More fun at BGRoom
Piranha
website to see if they learned something yet, I´ve predicted them a
few things, how their business would evolve and I´m having fun to see
one after the other come true
Done so today, and I guess what I found speaks for itself
1) Under promotions they advertise 3.9% rake as "the biggest
announcement of the year"
Errrmmmmmmm ........
May I ask which year they are referring to? Must be something from a
few centuries ago?
Nowadays 3.9% is about average, some sites lower, some sites higher,
nothing to advertise
Errrmmmmmmm x2
Wasn´t that the rake they had when they started? Later on tripled
while advertising a rakeback as the biggest deal ever? Now back to
original shall be the news of the year? If I remember correct, its
been less than a year ago that the original 3.9% was hidden deep in
the terms and conditions because they were hoping players wouldn´t
realize how expensive that is?
Errrmmmmmmm x3
Does BGR have anyone in their staff who passed 1st grade math?
3.9% per player is a total of 7.8%
3.9% as the minimum under best possible circumstances is hardly ever
met
25 cents minimum rake upon minimum stakes compares to 50% rake !!!
Naming part of the rake a withdrawl fee, just so it can be left out of
the rake still increases the commissions
2) Also under promotions they advertise "The famous 30% deposit bonus"
LOL, I´m cracking up
That used to be 30% in the very beginning, raised to 50% after just a
few weeks, later on 75% as special promotion, later on 100% for
anyone, even as a reload bonus
How did the lowest of all deposit bonus offers become so famous?
Does anyone at BGR have a memory that lasts longer than from 12 to
noon?
3) "Player Rankings have arrived"
WHOAH, what a news, but thats not enough, 3 lines below they write
"Rankings were voted by you, the BGRoom Player"
Errrmmmmmmm ........
Yeah, the exact wording in the BGR newsletter sent out to all players
after that voting was:
"By an overwhelming majority players voted NO to public ratings"
Wonder when that switched to its opposite? Or is this a simple lie?
4) Daily Freerolls
WOW, yes, thats news, at least one good thing for the players
Not so sure about the business, freerolls are still a plain waste of
money without any lasting effect, but BGR jumped into business by
wasting tons of money, so why not keep going
Just in case BGR reads this, may I ask something?
Since you´re becoming another GE clone, do you really believe you can
replace GE´s banner ads all over the web by money giveaways? How long
will it take until you realize that the point of advertising is to
attract customers who bring money, not to pay players for coming
The players won´t mind, I´m sure you will collect the usual 2 - 300
vultures who have nothing better to do than play a couple of hours for
a few free $, but whats the point?
Why doesn´t GE offer freerolls?
Take a short look at PartyGammon and their freerolls, best example the
High Roller Qualifier
Check how many players buy in to the High Roller and you will see,
there is not one single buy in other than free entries, players are
simply going for free money without the free money would have any
effect on real deposits later on
Lately they have produced a real funny side effect
After the freeroll, one has to win another sub-qualifier, before
getting a free entry into the High Roller
Usually this sub qualifier pays one or two free entries to the High
Roller plus a few cash prizes
Try to kibitz the semis of the sub-qualifier, where players try
anything they can think of, up to plain resign on first move, just to
cash an instant prize
A few months ago, when they had that Getaway tournament, it became
ridiculous
First prize was a luxury weekend in Rome or something like that, worth
$2500, 2nd prize was $400
In finals both players tried to lose, but back then, the software
asked the opponent whether he accepts the resignation and obviously
both of them refused
It became a Lose2Win match, with a lot of chat between the players,
where both of them tried their best to convince the other to take the
1st prize
Doesn´t that tell you something?
5) "Over 500.000 members all over the world"
Boy, thats some figure, how many of these are double and triple
accounts from the beginning when players signed up 3 times a day just
to cash the welcome bonus several times?
Through my little private BG forum I got in touch with a few players
and I know of at least 5 players who have over 100 BGR accounts EACH
Anyway, you must have gotten something wrong in your school math
When I look into the server, I see a handful of active players, maybe
5 at a time (one can actually confirm, those are the winners from the
last freerolls who move the free money around in between them until
the strongest of them got it all and cashes out, plus a few new
(double) accounts who spend their $5 welcome bonus)
0 might be a number without value and several 0´s in a row still have
zero value, but putting some 0´s behind the real amount of players is
still not a valid calculation
But 0 is what you get when you subtract the players spending bonus
money from the total amount of real money players you have
I know I know, its all been said before, I just find it so hilarious
to see how they mess up their business, how they top their failures by
even worse failure, as if there has to be a way to success if only
they accumulate enough failure
Guys cmon, no one, not even the most ignorant server manager can be
THIS blind
I´ve had a mail exchange with BGR right after they tripled the rake, I
´ve tried to suggests them a few improvements
One of these was, players aren´t dumb and no one will accept the new
rake, players will run away, they will have to take it back, the
sooner the better, but according to my experience with BGR I predicted
it would be too late and the players would be gone for good by the
time BGR realizes what a bad mistake that was
Quote from a mail BGR sent me back then:
"Your suggestions are quite interesting, but we have different plans
right now, we believe our current strategy is the right one"
By now facts prove them wrong and me right, but I guess I shouldn´t
wait for a mail from BGR admitting it, huh? Specially while their
latest changes show, they are still steering away from success
I don´t see much hope that BGR would take this as a signal and get
back to my other suggestions, so I guess we will just have to wait
until time proves me right on the rest as well and then finish it with
RIP
Last but not least I´d love to setup a little voting
Try to guess what will BGR do next?
[ ] Increase the deposit bonus
[ ] Re-invent a reload bonus
[ ] Increase the minimum stakes
[ ] Increase freeroll prizepools
[ ] Setup added money tournaments
[ ] Run a BGR million based on freeroll entries
[ ] Install house robots
[ ] Fire their management and replace them by even worse ones
[ ] Drop the ratings or make them invisible again
[ ] Close the business
[ ] Disappear without a word
[ ] other (specify) ______________
I say they will experiement around with freeroll prizepools, cut the
top end of the progressive rakes, like TMG did, hold a few added money
or guaranteed prizepool tournaments, merge with some other server(s)
and in the end they will be as clueless as they have been from start
BGR, can you do me a favour? (Guess not, but I´ll ask anyway)
After you´ve done all this, after you found out that all this results
in even bigger failure, after all money is gone along with the
players, take that old mail with suggestions I sent over half a year
ago and read it over
mic...@gmail.com
i think bg room is so dumb and its one step away from closing their
server
bg room need to do 3 thing
---------------------------
close accounts for all the bots players
diminish rake
advertise
mont...@lycos.com
If this is backgammon, I'll probably totally switch over to poker for
my small-stakes gaming, but I will give TMG/XG a shot. Usually, I
just play in a freeroll there, but I'm curious to see if I can get
opponents for 9 pt. matches there, and if so, whether there will be
the kind of huge luck disparities I found so common at BGR. It's one
thing to deal with such luck, but another to also have to pay
ridiculous rakes, unlike in poker.
Piranha
> you are absolutly right
> i think bg room is so dumb and its one step away from closing their
> server
>
You know, it isn´t worth for much, but its good for my ego when I can
stand up afterwards and say something like "I told you"
This isn´t the first time (and I´m afraid it won´t be the last either)
where I not only predict the next action of a BG server, but also the
outcome of that
Funny, ALL servers (as far as they replied at all) have always
answered the same way, something like, what I predict could never
happen because they would never do what I expect them to do and they
believe they are doing the right thing(s)
I was the first one who compared GE to open street robbery and
predicted they would increase the rake until no one can win a thing
there anymore at a time before they invented progressive rakes
I was the first one who predicted the downfall of TMG, at a time when
they raised their rake from 2.5 to 4.4%, long before they even
invented ratings (has anyone checked lately? are there still players
left?)
I was the first one who named BGM a fraud, even though I must admit,
here I was partially wrong, I expected the fraud to begin with refused
payouts, while the real fraud was hidden in their house robots
I was the first one to predict, whichever server would drop their
ratings would almost instantly become the #2 of popular servers on the
web, behind GE who keep #1 through advertising (check out PartyGammon)
I was the first one who announced BGR as a good source of free money
for players, but from first day on I warned everyone, take what you
can get while you can, sooner or later they will follow the bad
example of other servers and that will be the end of free money, along
with the end of their business
I got a bit deeper involved with BGR, because even though they ignored
all my suggestions, at least for a while they kept answering and we
had quite a few discussions, such as
1) In the very beginning I suggested to check for double accounts,
they were wasting millions of welcome bonus to a few dozen players
with multiple accounts
I predicted, as soon as they would start checking they would instantly
see that they have less than 100 active players and the money they
were wasting could never be compensated for afterwards
BGR didn´t believe it, they replied there may be a few double
accounts, but for sure not many and they can afford that, the action
on the server is the important part, which will drag new players in
I´ve played a few weeks there, then went back to their support and
pointed out a few real dumb players who made it so absolute obvious,
like nina01, nina02, nina03 .... nina133, increasing the number
several times per day, every time losing $10, just to pop up with the
next number 10 minutes later
At this point BGR started checking and poof, over night 90% of their
active players were gone
2) I´ve suggested them to drop the welcome bonus, the only effect that
has is, they finance the entire action on the server themselves and as
soon as they would stop it the server would be empty
BGR replied, they are sure, from the ones attracted through the
welcome bonus some would stay and they then went the opposite way by
increasing their first deposit bonus up to 100%
I´ve predicted, this deposit bonus will be a plain loss of aprox 120%
of all deposited money without any lasting effect
The bad players would deposit, lose, get their money back from the
welcome and deposit bonus, cash out and disappear
The good players would deposit, take the money from the bad players,
cash out all together and disappear
So after all BGR would pay out twice as much as the sum of deposits,
plus all the welcome bonus, plus all the transfer fees plus still
finance the entire action on the server themselves
Up to today BGR has not fully followed my suggestion, only partially,
so we see only part of what I predicted come true
They have cut the welcome bonus in half and decreased the deposit
bonus to 30%, but how much skills in math does it take to tell, how
many players would they have if they had dropped both, if upon 30%
deposit bonus they have only a handful players?
Yes I know, zero is not good business either and if they had followed
my suggestion they wouldn´t have had any players left, but I believe
zero is still better than a huge loss, after all I´ve made a LOT of
further suggestions how to turn it into a success at same time
3) I´ve told them, even though they wouldn´t admit it to an outsider,
they must be aware how much money they are losing and I´m sure their
plan is, once they have a stable amount of customers they will
increase the rake to get their money back
I´ve told them this will not work, because players will run away as
soon as they increase the rake, the 3.9% they had back then (and have
again now) is already too high to really attract anyone
I predicted, after increased rake approves its failure their next idea
would be to make ratings public, followed by progressive rake to
compensate for the loss and I´ve told them, this won´t work either,
because topping increased rake by progrssive style at a time where
most players are already gone doesn´t bring anyone back
I´ve predicted they would then lower the rake again, but once the
ratings are public, that doesn´t make a difference anymore
Does that describe pretty good the situation they have there today?
I´ve told them this over half a year ago and their reply was, they won
´t increase the rake and would never make the ratings public, because
they care a lot about their players opinions
(Not sure in which drawer that plan disappeared shortly after)
I could continue this list for quite a while, believe me, there is not
one exception, everything I predicted has become true and every
outcome I foretold them is reality by now not only at BGR
I´ve told Club Games they would never have any real money players
while they insist on their cheat proof rating system, less than 4
weeks after they opened the server
I´ve told gameaccount.com they would never be any popular while they
have public ratings, no advertising at all and use a flash application
for software
I´ve told TurboGammon (during betatest) their software was a real bad
piece of junk, I´ve predicted the time it would take to fix it is
longer than starting over from scratch (a while later they bought a
license from TMG)
and so on and so on
... and here I am, standing up with a grin when I say: "I told you"
I still haven´t given up hope that one day there will be a smart
server manager who either gets the point himself or remembers me
I still have a hope that one day someone will follow one of my
positive suggestions and I will be happy to see that come true as well
There are so many BG servers on the web, all struggling for survival,
all doing the same thing, all failing, sooner or later one of them
will figure out that following those Lemmings leads to mass suicide
After all, 100% of everything I predicted came true, thats better than
any oracle those guys usually believe in
bob
> I got disgusted with the ridiculous luck factor in 9 point matches.
> If this is backgammon, I'll probably totally switch over to poker for
> my small-stakes gaming, but I will give TMG/XG a shot.
monty. Are you aware that there is a newsgroup rec.gambling.poker?
Why share your gaming insights here but not there?
Bob Koca
mont...@lycos.com
playing poker at those sites.
Michael Petch
suggested that "Giving TMG/XG a shot" was in reference to the previous
subject. That subject was "switching over to poker".
Better use of grammar would have removed that ambiguity, I too believed you
were going to give TMG/XG shot - not in playing BG - but in playing poker.
Mike
On 10/25/07 4:25 PM, in article
1193351102.4...@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com, "mont...@lycos.com"
Unknown
like Play65 or PrimeBackgammon
"Piranha" <eu_pi...@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:1193328318....@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
mont...@lycos.com
for
my small-stakes gaming, but I will give TMG/XG a shot. "
The first part, up to the comma, clearly refers to my concern that
backgammon as presently played is very luck-oriented, even in the long
matches (that I've said I play in exclusively now - unless you count
freerolls). The second part then follows up in a logical way; there's
no reason for me to avoid poker due to a lot of luck variation,
because backgammon is not much better, if at all (and I've never
mentioned playing any other online game for money). And, as I've also
said in the past, the rakes are better and the players are weaker (and
you don't get penalized for playing against them if you are a strong
player). Lastly, I state that I will try another site. Since I've
said I already play small stakes poker online, why would I switch to
them? I haven't complained about any poker site here, and anyone who
knows about the poker action at TMG/XG knows that there are much
better sites. Thus, it's obvious that I'm stating that I will play
backgammon for small stakes at TMG/XG (if I can get opponents to play
in my format) and see what happens. Otherwise, it would have made the
most sense to omit the last part of the sentence. You seem to just
seek confrontation for its own sake. Good luck with that, as I've it
before, with one person attacking my obvious "typo" errors on another
newsgroup, for example.
Piranha
> like Play65 or PrimeBackgammon
>
Yeah, like freeroll wins, huh?
FYI freeroll wins are considered bonus money at BGR and have to be
cleared through playing real games before you can cash them
A friend of mine tried to withdraw his regular winnings there and he
was informed, he cannot withdraw because he had also won a freeroll
and he has to clear that bonus first
VERY trustworthy, indeed