Working for a large poker affiliate and being as active in the forums as I am I have the opinion that many/most of the high volume, great players left leaving behind quite a pool of bleeding fish. These players, mostly American with few choices, found the games unbeatable or much harder at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Poker Stars does not have rakeback, Full Tilt will not retag most existing players to rakeback (Most players with existing accounts can't get moved to rakeback and if FTP does move them they go to Rakeback Pros, widely believed to be an in house rakeback program) and Cake Poker is not HUD/PokerTracker friendly. For those with existing Microgaming account many or most will not play there because of the lack of trust, especially after Eurolinx.
After U.S. players went full circle through all of the major U.S. rooms they seem to have forgiven AP/UB of the scandals and life goes on if for no other reason the games are better at AP/UB than any other major U.S. poker room because some of the sharks will not go back for any reason.
Perhaps things would be different if U.S. players could play anywhere but with so few options it seems very unlikely things will change if for no other reason than their rakeback + loose games which to some players is all that matters.
As a poker affiliate myself, I think PokerAddict has nailed it pretty much.
One thing worth adding, is that when they paid out the millions in "compensation", it was paid to players AP/UB accounts and, for a short time, the games there were the softest online. I had literally dozens of close friends signup for rakeback accounts during that time who did very well - I'm kinda kicking myself for not playing there myself during that time.
In regards to why I continued to offer AP/UB rakeback, I went through the same ethical dilemmas I'm sure most ethical rakeback affiliates went through - do I delist them or continue to list them?
I decided to delist them would be tantamount to Prohibition in that it would have no positive impact, just negative ones. Players will simply get rakeback there from another provider, likely one FAR less ethical than I consider myself to be. So I settled on what I thought was the best solution: Continue to list them, but STRONGLY advise players that they have a 'history' and not to keep a lot of funds on there, and perhaps not play > MSNL and to really be on EXTRA lookout for anything suspicious - and if in doubt, take the safe option and don't play that game.
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Now, to be objective and fair, CEREUS has REALLY lifted their game since then. CS quality makes FTP support look terrible. If I have a concern, I can be speaking to a Live Chat agent in seconds most of the time. Whilst I wouldn't be in the same league as PA above, I'm not exactly a small FTP affiliate - doing 1mil MGR annually, I still have to wait 3-4 days sometimes for an FTP email response. (can't call them, no Live Chat, all you can do is email and cross your fingers)
Do I think play at CEREUS is completely fair now? No, frankly, I do not. But I don't think play at FTP is completely fair either - and the same goes for Microgaming. iPokerNetwork I just don't know...seems straight up to me.
Ironically, Cake network is where I feel safest (as a poker player). And, I think their decision NOT to be HUD-friendly or even PT3/HEM friendly is the RIGHT and CORRECT decision for two reasons:
1. It makes life incredibly hard for bot-runners, for whom the success/failure of their bots largely depends on collating millions of hands worth of individual opponent statistics. *For the record, I actually have no moral problem with bots. I think they're bad for the game long-term (they could be very good for the game short-term if they're losing, which I believe a great deal of them are [think blackjack card-counting in this regard], and steps must be taken to prevent them from running over the lower limits, but I would not be aghast if a close friend told me they ran bots. In terms of morality, imo it's far worse for 5 M/HSNL pros to be sitting together playing one account HU at high stakes against a single opponent - something I've seen with my own eyes many times, and expressed my opposition on moral / principle grounds.
2. I believe the advancements in HEM/PT3 functionality and capability is bad for the long-term future of online poker. It creates a different game - it's still a game that everyone is playing, but it's not poker. I know winning players who aren't poker players - they multi-table with 300 finely tuned statistics overlaid on EVERY 6max table. At the height of my own HEM use, I had 200 or so statistics on every 6max table and I didn't feel like I was playing poker - I was playing mathematics or something.
It's sad (to me personally) that Cake's decision not to make their network HUD/PT3/HEM friendly for these reasons is potentially costing them heavily.
(apologies for slight hijack)
In hindsight, I guess I should have included the preamble "
