[WPT Global] Official Thread

There is no point to play when you are at an disadvantage to begin with. Heavily filtered games, have to table start and wait for long periods of time to start a game and hands played per hour is absolute trash. Add 5% rake and 0 RB its a no brainer to grind another platform that offers RB tougher field but your hands played/Hr is much greater.

I was talking about this with a friend earlier today, how Stars was like the best company ever but then completely ruined their reputation when they fkd their supernova elites..

Oh man, site is not even close to what stars was and this is a far worse change...I believe this will kill cash games on WPT and another site will gain power.

Alex...I'm not sure you understand quite how much rake there is on WPT. If you go to your website and compare 25/50/100 rake cap vs say 2k or 5k nl on stars; it's mind boggling. You wont have regulars starting tables any more.

Are you not making enough money? Seems like either misguided greed, or the calculations show regs + ultra high rake kills fish BR too quickly, and you've decided that taking out regs altogether is the way. As history has shown us, this does not work. Even GG has RB (which is the main wr for most regs 500nl+ due to high rake).

We know...we know. I also feel very puzzled by the repetition of inaccurate information.

Will you guys offer SNGs or On-demand MTT-sngs?

Alex, no longer than last month you rewarded me for reporting an ongoing collusion. I am thankfull for the reward, but that is pure proof that your "AI" is not capable to sustain a fair poker ecology as the collusion went on for 6 months at least and i have reported at least 30 accounts doing it. How much do you estimate was stolen from the regulars that way?
More and worse wrongdoings are still present on the platform that i am not sure if you are aware of or not, i am still collecting proof in that matter and i am not willing to discuss right now.

Considering the fact that you are a growing platform and the poker ecology is still questionable i would argue that a decision of cutting rakeback in the form that it was(coming from the agents) is a big setback in the relationships you are trying to create. I am sure all the agents that you work with sent the same message. Although that rakeback was only a part of my winning that is the part that i was considering as the real reward for all the wrongdoings happening on the platform, also that rakeback kept a big part of the cashgames alive, as less winning regulars depend on it.

I urge you to reconsider that decision, even if it means diminishing that percent of rake given away. Also in the future if you are interested in the support of the regulars as you previously stated i think it would be wise to inform us prior a few months before cutting this kind of rewards, we are talking about few thousands a month for just one 10/20/40 grinder. Hope we can find some reasoning before it is too late.

The silence is deafening.

Why can't I open new PLO or PLO5 tables if I am already playing at a table of the same blind level? For example, if I am already sitting at a 0.02/0.05/0.10(0.01) 5PLO table, I can neither open a new table nor join the other one already running

This seems counterproductive to me considering that you want to increase your PLO liquidity

Indeed yeah same problem on plo50 right now. They said they gonna fix it tho. Gotta sit the next closest blindlevel to play multiple tables.

By the way im playing under the name DOFWIFHAT rn and my message to all you professional bumhunting regs like porguepideu, botmode, cogquepigaui, hieutnproo etc.
No problem if u want to bumhunt me at all I do not think you are good either but im sitting 4 tables waiting for you guys I could even pay you guys mentioned a small fee per hour if you play me hu 5card just message me here!

Kindest regards

Alex maybe consider offering rakeback to grinders that have more than 50k hands on the platform, because the amount of burner accounts is crazy right now 10-20 new players every few days at my stake, they already steal enough from bumhunting. It is clear that you are unable to stop the phenomenon some being as cocky as having same names with few letters changed or names of aggressive players on the same stake.
I think you can understand how unfair it is for me with 100k+ hands to play against the same player with a different name and by cutting rakeback more and more players will do the same with burner accounts. If you want to grow trust with players reward grinders being as fair to the game as they can be in a predatory pool, right now your system rewards new burner accounts.

by WPTG4RAKEBACK P

https://wptglobal.com/blog/how-does-wpt-...

Well this aged well

This post is pure gold ... Thanks for it !

Yeah, the burner accounts are a real problem. I'd presume they're connected to the same source organisation and if so there is a decent likelihood there is some degree of collusion. I don't have enough evidence to say anything conclusive but it is worrying to see new accounts pop up every day at this rate. Like I suggested before, I would put a block on withdraws for these new accounts popping up. I know that's going to create a large workload in the short run but if it works, they are just going to be forced to stop doing it and it will make things easier for the security in the long run.

In fairness to Alex, he has been very transparent so far and that is something which has been lacking in the industry. I don't like getting the rb cut either but he did say the money was getting used for other promotions so I don't think it is analogous at all the Stars rb cuts which contributed to their decline.

I've been one of those partypoker regulars affected by the segregation. They also had the same decision of cutting rakeback without any notice in the middle of the year when they offered a yearly target rakeback promotion a friend lost around 40k in rake after that decision. Those kind of decisions gradually destroyed trust and predictability with the grinders and just in a few years dropped from number 3 traffic to number 15.
Alex is the first important person in a poker company that actually tries to create a honest dialogue with the players, and although he may not be aware of everything happening on the platform, he is not responsible for all decisions made.
There is not and probably never be a fair poker platform in the industry because greed is the most important factor at the highest level of decisions and also because of grinders trying consistantly to cheat the system motivated also by greed. Besides pokerstars at some point in history not one poker platform treated poker as a long term deal where grinders are the real company workers.
Lets try our best to support Alex in he's dialogue and transparency as he's done more for the industry in such short term than any other person in my 20 years poker career. He can't solve all the problems as i am sure he is not the sole decider.

Gambling needs a fast way to deposit and withdraw money without many questions asked . A fair way to block this is giving random old trusted grinders who do not know each other the ability to red flag some accounts and after 5 red flags from those regulars those accounts to be fairly checked. Also change often the grinders who have the report power in their hands. Their Ai solution may seem revolutionary, but for the moment it proves to be a big fail as it was unable to see the most blatant and easy to prove collusion i have ever seen in my poker career, at this moment i still see the collusion at the stakes but in a different form.

If you're an affiliate we will provide this information about your players in our tools, before the change is implemented.

Thanks for this - I'll make sure our engineering team is aware.

Yes. In the near future, there will be two aspects to this:

- A reward for starting tables (more info coming soon, but in the region of 20-30% rakeback for your lifetime at the table)
- An invite-only VIP scheme with very generous rewards

The second scheme is open to pros, but we'll be looking particularly for those pros with a good impact on ecology (i.e. willing to give action, willing to start tables, etc).

Later on, we have more traditional loyalty plans.

We haven't been able to reproduce this but we are testing. It is not intentional and we will fix it if we can figure out what's happening to you.

I want to acknowledge this feedback and say that I understand the anger that some of you feel. Of course we anticipate some pushback from this change and we're willing to reconsider this (and any other decision) if the outcome is different to what we expect.

WPT Global doesn't generally offer rakeback directly and has always discouraged affiliates from doing so because we knew it could lead to dissatisfaction in the event we made a change like this.

I appreciate that many of you have strong opinions about this, but there's very little I can say that will make you feel better about it. I'm happy to answer specific questions, but I'm not going to bullshit you or just tell you what you want to hear.

At the end of the day, it boils down to this - we have money to spend, and we're talking about spending MORE, not less. We want to allocate that money in a way that rewards players who have a positive impact on the ecology of our games, and therefore helps us to grow. It's very, very difficult to argue that we should spend millions of dollars on rewarding players who are already winning large amounts of money in the games. Our money will mostly be spent on a) extending the lifetimes of players who are losing / net contributors; b) supporting winning players who positively contribute to the ecology of the games, e.g. by starting tables and giving action.

This isn't correct. WPT did not buy anything a few years ago. PokerKing is a partner on the network that uses similar software and backend functionality and everything I have posted above about the system that we call FairGame is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge. I don't know what happened to your specific account at PokerKing and unfortunately I have no way of finding out.

The change is to change the way that commissions are paid to affiliates, who were of course informed before this post was made. We don't pay the rakeback, so it wouldn't have been possible for us to contact affected players specifically.

Thanks kingLeon - this is indeed the correct answer and my apologies for leaving this unaddressed previously. I'll have the website updated too.

Eventually, I think we will. However regular SNGs are extremely unpopular these days, so they are not much of a priority to be honest (not counting Global Spins which of course we do offer).

Just wanted to thank you for this. There are times when I have to say things that I know will make people unhappy. Sometimes, decisions are made for reasons that are confidential or where I can't give the full context - and all I can do in that situation is to be honest about what's going on to the best of my ability. I have no problem if people here disagree with our decisions, that debate and challenge helps us to get better.

I hear you and we will try to do much better on this. I will push hard for improvements.

Thanks for being much more responsive than any other site Alex, it really feels like you're doing your best which will def lead to many (including myself) being more demanding than we would with other sites that we've given up on.

I started playing without an affiliate, not realizing RB was possible and have been more than happy with my winrate alone. That being said, what others are saying is worth thinking about - other sites have made similar changes to target high winrate or volume players and to my knowledge it's never worked out well. If you're taking that money to spend in other ecology enhancing ways, hopefully that's different from other sites just increasing their own profit.

Regarding the performance sink of the client

Any updates on this? My PC is not exactly top of the line but I can run 4 other sites + HEM with no issues and get lag if I even open a browser while WPT is running.

Ill be honest, this isnt enticing at all compared to what all the players were getting before this change. How is this going to stop back actors from creating multiple burner accounts to maximize their gains (can sit all games across all stakes and get max RB before they are labeled pro)?

HSP don't expect luxury treatment, especially when the games are good, but we also don't expect our monthly agreements to get ripped up on a moments notice. Most players likely could've stomached a reduction for the good of the ecology, but blanket removal is grotesque, especially now you've advised the company HAS the funds to implement this before our rake is removed. WPTG can still implement these ecology strategies on a mid/long term basis without cutting off the rakeback on 2 weeks notice. That is regular money your player pool depends on for monthly income and to offset natural swings of the game.

RE: Affiliates

Affiliates make money by getting players on to your site. Most players looking for rakeback are winning players who play for a living. This is naive at best and incompetent at worst. I find it difficult to grasp or believe you don't understand how affiliates work as a majority and continuously try to pass the blame to them.

Affiliates being made aware of this news =/= players being made aware of this news. You had to be asked directly about it before we became aware of it. I only came on here to check if others were having issues with tables being limited and stumbled upon your post by chance.

Is rakeback program already cancel? or just a plan? Can someone tell me?

It won't, and those with access to continuously make burner accounts with max rakeback will continue to do so.

This change just encourages players with hundreds of thousands of hands to do the same than being a honest pro. If they're going to implement this at least be fair to everyone and those with new accounts should not get access to max RB

I created account on twoplustwo just to write this @WPT Global Alex .Like all other sites, spheres, companies etc... Greed is always a factor. I played wptglobal for a bit and it was really welcoming site, I am casual player for almost 7 years, who is trying to make money in poker and was recently playing cash games in the site with rakeback, because im casual, im not making much, so maybe it doesn't impact me for now, but I always thing about a future if I become better. After I saw some of your recent posts about good players winning a lot its just greed from wptglobal workers, they earn like 2k salary per month and see pros making 10k can't handle it and will make affiliates to ban winning players from their group 😃 It's really absurd and it will be just another pokerstars on a lot smaller scale, look where they are now, regulars, who make money are biggest inspirators for other breakeven, loosing players to come and also to keep dream going and maybe reality for them to someday become winning players, if you will start to discriminate winning players(which is what you are talking about between lines), that dream is gone at that moment and site is bound to die, dont make that mistake. Noone will ever play on site to be discriminated if they win. Loosing player will never play to loose, change your attidute or its gg, for me, literally even if I hate it.

first of all ty alex for showing a true effort to comunicate with the players I think most of us are greatful for that!!

we need to understand as reg players and operators that we are kind of in some type of battle for the money of the recreationals but at the same time we cant kill the other one... players need the operators to play and the operators need reg players to have liquidity in the games

I have been playing profesionally for over 13 years now most of the time on public online platforms but I have also a lot of experience in public and private live games and online private... I think we all know what have happened on the online public platforms when they target the regs so Im not going to get into it...

but its quite clear that the same happens on the private games, usually the operator creates a good enviroment for pros and they invite them because they need someone that is willing to show up at any time to have the games running, then they feel the pros are winning to much and they start to try to limit the amounts they make in diferent ways, sometimes they try to limit your volume, sometimes they start charging fees on the profits or some times they straight up ban you if you are not a friend of the operator... after some time the game dies anyway and they start begging the pros to come back to the game or whatever...

and this will always happen because of manny reasons... I remember one pppoker club that tried to limit the volume of the best regs in order for the deposits to last longer, in this case the players where really bad and it didnt matter at all if they limit the best regs they where loosing at basically the same pace against the mediocre regs because a bad player is going to loose at almost the same pace against an ok reg than against at very good one... and it also killed the action because the ok regs are mostly risk averse and dont adjust and thats what creates a fun enviroment for the recreationals... so the recreationals started to ask for us LOL

PPPoker and those platforms can teach us a lot of lessons about this, again it was quite clear that the owners of the clubs and the regs at some point where in some kind of a battle because operators felt that the good regs where winning to much but when they started to target them games just died... operator where the biggest winners of the games most of the time anyways (exception of very very small and soft clubs) so I dont understand why they where so greedy and killed everything, of course there where cases where the owners of the clubs had agreements with pros to keep everything in the same status for as long as they can but for me thats also quite bad because the times that the recreationals where aware of that most of the times they where really pissed of and stopeed playing (I never was a house player because 1 I feel its just bad and 2 I just never had an invitation probably because I was to vocal about unfair stuff) I know how this played out and most of the time it was bad...

If we want to be fair, good regs needs to win handsomely they are putting time, money and effort not just to make money but to make very good money... otherwise dont make sense put all those resources to make an average income because there are better oportunitys, what we need to discourage are the actors that dont add anything to the pool, affiliates for me is the clearest one, they make to much for what they offer and right now they are incentivized to attract or create players that just rake as much as they can without giving action... so taking out those deals sound fair to me but we can go a bit beyond that...

I get that the affiliates bring exposure, so Im not saying they dont add anything... its just that they dont add enough for what they are bringing and they are incentivized in a wrong way Im not sure how to solve this but here is a simple idea:

IDK how much gives WPT to their affiliates but probably is around 50% (IDK guys what are your rb deals if you throw some numbers we can have a more clear picture)

we understand that WPT needs regs right? so maybe WPT can give to the affiliate 50% of all the players that they bring for the first x amount of hands, affiliate gives IDK 25% to the players and they keep 25%... after those hands WPT is not going to keep giving the affiliate any %from the winning players but keep paying for the loosing ones, they keep paying the regulars 25% directly and the re allocate the other 25% among the loosing one trough direct rb o promotions or whatever

obviusly this is just a quick idea that can be overcome in many ways (burn accounts or high volume loosing accounts that then chip dump to a low volume winning account etc) but I think those problems arent that difficult to police

with this type of system you are not really encouraging affiliates to bring winning players and they are rewarded for bringing what we really want that is the recreationals, this seems predatory and it is, but thats the nature of the game, recreationals needs to loose and operators, regulars and affiliates needs to win, otherwise poker is not sustainable

so my final take on this:

I obviusly dont like that you are going to cut the rb and specially as others already mentioned it the way you are aproaching to this is quite bad, but I can be ok with that if you really show in a transparent way that those funds are going to be distributed among loosing players

about the "AI" I think we can see as players that either the way they say this work is a straight up lie or works quite bad... they claim that the "AI" basically tag HSP and just allow certain number of HSP per table and this is not what is happening... I have been allowed to sit in a table with what you can call 7 HSP in the same table and I will be the 8 HSP and at the same time I see a table with 3 fish one HSP another HSP arrives and Im then not allowed to sit but I can still see the table at the same stake... so the "AI" dont work that way or is quite bad at what it is suposed to do...

about affiliates: I really hate that type of deals... I get that they brings players but they get a massive piece of the cake for what they are doing and on top of that they are incentivized to bring or create strong or at least winning players that rake a lot... Im not against educational content or anything I just think that they need to monetize that in another way... because if you take a piece of the rb you are forcing the operator to rise rake or decrease rb and at the same time you are making the pool stronger and that snowballs pretty quickly and can kill the action really fast... because again we need to understand that poker needs to have winning players to add liquidity for the recs without that poker is going to disappear

So we need to create the right enviroment to make this sustainable and the first step is to put the actors that dont provide enough for what they are bringing in the right spot, affiliate deals needs to change or get rid of them, to put a perspective on this, Im pretty sure my affiliate has made well over 20k from my rake in a span of 1 year just for a couple of text messages every 2 months... and its not even like that because its an affiliate then my agent and my agent is the one that is deals with those messages my agent probably made around 5k in that time frame, still a lot just for a couple of messages but thats ok I guess

RB grinders and weak regs are the next in line, they need to step up or die, I know a lot of people dont share this vision with me but poker has a very low barrier of entry to be a winning player, and thats bad for the ecology because if its easy to make some money then you suddenly have a lot of people going for the easy money and killing the games (not killing in the sense of unbeatable I have always been a winning player in every single enviroment I had played), but when you have a lot of standar nits on your table you just cant do a lot of stuff that is fun for the recreationals like OR wide or increasing sizes or 3bet frequencys etc you know what I mean...

and its not like if I am a bumhunter or anything, most of my career I have been playing on pokerstars zoom games, in fact just before I started playing in wpt I played over 2M hands on zoom NL100 - 200... Im not going to say its the strongest pool in the planet because its still low stakes but its probably the worst enivorment for those stakes...

so this are my 2 cents coming from a player with experience in basically any type of enviroments...

PD: alex can you confirm me if WPT is charging fees for cashouts? ty