Many discussions have taken place on various Forums recently about just how sites can attract ‘fish’ to play with their particular site or Network.
The pressure is on sites more than ever now to attract as many ‘fish’ or losing players as they can.
The Ongame Network introduced their ‘Essence’ system which they felt would attract more ‘fish’ to the Network.
The idea was simple and, on the face of it, pretty straightforward.
Basically, players that are regular losers would be credited with more VIP points and the regular winners would be credited with less.
The VIP points were directly related to the returns that players received so it had the effect that regular winners now received lower than usual monthly returns and the losers were getting more returns than normal.
If you were to take a completely sanitised view of this then it seems the perfect model.
Losing players get bigger returns and so it takes longer to lose their money, plus they are more likely to re-load when they know their returns are higher than normal.
Word gets round that losing players should now move to Ongame because they get higher returns.
Ongame gets flooded with ’fish’ and the winning players don’t mind their monthly returns dropping because their win rates have increased from all the extra ’fish’ that they can play against and they are actually far better off.
Unfortunately, things are not that simple.
It became obvious that genuine ’fish’ really don’t care whether their monthly returns are increasing. By their very nature, these guys are likely to be predominantly recreational players who are just in it for the relaxation of playing some poker.
Getting a slightly higher return from their play each month is likely to be an insignificant amount to them and, to be perfectly honest, a huge proportion of these players have no idea what their monthly returns are anyway and any change would not even be noticed.
Therefore there was no influx of ’fish’ to the Network but the people that were most severely affected, the multi-tabling, high raking regs, left the Network because their win rates were the same but their monthly returns had taken a significant hit.
In our opinion, Essence does not work in attracting fish to the Network.
We have noticed some other innovations being introduced.
Until quite recently, something as simple as ‘re-sizeable tables’ were not even available on many sites.
This is something that adds to the whole player experience and is something that is much more likely, in our opinion, to actually attract new players.
The elusive ‘fish’ that they all want to attract, as we have suggested, is likely to be a recreational player and so he needs to have a pleasurable experience.
Some Networks promote some great innovations such as offering ‘anonymous tables’ so tracking software cannot be used. You have no idea who your opponent is.
Microgaming have introduced an interesting facility on their software that allows players, if they wish, to pre-set certain hands to auto-fold in certain positions.
You choose early, middle or late position and then you can set it to auto-fold any hands you know you will always fold.
It speeds up the game but also can help players to be more disciplined in their starting hand choices.
It can help new players improve but still means that you have to be able to play well ‘post-flop’
Ipoker, among others, allows you to set the preferences so that the software displays what the actual percentages each player is to win at showdown.
We feel these sorts of things are more likely to actually tempt a recreational player to try out different sites.
Along, of course, with some reasonably priced satellite tournaments, which are always popular.
If you have only ever played on one site, no matter which site it is, then we encourage you to try other sites to see whether you would enjoy your play more.
