CuteRaven

There are a lot of things I like about RIO (splash the pot, leaderboards, HeroIQ, anonymity, banning HUDs, changing avatar face expressions, chat emotes, general mission of RIO poker etc). However to not make this post too long I will focus on what I think could be improved:

-I think the anonymity could made more fun. For example, let players choose their own name and avatar, but force them to change it every x amount of hands/games/days (and you could force players to choose a different avatar and a name that does not have more than e.g 5 of the same letters). So players could call themselves "CheckRaiseRiver" or "NotEvenWensleydale?" or "GalfondsNuts69", it would make it a bit more fun and make it feel like your opponents have more personality!

-Have more graphics (e.g table/card looks) and avatar options in general

-At this moment the SNGs have a big flaw! The lobby/tables don't display how many people are in the player pool and how many have registered. I'm sure there are a lot of games that would have started if this was in place, that are not starting with the current system. Also it would make waiting less annoying when you know if 1 or 2 others have registered, or you could join the stakes that have a player pool etc.

-I think it would be nice if the stats/avatar/name of the same player in SNGs would persist over a few SNG before it changes, that way you can get a bit better reads on players

-The rake is quite high currently IMO in SNG. It's about industry standard (ranging from 7.8% to 5.8%) for lottery SNG (I'm not counting the extra unraked lottery glitch prizes/buyin into the rake, because it decreases rake but also decreases ROI of winning players to a similar degree, so I'm comparing the classic version rake because that is directly comparable to LSNG rake on other sites). However, I think because RIO attracts more poker enthusiasts (=good players) and the classic version is going to attract more regs than usual for LSNG, I think this is problematic.

-A pretty minor thing, but I think the options for preflop bet size buttons should include %pot (for example sometimes you might want to 3bet 3/4 pot preflop). Also, adjusting the bet slider should be made easier (it is not easy to make small changes to bet sizes without typing, which takes some time if multitabling).

-I think there are even more creative ways to add gamification, graphics or fun promotions without ruining the poker/skill aspect. And probably RIO could add more of this in the future! To non- poker enthusiasts I think RIO doesn't stand out that much from other sites yet (except maybe negatively with lack of gametype offering). The site could appeal to recreationals even better than it does currently IMO.

Also is "stats ratholing" possible (I haven't played that much yet)? For example, if I leave the table for 10 minutes, and return, are my stats reset? If yes, I think this is problematic and unfair for the players that decide to stay on the table (you can still recognize the same players when you return based on seat position and stack sizes).

At least if some of these things are changed, I will play more often on RIO in the future! There are a lot of good things about the site already, and I realize that it will become better as it develops!