seems like a love or hate thing. i get so tilted normally trying to play on stars, every table is either 6 regs or has 10 person waitlist, if you're lucky enough to find a fish on your table they seem to leave after 5 minutes anyway, and you can never get a seat in a good game. love zoom though, i get really excited when 2.5/5 is up! so fun and actually get to play with fish for longer than 5 mins

If zoom isnt profitable for people it will burn out and people will go back to regular tables. I dont see what the problem is? Either wait your time, or adapt.

The most important consideration is how the recreationals like it. PS will cater around their wishes and playing experiences most, and the professionals should adjust to changes. Some changes they will like and others they won't. Time will tell what most rec's prefer.

Recs/fish pay for the time they are playing, to enjoy the time playing, and they obv want to play as long as poss for their cash...
Obv the time they can survive with same amount of cash will be much shorter at zoom, no chat no nothing, so fish will either stop playing cause they realize they are chanceless or cause theres no fun involved. Or if they keep on playing zoom they'll stop cause of complete bankruptcy...
Zoom is just perfect for sne-mass-grinders but def not for recs/fish!

Zoom removes some of the cool stuff inherent in the game - developing history, dynamics, allowing you to choose tables/opponents, following hands and evaluating/adjusting, thinking about your actions and not clicking buttons because of timebank, etc.. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's just a variant of the game which should not take away the action at the stakes it is competing with. Right now, in the current environment, it takes all the action from several stakes: For weaker players 2,5/5 ZOOM is the same as 2/4 or 3/6 and for the multitabling regs it's like 5/10 (I'm saying this from an hourly perspective as 1 table of 2,5/5 ZOOM equals roughly to 1 table of 5/10 for the hourly, provided similar winrate), so it draws people across 3 stakes to play it and it kills the action on the normal tables.

As a reg, I will surely play wherever the money is at, but it doesn't feel the same poker anymore if it's the only place where there's action.

After playing some of the Zoom lately it seems like the recreational players are enjoying it on the weekend. I play in some good games back home where the regs in that game (regs in the fact that they play in night, not professionals) ask about the games online and they say they enjoy zoom because of the action. Fish in my opinion like to have playable hands frequently so they can get involved in pots; i.e often a fish will say live 'I haven't had a picture card for hours' etc. I think the time will tell on the weekend games, if fish rock up and want to play on the weekend zoom could be really good, is incredible how it's just killed the games though, sad state of poker, shows how small the mid/high stakes player pool is.

This, pretty much

Zoom solves a ton of issues for the regs, but it's effects on the PLO-ecosystem always depend on the recreationals. If the fish want Zoom, I'll play Zoom.

As many here know, I'm a bumhunter in the sense that I rarely play with 5 regs at the table, the variance is too high if there's no significant spew to be exploited. That said, as anyone who's played with me will recognize, I don't back down from regwars one bit once I do decide to play.

At Zoom, there will be less fish at the table on average, with most regs 4-tabling it's hard to avoid. That means there should be additional incentive to play such as no ratholing, or moonship's deep ante idea.

its funny that zoom has fixed almost all the issues people used to complain about (i.e bumhunting, buttoning, ect.) and now people are still complaining about it. I think it just kinda shows that people will never be totally happy and nothing will be perfect.

those issues dont really exist below $5/10 where zoom runs

Never said one of them is a bumhunter, didn't mean it this way. Even though urubu would only want to play 40bb poker at stakes hes not comfortable with just like I wouldn't play lautie HU because he never loses an all in. I am still joking here though, like in the chat, before people think I am dead serious mad.

I did notice the issue with the time bank lately, really gotta fix it. You can close the tables and insta come back and will have full time bank but gotta start with a new stack.

yeah its truly funny. And the reason behind is clearly that people do want FISH at their tables. In zoom games you might have to play vs 5 regs a lot of hands before the fish shows up. So people complain about bumhunting and table switching all the time yet they don't like zoom. You cannot table select as well in ZOOM.

I played ZOOM yesterday with 3-4 normal tables on the side and guess what. Zoom runs smoothly but normal tables break all the time, so I gotta find new tables, while that I time out somewhere or am on million waiting lists.


The bottom line is, people want soft games. This depends on their skill level, Galfond has a laugh playing no matter which games because he outplays everyone. Player X who has half of his skill of course needs players who have less than that.

insyder, everyone want play soft games with fishs. even galfond prefer play against fishs, its more fun play against someone who will calldown everytime you make the nuts.

about zoom, sauhund posted this, and i agree 100%: "rsonally, i dont like zoom, not because of competition or smth, but because it doesnt feel right. i just dont enjoy it, and i always enjoyed online poker, but not this format. i like to do things i enjoy, and not being forced into some format i dont like."

i dont think most people who are against zoom, is saying this because they like to hit n run, take position on fishs, sitting out/camping tables or bumhunt hardcore. its because at zoom, you are playing a diferent format, its VERY diferent than regular tables. and this people (myself included) don't enjoy playing in this format. i really hope you guys stop starting zoom tables.

my overall opinion about zoom and why i don't like it:

- diferent format. its annoying. seems weird. don't looks real poker (im not saying about history/table dynamic, because everyone already has tons of history from months/years playing togheter, im just saying folding and going to a new table its ******ed stupid game)

- why somoene will play T762ds , if he can fold 3 times and get JT87ds in 30seconds? one important factor in poker game, is patiente. zoom change it, isn't real poker !!!!!!!!! ---> why you professional players, like zoom, when its obvious fishs won't be THAT bad at zoom ?

I just thought of something if you think of the bigger picture. If everything becomes zoom; all regulars will play like 60% more hands/hour. Fish do as well, but they just bust quicker. There is not suddenly a huge new influx of money into the pokereconomy. Maybe a bit if fish have a way better playing experience at zoom and keep coming back, but i doubt it's substantial and it's up to debate if rec's like zoom better at all... So lets say the fish play increases by 10%.

That will mean that if the old situation was 100 regs / 15 fishes (15% fish). It will now become 160 regs/ 16.5 fishes (10.3% fish). With current rake levels that will be a huge blow to peoples winrates, except for the absolute top % of players that still really beat the other regs badly.

On the other hand, if you think of an even bigger picture; the worst regs will not make enough money anymore and quit the game, some regs will move to another game or less people go pro and it might reach some efficient market theory situation again.

Zoom is cancer.

squamous cell zoominoma

all zoom convo here now....please keep in mind that all posts from ssplo and hsplo stars regs threads relating to zoom were merged, so the conversation may or may not be fully logical

Good luck with that.

I gave you a plan to save the regular game. And interestingly it is as close to a win-win plan that I've seen for both people that like and dislike zoom. I (and many others) would love deep ante zoom, you (and many others) would love regular games running. We could unite to talk to PS and variant fence off the two games for a win-win. But the only strategy I've seen anti-zoomers post is to ask PS to stop running zoom, ask players to stop playing zoom or day dream that "someday" zoom will run itself out.

If the best strategy you have is your post above, it is time for you to go beyond peanut butter and jelly practical to the extreme side of pragmatic.

Its not real poker if I can't berate a player after the hand is over

Recs and regs both loved rush poker on Tilt.

For recs, the faster action gives them their fix faster. For regs, they got more hands in per hour.

The recs folded faster and played more and just generally played tighter (why bother with marginal spots when you can move on to next hand?)

While this may be true that fish bust quicker over time, they are still busting over the same amount of hands. This shouldn't really effect the bottom of line of Stars or winning regs. They still pay the same amount of rake and lose the same amount of money. It'd be similar to saying you don't want a whale to play 4 tables instead of 1, "The fish is losing 4 time as fast!".

I'm actually not quite sure what the argument is. Stars introduced a new game type, the players chose to play it and now some want it to be removed? If a recreational player doesn't think zoom is real poker, they'll sit at a regular table and the game will fill, just like it always has. If they enjoy zoom, they'll play that and the regs will follow. I'm not quite sure what the anti-zoom people are proposing. Remove a game that people willingly choose to play over another?

It improves stars bottomline because it decreases winning regs' bb/100 by putting them up against other regs more regularly.

Fish bust faster, but over all they bust anyway. The important thing is the big picture:

Deposits-Withdrawls=profit. The less the winning regs get to withdraw and the more recs deposit, the better it is for Stars/Tilt.

Zoom does both.

By all means stop ratholing though. Just make it if you leave, you have to come back with at least what you left with given a 30 minute time frame.

The argument was not that the number of hands for fish changes much, but that the number of hands from the regulars are way more over the same timeframe.

I don't view that as a negative and it's better for the sites as well. People are playing higher than their skill levels dictate. If at any given limit a player has to compete for the fish's money with the good players at that stake and are unable to do so, they'll probably have to move down. Which will effect the weaker regs at the lower stakes, who will have to move down as well. Every stakes higher on the ladder will be tougher than the one below it, rather than what is going on now.

Poker will become a lot more competitive this way which I'm sure many people have a problem with. I don't like that the current system benefits the player with the best seating script.

To the guys say they "feel funny" playing zoom as opposed to normal tables. How do you imagine a fish feels if he leaves a table with 5 other players and then goes back to it a minute later and everyone else has left? I'm not saying I think this happens a lot but it must happen sometimes. So far aside from rat-holing it seems like the only complaint people who dislike zoom have against it is that they don't like it. And to the people saying that recs enjoy zoom more than regular I'm sure this is true in some cases but as a whole zoom is a much easier, quicker and smoother format. I feel like I am in a small minority of people (I may be wrong of course) who play zoom and regular tables at the same time. I like playing both of them, and I really hope that zoom doesn't completely destroy the regular tables, but if it does I don't necessarily think it would be the worst thing for the future of the game.

I played 2 zoom500 + 2-3 PLO1k tonight, was good

everyone agrees Zoom ratholing must be disallowed, though?