Okay fuck it, I'm slightly drunk and have decided to give it one more shot since incompetent glitch is gone now.
Constructive (lengthy) feedback regarding tournaments (and I know most nanostake regs won't like it):
If you want to be successful, I believe you should look at what competitors are doing right, then analyze what the strengths (and weaknesses) of your product are and then emulate and improve what is working for them.
By far the fastest growing site in the last few years is the GG network, I will use Nat8 as an example. Nat8 has done a few very smart things.
This is what their current schedule looks like. Notice how the average buy-in is much, much higher than on SWC. Apart from the occasional off-game (NL08) and hyper nano tournament, most of them are lowstakes+. I have been playing on this site for longer than most and I can tell you that when they started, they didn't have microstakes at all, tournaments pretty much started in the $11 range.
What does this do? It attracts
players with funds and establishes your site as a serious way to make money with reasonable guarantees.Natural8 started small, and at first they were having trouble getting traffic for the stakes they offered. What did they do?
1) They invented bubble protection. If you were registered before the game started, and you bubbled, you got your buy-in back. This immediately made tournaments run - they still have it, but nowadays the chance of them having to pay out is much, much lower as field sizes have increased.
2) They have automated, in-lobby staking. It gives nanostakes players the opportunity to dabble into the lower stakes you offer by selling (and midstakes grinders to highstakes, making those softer etc. etc.)
3) They increased the min. player for the tourney to run (in this case to 8.), but gave a significantly higher guarantee aswell, because when games run and there is overlay, chances are people jump on it.
4) They intelligently "poached" small but up and coming streamers and gave them a way to a good deal if/when they grow playing on their side (easterdamz, pokerbrahs to name a few), specifically those who expressed dissatisfaction with the sites they were currently playing on.
What are the strengths of your site?
A) You have mixed games. Apart from agent sites, PokerStars is the only other site that offers those afaik. The WSOP is played online this year and GG Poker gets to run it, but all the events are PLO and NLHE now, all the great mixed game championships got scrapped because they don't offer it. THINK of the missed opportunities.
aaand B) Bitcoin! There are a lot of people in the bitcoin sphere who made a shit ton of money, are willing to gamble (they invested in bitcoin early after all) and are symphathetic to any provider that adopts bitcoin only as rigorously as you have done. Remember the twitter 10k tournament that was run by Mr.Hodl? These are the people you are looking to attract.
So, in short:
As of now, you are targeting the wrong audience, most successful sites have figured out that micro- and nanostake players aren't worth the chase. Change direction, get rid of most nano and micro and improve low-to-highstakes offerings, see above how. Notice how my suggestions don't cost you money, the freeloading attitude on SWC is insane (loans in chat, promos, leaderboards etc.)
Improve your satellite games - when fewer nano and micros are offered, people will want to play the lowstakes, give them a chance to get there. This gives them a way into "exciting" opportunities with meaningful guarantees and improves the game quality. PartyPoker has done very very well in this regard, look there for inspiration.
Find a way to make yourself seen, hosting pman ain't the way.
Implement Lightning payments. Deposits
MUST be instant, and withdrawals should be, too. This alone will put you ahead of ACR, BOL and all the other shitty US-facing sites.
And focus on mixed games eventually, since that's the main attribute that sets you apart from your competitors.
Good luck. Oh, and fire HH if you want any chance of success.
What any poker site should do is build a solid poker economy from the bottom up. Meaning build a healthy microstakes economy that players can start playing in, build their roll and move up. And the higher stakes start getting filled from there.
Oh and get the short deck tables up. PLO5 is popular at SWC.. Pretty sure they'll looove short deck. Use Triton rules, more action. The regular 6 Plus Holdem one tends to make players nitty.
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