am winning at least enough to cover the blinds and get in a few hands before the next blind then I can afford to take more risk on good but not great hands and as my Poker playing Daddy would say- you can’t win if you ain’t in the hand son!

I use similar strategy to know when to get off a ring table and a big mistake I see many players make is not knowing when to get off a table and they end up losing all their winnings and maybe more and I have been guilty of this myself.

When I join a ring table my goal is always to at least double my table buy in. Once I have done that then I can absorb more risk and will play higher bets and good but not great hands and even odd ball hands on occasion as longs as it is not gong to swallow my winnings.

If I lose and get back to my goal of double the buy in then it is time to get off the table and bank my winnings."

What you are missing though is on a free chip site where people get free chips every day and can buy a stack they are not playing the way you and I probably play.

That is what JoeDirk was describing in his OP and is what I addressed but I disagree with his perceptions that players on lower stakes tables can be beat with minimal effort and if you go read Tacos experiment on his thread I believe you will see he is finding out what I said is true.

Joe’s post is about trying to make Replay feel more like real money poker IMO and I explained that without a complete revamp of the system that is not going to happen.

I have suggested point system for rank that would be better than ranks based on stacks but no one that has a big stack likes that idea lol.

I think a monthly membership instead of buying chips would maybe work but as I have said many times here: Replay is in the business of selling chips and that is how they pay for the website and staff so you have someplace to play and socialize.

So good luck trying to change that system!

ADDED: I have started a feedback thread on a Monthly Membership Version of Replay if you would like to give feedback on that idea.

Well, with the Federal Reserve continuing to raise interest rates I doubt chip inflation will be much of a problem

no one that has a big stack likes that idea? your right they dont and u wouldnt either if u had a big stack that u earned 100% of your chips of playing endless hours and winning consistently for a long time. most players that never bought and have a high rank value their chips way way more than those that bought and have a low stack… period

LOL high ranked players currently complaining about the First Purchase Special.
Wait, let me guess. That’s not complaining. That’s a discussion.

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if u read the post, its a high ranked player saying its a bad idea for any specials because of inflating the chips value on replay. it also keeps the low ranked players from buying their rank more.which also devalues the chips…so its quite the opposite of what u are talking about.

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My post was moved from the “acceptance” thread where it had context.
Nevertheless, complaining is complaining, whether it is in opposition to Replay’s ranking system or in opposition to Replay’s chip-buying system. To pretend one is positive feedback and the other is sour grapes in laughable.

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@BigDogxxx ,
Sorry if you thought I misquoted you… there is online poker(1), there is live poker(2), there is free poker(3), and there is $$$ poker(4) …

The possibilities are 1-3 , 1-4 , 2-3 , 2-4 …

BigDogxxx, there are ppl that play live, for $$$$, and don’t play as if every chips means something… Danial Negranu or any top pro wouldn’t care less @ a 1/2 table if they lost 4-5 200$ buyins … now 4-5 200k buyins , sure they would.

What I noticed, and why I quoted you as I did … was because I think you are confuzing things a tad bit. No worries… its just online is online, and live is live… the two play so differently to me.
Sassy

When you see Negranu at Replay or on a 1/2 table you be sure and tell me lol!

I sure will @BigDogxxx … ohh and :wink: you might use my full quote then too …lolol
all I was getting at BigDogxxx is online plays like online , don’t matter if its for real cash… or if its for free chips… or even for prizes.

Kinda like all squares are rectangles, yet not all rectangles are squares.
Sassy

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This site does not have advertisers, therefore, they can only exist by selling chips. People play at all levels and if they need more chips they can buy them. The site must encourage buying chips. It is no difference than paying a fee to enjoy entertainment, actually that is what it is. In this case if you win you don’t get a Kewpie Doll, you get chip and can continue playing. I see nothing wrong with this and if your idea is adopted, the site will be gone in a flash.

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So your encouraging chip inflation. This is the whole problem as to why this topic was started. This devalues the chips that the people worked so hard to get, even devalues the chips that people bought in the past too, so it devalues the whole economics of the site. Im sure Replay can figure out a way to not have this happen to the site and the players that worked so hard to get where they are at, and still make money at the same time. That would be fair for all and a win win for all. Its not fair to punish the players that have been around for years working hard to get their chips just to have someone new have a better chance at catching up to u or starting out where u are over night. this is exactly what would happen. Then the whole ranking system would be even more flawed than it already is.

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I don’t think the one-time first buy bonus has much impact on chip inflation by itself, but it does make it easier to buy chips the next time. Buying chips, in general, does cause inflation though.

Replay is a business, so the ability to buy chips won’t go away. They have to pay their bills, right?

Instead of arguing to eliminate something that will never be eliminated, we should focus on other ways to reduce inflation.

Zynga has an interesting way to deal with this issue. They allow players to buy icons that post next to the players at your table. You can, for example, buy someone a donkey or a bingo card or a cup of coffee. You can buy yourself a fancy car or private jet, or any of dozens of other things. I spent millions on such nonsense when I was playing there, as did many other players.

This was a simple, fun, and effective way to battle chip inflation.

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you make a good point spg,

i know it’s already mentioned lots of times by several other players, but add to this an increased rake at the high and elite stakes since there is next to no rake on em now. even just 1% would make a huge difference and most wouldn’t even notice it.

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I think the real problem is that using number of chips as a way of ranking players is meaningless it itself. The leaderboards track all placements so I don’t see why they can’t be used. Can use low, med and high stakes as separate strata. Every sport does it (division standings) and RP has the math already done. Just convert it.

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Agreed Yiaz , why not 5% or even 10% tho … SnG/MTT pays that dont they.

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Hey @Sassy_Sarah - Comparing rings to Tournaments for rake/fees doesn’t really work because you pay rake in ring games by the hand and fees in tournaments that cover the entire game. Rake also impacts preflop play in rings, with greater impacts as rake increases as a % of pot. I don’t know the perfect level of rake for this site by stakes but by just eyeballing it, anyone can see that effective rake is 0 at elite stakes and close to that in high stakes. There are more conventional rake structures at low and medium stakes.

IMO, the site could do wonders for its economy just by increasing the cap on rakes at high and elite stakes. This would help avoid the problems that will inevitably come from the accelerating inflationary environment that currently exists. No need to add bells and whistles and I doubt anyone would notice so long as it stays within reason.

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Bells and whistles can be a good thing.

I brought up Zynga as an example because they started in 2007, which is 2 years later than Replay, yet have more than 86 million monthly users on their poker platform. They are clearly doing something right and are worthy of study as a company.

Replay does a lot right too, but there is always room to improve.

If messing with rakes and rake caps will eliminate the inflation that will eventually hurt the site, they should do it.

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Inflation has DEFINITELY become an issue.

I’d taken about a 3-month hiatus from the site, and have only played about a dozen tourneys since July. Earlier this week, I played a 100k bounty tournament, and took it down fairly easily, knocking out 9 of the 22 players, not including my own bounty. The level of play was far below what I’d experienced at the 50k/100k buy-in level before my hiatus, and was similar to what I had seen at the 5k-ish level. Lots of limping, 5+ players seeing a flop, few open-raises, basically no 3-bets or check-raises, regular over-bet jams with middling hands on the flop… In short, all-around weak play that persisted well into the final table.

I thought I’d powered through stakes where those types of mistakes were made. While I’m confident I could do it again, as evidenced by this win, I’m less than thrilled about the prospect. For this level of decay in player skill at a given stake to have happened in just three months is shocking.

I’m not sure whether chip purchases are even the main driver of this inflation, though the timing certainly indicates it was a factor. There are also a number of tourneys that have guaranteed prize pools in excess of the typical buy-ins collected, bonus bounties for tourneys like The Stampede and Bust the Staff, the daily bonuses, freeroll tournaments… That’s a lot of new chips added to the RP economy.

There needs to be a way to remove (nearly) as many chips from the economic ecosystem as are added. Upping the rake caps at higher-stake ring games and tournaments would be a very good start, and would require minimal effort from the development team. Chip-sink gimmicks, like the ability to buy into tournaments that yield only prestige, or sending friends “gifts” purchased with chips, are some other options.

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