Merge SNGs are dead :(

good and bad news poker-wise...

first, the bad news...

SNGs on Merge network are dead as of May 1st. For those who don't know, Merge Network is a combination of poker sites (skins) that share the same software and player base. Carbon and Aced are owned by Merge itself. Sportsbook, Players Only and some smaller skins are owned by Jazette. Carbon and Aced have better rakeback deals and thus are frequented more by regs/better players. The other skins have sports books which historically means fishier players who bet sports and then go play poker for fun (often to win their money back). Yes, I'm generalizing and some of this is my speculation as to the player base...

anyways, On May 1st, Jazette decided to segregate their player base from the other skins. my educated guess and some rumors say this is to keep their weaker player base from losing poker money to the better players on Aced/Carbon. Supposedly, each month the skins have to true-up with each other and pay the difference in winnings amongst players. So if the Jazette skins historically are owing money to Carbon/Aced then money is trickling off their site which could instead stay on the site and be spent on sportsbooks or generating more rake in existing poker games. That is my theory at least...

the net effect is the segregation of these players has killed the SNG volume. SNGs need players to take off. Before BCP and Lock split off Merge I used to be able to play $50 DoNs consistently with $100 DoNs occasionally running. After they left $50 DoNs would occasionally run but I could still get in about 15-20 minimum $20 DoNs at night while multitabling.

This had already started to trickle down in February when Merge lowered their rakeback deals causing some SNG regs (like myself ) to play other games or other sites. Now, this is the final straw. The player base has been segmented so now is hard to even get one let alone 20 $20 DoNs going. Even the $10 DoNs (which I almost never have to play) aren't running.

Basically, SNGs are dead on Merge until something changes.

Now the good news... <continued tomorrow night>

PS. MTTs are not segregated... just cash games and SNGs