note to mods. Please move this thread if you think it's in the wrong forum.



I was inspired to write this thread by piranha. In his ongoing thread , he invited me to open another thread to discuss the ethics, maths of the situation. I understand and appreciate the reasons for his thread, if not understanding the maths of it. So I will not go there. I thought it may be better to open a wider discussion.

Piranha's thread is in danger of being derailed because of people, who perhaps little understand the nature of the game at high levels ( myself included).

I would like to open a discussion about what is wrong with limit poker on stars at the moment and what can be done in improve things? To open the discussion, I did a little survey as set out below (took 5 minutes)

No of players on site as shown in the lobby. 115,360 players on 19,020 tables

No of players actually playing limit poker. (all tables IE full ring,6 max and HU )

High 20
Mid 103
low 459
micro @ 800

I would like to hear from high stakes players in particular, as it's their livelihood that seem to be going down the pan. Lets have no blood on the carpet in this thread, Is that too much to ask, I think “well maybe”.

CLIFFS
Survey concluded at 3:00am GMT Monday. Number of players falling off dramatically,so not the best of times to run a survey.

Two words: "Black Friday"

its far from dead yet but if the current trend continues it will be in a year or two probably. LHE`s (imo) biggest threat: bots

Online certainly it has been dead for quite some time with only the most dedicated players who are able to adapt the circumstances the best coming out with winnings.

However, live limit whether in holdem mixed or stud is far from dead and still very profitable.

So yes and no to your post

A dead game does not have 20 highstakes and 1259 people playing at the low-stakes. A dead game is one that has 20 highstakes players and nobody at the lowstakes. You need a wide pyramid to support mid-high stakes and above and limit still has one.

Full Tilt leaving was a huge hit to most of us financially and psychologically and it will take a while to get the trust back and people rolled for highstakes. 100k+bankrolls don't appear overnight unless you win the million.

Limit is alive and well, just constantly changing and if you are willing to adapt and put the work in it is still extremely profitable. Hint: Pokerstars is not the only online poker room and you don't have to play $200/$400 to make a ton of money even though all the cool kids do it.

I think nietzsche elaborated on this topic as well please use the search function OP

No. It might not be dead, but it surely is not alive and well.

thank the american government for 2006

Firmly with Gild.

Yeh bots could be a problem but some sites (namely Stars) are doing genuinely good work to combat them and I presume more in the future if/when they become a bigger problem. And at the higher stakes it's not such an issue, when the community knows every other reg and any newcomer who isn't fishy is going to be watched and exposed pretty quick if a bot.

Most of those 115k players are playing tourneys or play money. Right now pokerscout.com is reporting 136k players on stars but only 29k are playing cash.

You should try comparing your numbers with the other cash games.

The state of the limit games is primarily due to TV and the popularity of no-limit. People coming into poker see NL played for millions of dollars by all the poker super stars. It's a heck of a lot cooler to the average Joe, who might someday become a poker player, to bluff a guy out of a hundred thousand dollar pot than it is to make a thin river value bet for some fixed amount.

Yeah...
And live FL is ****ing boring as hell for a fish wanting to gamble, in a table where it goes

agro guy raises, pro 3-bets.
They get the pot HU and the pro just like never folds.

Back in the day when you had 2-3 guys at a table gambling it up, the enviornment for FL was wayyy more fun for everyone involved.

10 handed LHE is one of the most boring games ever invented if there arent at least 2 people going insane.

I played a ton of PLO this past wsop, and just about everyone at the table was having WAY more fun than at the LHE tables.

LHE is dying because its just flat out, less fun than the big bet games for someone wanting to gamble.

as long as the commerce 100/200 is alive and well you cant call limit hold'em dead

and i dont know about PLO being more fun, its def more of a gut-wrenching rollercoster ride thats for sure. I had stop playing it live because the swings got too out of control. I just cant take a $20000 swing in 30 minutes.

I think 2-handed LHE is one of the greatest, most fun skill-games ever invented.
I think 3-4 handed LHE is pretty fun.
I think 5-6-handed LHE is kinda boring.
I would rather stick hot pokers in my eye than play 9-10-handed limit for a living, especially live.

Bots by far are an existential threat to LHE at every level of the game. Way, way more than the sitting out at stars game theory problem that severely affects about 20 rich people.

FYP

and quoted for importance