Chip Inflation

Poker Discussion
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@1Warlock , lets open the topic then, I just have 1 question for you 1st.

Why with 27m, are you playing 48ppl SnG for a 500 buyin ?

This topic peaked my interest Warlock, since on a unrelated site ( not poker ) they had that very problem and address’d it horribly… Part of what you are saying, is the more promotions and leaderboards there are, the more “free bankroll there is , in general” , and that that forces higher buyins, and ultimately you get “super-buyins” that just seem rediculious. Hopefully I am hearing you correctly.

This occurs mainly due to the fact there are no “house games”… when you lose your chips, its never to the “house”. So, the house doesn’t have a built in system to “re-claim” chips over time. But yes Warlock, all the add’d bonuses and leaderboards pump chips into the system, so does the daily bonus ( 900,000 aprox if you log in every day for 1 year ).

I seriously think that doing away with the all the bonuses, leaderboards, and promotions… to stop that flow… will kill the site. So then we have to look @ ways to counteract it somehow by pulling chips outta the system.

One of the easiest ways for this is to allow players to buy “junk” with thier bankroll… stupid crap like a necklace for thier avatar, or buy’n the table a round of drinks… Then that progress’s to “crap” only bought with real cash, and some ppl will get left out cause they won’t pay into Replay no matter what.

Another way is, increase the “Rake” or the “+” to a MTT/SnG buyin ( like 10k+1k )… I have sat @ a ring table, 5k/10k blinds and the rake was only 500 for the house… WTF is up with that… seems it was that way whether or not 2 ppl called the blinds or 5 ppl called.

Since it seems the bulk of Replay’s clients are in the “Low” catagory, I don’t think replay cares if there is inflation, and prolly due to the economics … they prolly want the inflation. If you sell 100k chips for $2, the price can stay steady or decrease over time, when infact purchases cost you more ( buying power of that $2 ) over time, not less.

Its pretty hard for a player like me now, to lose alot of my bank, when almost all I play is MTT AND the times I play, usually there are very few high buyin MTTs… so I’m stuck playing 15k or less… So I don’t have the opportunity to lose my Bankroll easily, thus I never need to buy chips and prolly never will drop below 1m in the future.

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Sarah - awesome that you opened the topic. I hope maybe this inspires me to devote some time to the topic.

Simple really - I came over here from WPT with a bunch of other players, among them abe23987. We were friends there and have remained friends here. We also like to compete a little against each other when we can. He has been at or near the top of the SnG (low) leaderboard since he started playing it in December or January. I can’t play 120 games to make the leaderboard but I do like to compete with him so I do so with point average each month. It means nothing to anyone else and there are no bonuses - just a friendly competition to see how we stack up against each other at the end of the month points-wise. As an FYI, we have been pretty close in terms of average to each other - he just gets his 120 games in and I’m lucky if I get 40-50 per month.

Frankly, I dont like the 45-player game and I play the 5K standard SnG’s almost exclusively to get my points but when I see people who are playing for the leaderboard signed up for the 45-player game, I join in to help them fill the game and get it played. The 45-player game has by far the highest points up for grab and so if I have the time and see one struggling to fill, I register and try to help out. Kind of like the role of a prop-player on the cash sites.

Added content - just checked because I wasn’t sure - I played exactly 1 of these in the past month, on May 19th. I did register for one the other night to try and see if it would fill but it didn’t by the time I logged off so I unregistered.

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I was just give’n you the buisness Warlock, altho I was surprised to see you there.
Certainly kewl to play with friends, and help fill up the SnGs…

You mentioned this topic, why not open it up, I look forward to your expanded thoughts.

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I think you address a lot of the key points. The site probably has no problem with inflation because it decreases the “actual” value of the chips within the “economy”, which encourages/requires losing players to buy more chips. The number of players who are affected by the inflation is relatively small (only ~6,500 have 1 million chips, which is only about 1 year of daily bonus). These players probably account for many/most of the hands played on Replay, but only a few of them probably buy chips (I’m guessing on that one).

I don’t think the site should remove bonuses, but rather should increase the rake, particularly on ring games. Max rake of 1,000 at elite stakes and 500 at high stakes is virtually nothing when you have pots in the millions and tens of millions. Increasing rake to 1% of pots up to a higher maximum would immediately remove a lot of chips from the economy without having a noticeable affect on play (in my opinion). I don’t know if this would be enough to reduce inflation, but it’s a start and nowhere near the level of rake in real-money poker.

I used to love to play 10k and 20k mtts, and I was happy to win 200k or 300k, but once I got to 10m I stopped caring whether I won or lost, which took away the fun. And at the higher ranks there is an even bigger gulf between players. I am ranked in the top 150, and I do not have the bankroll to play in even the lowest elite stakes ring (good bankroll management would be 200,000,000 to play 50k/100k, and I’m barely halfway there), and yet at the same time, there are only usually 2 mtts per day with buy-ins over 300k. It can be difficult to find a game to play because the only games that fit my bankroll are ring games from 5k/10k to 20k/40k.

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You are sooo right about availability of playable MTTs, thats why I got the “24hr schedule” thread going, trying to get that address’d too… but I look @ it differently as to what I should be buy’n into… I figure 10-15% bank, gives me 8-10 chances @ the same lvl MTT … to be safer SnG is better but there aren’t anyone playing those.

The rake on Ring tables is horrible, or is it… you play for 2 hrs in a MTT and pay 10% to the house… if you play ring and pay 1%, over 100 hands thats 100% … but I can’t see a 500 rake when blinds are 10k/20k on a 9 person table… that seems way too low.

Now, having been here almost 1 yr, once I got into the 2000-1500 rank range, I didn’t see a whole bunch of ppl zipp’n past me, and now @ 4-5m I seem to stay reletively around 1600… I normally see 1100 players online @ latenight weekdays, and up to 2200 daytime weekends… usually 60-70% are seated… lowest rank is what in the 900,000 range ??? This tells me the playerbase is roughly around 5-8k ppl or less, and the rest of the accounts are thro-aways… Or, Replay is representing a bigger base than actually exsists…

Chip Inflation happens sure, like the actuall value of say 100k chips… currently there’s a sale for $1 for 60k, normally $2… I have never bought chips, so I don’t know what thier value is. I seriously have no clue who’s buy’n chips… is it the player that just can’t play, that pays 5$ a few times a week… or is it the egomaniac that pumps hundreds of $$ , just so he can play upper high stakes, and falls into the same 'ole trap and plays a few hands too many and looses his stack…???

On the other hand the leaderboards and promotions serve a necessary evil. The biggest problem there is to what % of the playerbase they are slanted to… Sure I busted ass, and prolly 1/2 of my orig. 5.5m bank came from them. I’m proud of that, I earned them… Unless you play ultra high % of your bank, in ring games ( and win ), you won’t dramatically advance up the list. Its a long slog if you just play MTT or SnG, with no bonuses… Players are just too dam impatient… But the leaderboards prolly regularly pay 5% of the players or less, and yes its the same 5% each month.

As I said earlier, there’s no “stuff” to buy with bank… not even a 10$ ballcap that is free advertizing if worn in public… or better yet, insite “crap” to buy… I think the bigger problem with chip inflation is what it creates thats insidious and hidden… You have frustrated players that have nothing to play in, so they play below thier level, causing them to be looser in thier play… because lets face it… @ 5m, losing 10k in a MTT is a drop in the bucket, or playing 500/1k blinds in a ring game where buyin is 100k… you can rebuy 50 times, does that all in really mean anything anymore or even that “correct” 5x the blinds bet to scare someone off… Hell no it doesn’t.

Then you have the brand new ( to Replay ) player… seriously, you can’t get a serious game with 2.5k bankroll… You need @least that 50k, then play the regional 5k, you got 10 tries to keep ur bank going… They need all the help they can get… Once you’ve won a few MTTs, then you want a bigger challange, hense the monthlies…

I just think your frustration is not with the Chip Inflation, its with the scheduling format …that as you move up, basically says " go play elsewhere ". I have yet to get a “real” answer , as to what part of the playerbase actually holds the keys to Replay.

It seems Replay has found a core revenue source that works for them as a smaller company… Just enuff to pay the staff, not enuff to expand… hey, Job Security !!! … if after 1 year thier ave client base is still the same 1000-2000 players, then I’m sckeptical if Replay wants to expand to say a 10k consistent online presence… or even 20k …

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fully agreed! i think increasing the ring rakes would help the inflation a lot and also makes it more realistic like real money poker.

perhaps a good idea, but i should alter your marketing strategies. don’t think selling “junk” and “stupid crap” would be a great way to sell stuff hahaha :grin::joy:
however it would be fun to have a “buy stupid crap” category :stuck_out_tongue:

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It sounds high at 100% over 100 hands ( 1% per hand ), yet 500 is low for that level blinds, isn’t it ? … Not sure but, isn’t the normal rake @least a % of whatever comes in pre-flop ?? so if its a 10k/20k table with 9 ppl … 5 ppl call the blinds, thats 100k… shouldn’t rake be @least 10k ( 10% , same as the + in a MTT ) ??? ( Or @least 500 per player, per hand ? )

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don’t know what exact calculation would be best, but i do fully agree with you that 1% would improve everything in many ways, and is a great idea.