This has got to the worst week in poker since Black Friday.  Not one, but TWO poker sites are instituting "segregation" into their lobbies.  Party has already implemented it and Revolution plans to before the end of the month.  Below is a clip of how segregation works on Party:

It is unclear if Revolutions's implementation will be the same.  It's weird that two companies came out with similar ideas at the same time.  Not sure if was come kind of conference, or it was some consulting company making the rounds.  In any event, this turn of events are terrible for winning regs.

As mentioned numerous times in this blog, poker is a zero sum game, with costs.  That means you take the 6 (or 9) best players in the world, have them play long enough and there will be AT MOST 1 WINNER.  That's because of the rake.

So in theory, if you could group classes of players by their skill level, it maximizes potential profits for the firm.  That's because on average you may have to play longer for significant amounts of money to change hands.  The fish lose more slowly to losing regs, the losing regs lose more slowly to break-even regs, the break-even regs lose more slowly to winning regs and the winning regs lose more slowly to crushing regs.  Currently, if a crushing reg takes the fish's money in 10 hands then the table breaks, there isn't much rake that was generated for the site.  The more hands that need to be dealt, the more money the poker rooms make.

Of course this assumes that the player pools remain constant.  I suppose it's possible such an environment could attract more fish.  "Play with other recreational players."  Spread the word - Party is fish-friendly.  Is that going to help?  I have no idea.  But one thing's for certain... it's going to repulse all the winning and crushing regs and casue them to leave. 

Maybe that's not so bad?  Obviously, you want to get rid of all the bumhunters who scan multiple sites all day to play a few hands with only the weakest of players on all sites.  This will do just that.  But at what cost?

The backbone of any site are the regs that grind multiple tables full time.  These (marginally) winning regs are not going to be happy they don't have full access to the player pool.  TBH, doesn't that sound offensive on principle?  Sure they segregate for things like chess tournaments etc.  But this is supposed to be the big stage.  That's why you have different stakes (as low as 2 cent antes).  So it would be more like telling Justin Verlander he can't pitch to some dude just called up from AAA because he's new.  If you are playing at a certain level (stake), you should be able to play everyone at that stake.  Period.  Is it my faule the guy doesn't belong in the Big Leagues but still insists on playing?

It will also cause all the winning regs to move to another site.  I mean they have tons of choices.  There are literally dozens of sites, with about a half dozen able to support most mid stakes grinders.  They will get access to 100% of the player pool, much better rewards than Party and much faster cashouts than Lock.  If I didn't know better, I would think Stars sent phony consulting reps to the competition to get them to implement this so that they and FT will get a bigger slice of the pie.  Because a lot of regs will flock to other sites.

Also, longer term this is just so short-sighted.  Protect the fish, help them grow, make them winning players so they can start generating significant rake... so they can eventually leave your site!!!  Just like every other winning reg is going to.  So well thought out.  Lots of level 1 thinkers at these online poker sites.
 
To be honest, as I'm writing this, I don't hate the idea as much as when I initially heard it.  I just find any kind of segregation offensive.  But this would alleviate the serious bumhunting problem that goes on in the mid to high stakes games.  And this may not be a problem for the regs that do absolutely no table selection.  But at the end of the day, I think if you are going to take something away (like the ability to sit with some fish), you need to give something back (like 60+% rakeback).  I would play on Party and sit on all their shitty tables if they gave me 60% (without having to put in SNE hours).  Otherwise, there are so many choices, why would I put up all this BS for max 30% rakeback?  I wouldn't and neither would most winning regs.