Hi Guys,
I've been playing the Merge Super Turbo HUSNGs for about 2-3 months now.
Been playing between $2+0.1 and $8+0.2 levels with a really bad swing of 25BI under EV for 1 day on the $8+0.2 level which hurt my roll a lot.
I am currently comfortable rolled for $4+0.15 on Merge or $3.5 on Stars and am trying to decide where to play.
I know that there is a difference between the two in terms of blind structures.
Merge is 3 min blinds, 1500 starting stack and 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 150/300 blinds (there are probably more levels but I don't think there is need to mention them).
Stars is 2 min blinds, 500 starting stack and 10/20; 15/30; 20/40; 25/50; 30/60; etc.

So my question is which format do you believe is better?

For instance on Merge you start with 30bb effective stacks and play like this for 3 minutes, but next blind level gets you to a max effective stack of 15bb and next level (assuming you get to it) gets you at 7.5bb eff stack.
This jump from 30 effective to 15 effective looks like an huge increase in the variance. But the 30bb starting stack for 3 min could give you a bigger edge.

On the other hand on Stars starting stacks are 25bb but next level is 16.66, next is 12.5, then it's 10.
It seems to me that although Merge has a larger starting stack, on stars you get to play longer with larger effective stacks. Which if you are comfortable with your 12-17bb play should give you more time to own.

Also, in terms of rake and rakeback - on Merge I have 35% daily and I have never ever deposited on Stars and am at the lowest level in their VIP. Is the 1st deposit bonus doable if you are playing hypers assuming that I deposit ~$350 and want to play $3.5s with mix of $7s?

P.S.
If my thread does not belong here, please mods move it

Stars structure is way better imo.

As for rakeback, don't look only at % of rakeback but the effective rake itself.

If the 1st depo bonus is doable is all up to your volume. So it's hard to say, you can figure it out yourself (you get 5.5 vpps per every $1 paid in rake). But I think it is.

what rois are the top people achieving on merge hypers? who are the top regs there now?

merge supers can have like a 3% roi vs fish. action is pretty reg filled, so realistically you will get a 1% roi (at least at 100s+). Id say that easily 30% of my games have been against regs and at least 20% has been against winning players from other fields. the top regs are sa1251, jhub, callisto, hookie, navtones, bartchalker. i know im missing a few, but those are just a couple names off the top of my head.

OP you are MUCH better going with stars if you can play there, you lucky bastard.

iirc RBJ had the best roi on the site vs regs

sa1251 was the best player there ainec!

Stars structure is a lot better.

Merge goes from 30bb to 15bb to 7.5bb every 3 minutes (1500 starting stacks, 25-50, then doubling blinds).

Merge should add a 30-60 and 40-80 blind level. In fact, we're working on a petition for this.

I'm out of town right now, but will be back late this week, and we already have 7+ sigs from grinders on Merge to add those two levels, plus other support. If you are a Merge grinder, just PM me and we'll figure out a way to add you to the email petition.

Merge has a history of listening to player issues, at least with HUSNGs. Post black friday, multiple players asked them to fix their ST structure (it was 15bb starting stacks and 5% rake) and they doubled the blinds and halved the rake. Of course that made the games beatable, but I think people would rather see Merge have the best ST structure out there, not merely a beatable one.

@30/60 and 40/80 I hope that doesnt go with 3min blinds, that would probably bring down the hourly. I'm not a huge fan of the current system but still I think 30->15 is better than 30->25->20->zzzzzzzzzzz

@ChicagoRy - thanks for inviting me. I really a micro stakes recreational player by the standards of Merge. Basically about $150 in rake every month, so I don't really believe my opinion will count for them. However, if you think "the more, the merrier", let me know and I'll PM you.
@raised by jews - I had an EVROI of 2.6% EVROI at the $8.2 level in ~1k games in Merge. However my actual was -4.2% and I didn't have the bankroll to continue with $8.2s so I decided to go play $3.5s on stars and wait for better times. Guess my ROI probably made me one of the not-so-bad regs at the level having in mind the diff between actual and EV.

Thanks to all of you for answering. I now really believe that moving to Stars is a better choice.
Wish me good luck

Pretty much this. The difference between level 1 and 2 in this structure is just a joke (seriously? a 5/10 increase from 25/50???)

Imo we should be more willing to try something like:

25/50
35/70 (addition)
50/100
75/150 (addition)
100/200
...(current structure above this)

Honestly, 35/70 (while seemingly awkward just cause we've never seen it before) leads to a smooth progression from 25/50 to 50/100 and the 75/150 accomplishes the same from 50/100 to 100/200.

Obviously this wouldn't quite increase edge as much but these are supposed to be hypers, imo such gradual increases as being proposed are somewhat ridiculous and we could fix the structure in a better way.

Just my two cents.

Nooo hourlies will not go down

The games will end a little longer on average, but with much higher edges. The latter will outweigh the former, I'm willing to bet a lot of money on that.

You don't want expanded 10bb or less play (if anything, once the 50-100 blinds end we should all want the blinds to go up to like 250-500 so there is literally never 3+ minutes spent at 10bb or less eff. stacks, that's the edge killer, and for players that play for entertainment value, the fun killer).

The reason it's different from the no blind increase vs turbo or even regular speed vs turbo speed hourly comparisons is because there was always a lot more edge in the 15-30bb stack sizes than anybody publicly seemed to believe or talk about a lot (judging from how much pros have improved in this area over the last 5 years, I think most people, myself included, didn't realize the edges could be so viable in those areas still, enough to make say FTP turbo ROIs in the old structure just about as high as the PS turbos had, only the FTP turbos finished in like half the time... though some of that could've been the 100m+ in free deposits FTP gave players, and obviously depositing players on avg are much worse than a random player bc the random player has a chance to be a big winner while the depositor does not).

Anyways, those comparisons are not perfect for this current ST vs proposed ST structure and impact because the 0-10bb vs the 15-30bb area is a lot different in edge/profit potential than the 15-30bb area vs the 40-75bb area (where the 15-30bb guys could actually obtain fairly high edges, close enough to by far outweigh their 40-75bb slower structure counterparts in hourly rate).

Fwiw edges at like 8-14bb are actually fine, the achievable bb/100 is still quite high and isn't much less than half of the bb/100 at deeper stacks. Given the fact that a bb at those depths is usually worth about two times a higher fraction of a buyin do to blind levels than at deeper stacks it actually contributes a ton to hourly.

I also agree that Merge structure is bad at the moment. I also agree that given 3min levels the your proposed structure is too slow ChicagoRy. 2min levels would make your suggestion decent though, or maybe only adding the 40/80 level and maybe another level in between the next two like 80/160.

The issue I have with the 80-160 is that it is barely touching the edge of your 8-14bb area when stacks are even, so I think it does more prolonging 2-8bb than adding 8-14bb.

Does that make sense?

I suppose by your logic 60-120 might make more sense then?

yeah that's true.

maybe 25/50 -> 40/80 -> 50/100 -> 60/120 -> 100/200 ?

3 min levels would make it a fairly high roi/high avg game length format.
2 min levels would be fine too, not sure what's better. maybe 3 min would make it more unique compared to stars.

@coffee I like, except I'd make it 3min and no 50/100. tbh I'd actually prefer to kick out 25/50 and keep 50/100 but it would probably harm the games in a reg-infested environment like merge

yh makes sense