Simple question;

Who benefits from a 2:3 ratio blind structure more, regs or recreational players?

Since most regs are bad, I say the fish...


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Kahn

On first thought I'd hafta guess the regs. 2/3 blind structure leads to higher VPIP, so the (loose)fish are playing closer to correct preflop, but then since they are in even more pots preflop, they're postflop mistakes will be compounded.

That's my hunch at least, but I imagine people more smart than me will come into this thread and just say the answer phil newall? Death donkey?

I'm having this argument with someone right now. And here are my points:

• Recreational players don't adjust their games, they almost always play too loose.
• Recreational playerss will not play more hands b/c of a blind structure change, they won't know the difference.
• Their play will become more correct because the pot is larger.
• Most regs suck and also don't adjust to these structures (mainly because they don't know how, or if they do, it takes them out of their comfort zone)
• The majority of regs, not adjusting and/or misplaying, will lose a bit of edge.
• End result: fish gain edge, regs lose edge, in aggregate (my humble opinion here)
• **Edit** Also of note, the uber tight fishy players also lose out in 2:3 structures, again, b/c it punishes those that are too tight or too loose

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Kahn

agreed ^^ those are basically the same points i had in mind

but btw i think the positive effect your avg fish will see is extremely small and completely drowned by his original lossrate

I was assuming that the average recreational player would be adjusting their preflop game to be even looser, I guess then my argument turns into a debate of how un-aware the average recreational fish is of 2/3 structure... Maybe I am wrong in assuming that they would usually think "oh yeah, 2/3 SB, play more hands!!".

If they don't adjust then I think the rec player gets more benefit.

So I guess the question is, will the average recreational player attempt to adjust his play based on a 2/3 structure? IDK I guess.. I could be convinced either way.. we could just start asking them in chat and pointing them to this thread ;-)

In general, 2:3 does lead to everyone playing a few more hands, specifically in situations where it's folded to the small blind, who can almost never fold... so in some sense it would make recs play more hands, though this happens a small % of the time, but also, regs would have to play more hands here anyway, so again, it doesn't change much in that regard.

And hen, I agree the effect isn't that big, but it is there... cumulatively positive for fish and in aggregate weakens many average/poor regs. A good player, obviously, will always play any structure to the best of their ability/more correctly, so that's why I'm leaving them out of this discussion altogether.

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Kahn

poll needs 'bastard' option.

i think everybody benefits from this structure, but i think recreational players probably would benefit a bit more. it makes their preflop mistakes less egregious. somebody who's really bad postflop is going to lose a lot no matter what.

merge would benefit from more rake, and everyone benefits from more action-y games

The one who gains the most is the site.

Hi all,

We are including some more changes for FL games in tonights release:

**Big thanks to everyone who helped out with suggestions and analysis for these changes, especially Kahn.**

1. *Decrease Minimum Buyin
We have now changed the minimum buyin to 5 big bets on all fixed limit games. *

2. *Change Blind Structure and Add Limit
We changed the follow blind structure on FLH games only.

* *• *Stake: $3.00/$6.00 - Bind: $2.00/$3.00
* *• *Stake: $5.00/$10.00 - Bind: $3.00/$5.00
* *• *Stake: $30.00/$60.00 - Bind: $20.00/$30.00

Reintroduce $15.00/$30.00 with a $10.00/$15.00 blind structure.

3. *$20.00/$40.00 FLH BBJ Tables
Table Dundurm Castle was not intended to be a BBJ table, since it's not labeled either, but this will become a regular table.

Ryan

I can say that the action has picked up with this change. That has to help the players no matter what one thinks of the actual group that gets the lion's share of the edge improvement from such a change... volume is $$$ in beatable games (which our rake changes made them all beatable)

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Kahn

7 / 7 / 13

Now thats what I call mixed indifference!

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Kahn

The new rake structure and 2/3 blind structure has helped the games tremendously. Haven't seen em this good in a long time. Thanks for all the work Kahn.

My pleasure Tony. Glad I could use my position to influence this decision among others, to help the community, Merge, and let's be honest, myself... I love this action!

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Kahn

The strangest part of this topic is that no one answered that the biggest winners of 2-3 were always rooms.
Limit 15-30 was the stupidest thing in lhe ever.

My numbers, player experiences, etc would say otherwise. Care to back this claim up sir?

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Kahn

**** my ipad, i wrote a long post and my browser crushed while i tried to post it
Making it short:
The avg BB/100 of rake that we pay is about 1 at 30-60 and 3 on 10-20
I assume we are comparing 15-30 and 20-40 ’cos it has to be something between 10-20 and 30-60
Basically almost every pot at 15-30 is raked at max of 3$ (unless its limped pot with ch-ch till shd). You openraise, someone defends his bb and ch/f on the flop. The pot is 65-70 (depends on 1-2 or 2-3 blind str), 3$ goes from 60+ in every pot.
At 20-40 its the same: every hand = max rake of 3, but the amount of money that goes around is higher. So you will need to pay less rake while realizing your edge.

If you play hu with someone who has 1k in his stack (lets say he has a winrate of -5BB/100) you will need to play more hands to win this amount at 15-30, means you both will pay more rake and the only one winner is the room which hosts this game.

Thats why im saying that 15-30 sucks hard, and really wtf why it has to be 10-20 15-30 and 30-60? Have you ever seen 1-2 1.5-3 and 3-6 stakes somewhere?

2 dollars extra of pot size is not influence the rake at 15/30 stakes one bit. The rake is maxed out every hand that sees a flop!

The casino wins? That makes no sense whatsoever to me I'm afraid. the 2:3 blind structure is supposed to entice more recreational players... to POKER! And it has done just that thusfar

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Kahn

With the 2/3 structure more players play their small blind and less 'blinds are stolen" so there are more flops, which means more rake.

brillliant, pray it entices kahnutrahn, the busto old millionaire back so i can alliviate him of said funds, but he is good and makes rules

More flops against bad players is good for professional players, regardless of whether it is good or not for the card room.

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Kahn

I would really like to see some statistics of how a bigger SB entices softness and action in general. I think this effect is hugely exaggerated and mostly if not completely eaten up by the increased rake.

In my experience most good regs have clearly worse results in 2/3 structure compared to normal.
Ofc you could counter-argue that most of these guys suck at adjusting to 2/3 strucutre, but i dont think this explains the whole deficit at all.

1) Rake becomes less of a concern at higher stakes, but I can see your argument at the lower stakes games where rake eats into the edge more.

2) However at lower stakes games, the players are adjusting that much worse, and the avg nitty reg in lower stakes games won't adjust well or at all b/c they don't play anything marginal to begin with

3) Most guys do suck at adjusting, regardless of fish/reg/stakes


Speaking from anecdotal evidence, the 150/300 games at AP used to be 2:3... and they were some of the best games ever. Fast, loose, aggressive, enjoyable. Fish flocked to them... even fish with bracelets! I'm seeing the same patterns play out in these smaller games as well.

Insofar as having a large sample size to compare the two structures... no one has that to my knowledge. Merge will at some point have enough pre/post data to compare the 1:2 v 2:3 ratio blinds. And I guess for that matter, PTR will as well (though they mislabel all the games).

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Kahn

Bottom line, structure would never be altered if it didn't increase the rake.