With the ratio suggestion, I do think it is the best option but I see it having a very difficult time actually being implemented by the sites since I assume they would have to have programmers come in to write the scripts or w/e as well as store the information for each player on a database etc. which will be fairly costly to the site.

Whereas high carding I figure can easily be implemented, a feature already used to start tournaments, and just needs to be added to the starting of a cash game. I think this would at least help start moving things in the right direction.

Actually, it's impossible...
But the ratio system, while cool, might be a pain for Stars to implement, as mentioned.

I don't see why enforcing an even # of hands is potentially confusing to anyone. It just means playing 1 or 0 more hands when you want to quit. Compare this to live poker, where there are always house rules on giving 1 hour+ of notice before quitting. And you'd never be FORCED to play even one more hand -- there could always be the option to close the software entirely right away, which you might want to do if you just lost a big pot or are tilting or something. (Stars would be wise to allow this exception to an "even # of hands" rule, but obv anyone can always force quit the client also.)

All that said, there might be some reason Stars really doesn't want to do this, in which case high carding seems like the most practical short term solution.

Having a ratio system that keeps track of ratio's for each player pair seems like it could get outta hand from an implementation perspective and could leave stars vulnerable to certain types of attacks depending on how they implemented it.

An example of an attack would be if a large enough group of players decided to all play each other, causing a large number of ratio's to be maintained. If maintaining those ratio's was a large enough amount of data, then the system would break at some point. This would be a great way to protest rake hikes...

Anyway, I'm sure there would be a practical way to prevent such attacks, but it's a lot of things to worry about and a large amount of data to maintain for such a relatively small angle shoot that can already be policed to prevent large scale scamming.

That being said, I hate getting buttoned and want something to be done. I propose that the player who first sits at an empty HU table is always given the button at the start of each new session, but is forced to post 1 sb as insurance that they will play an even number of hands. A couple of exceptions might be if they get busted with the money they have at the table, or get disconnected.

Recreational players rarely sit at empty HU tables, so I feel confusion issues would be minimal.

A simple warning message could appear if you try to leave and are about to sacrifice your sb.

Forgot to add that if the player who originally got the button decides to sit out after an odd number of hands, instead of leaving, then their insurance post should be sacrificed if the other player decides to leave. Even if they were taking an announced break or whatever.

Also, the 1 sb amount is somewhat arbitrary, it should just be large enough such that buttoning is barely not profitable.

I know its not the place for this but I'm pretty stoned and loling at how grim became a verb, ***** hilarious

Why not just make it so that the "winner" can't play his BTN last? If he's on the BTN and wants to quit, a pop up tells him he's required to play the BB as the last hand of the match as a courtesy to the player who is losing. The "losing" player also gets a notification that his BTN will be the last hand.

If a losing player wants to quit, there are no restrictions.

Just play an even amount of hands...? Isnt it that simple? Maybe im missing something, dno..

Yeah Nostradonkus has already found the loophole to the ratio system with friends just playing each other HU and maintaining a balanced ratio before going off to grim people so I guess high carding is the best option brought up so far. I'm not against a set number of hands aka an even number of hands played when a new table starts up, but I dont know if that is something that a lot of recreational players would get behind?

And how does player seated first gets the sb have so many votes lol

This sounds good and easy to implement and easy to understand for everyone involved.

But winning isn't the issue, I can't believe how many people think that as long as they lost the only hand they played on the button that it's not grimming. It is most definitely still grimming and it's unfair when a person plays more buttons regardless of whether they won the last hand played on the button or not.

Anything that forces someone to play a hand of poker is beyond bad. Just penalize buttoning behaviour. People who repeatedly button (i.e. sit at tables and button when soemone sits down or sit @ tables just to button) should get a random 5 bb jerk tax, proceeds to be donated to charity.

this!

making them to play even number of hands is the fairest and the easiest solution to implement

This is obviously accurate.

For hu: How about just removing the option "sit out next hand" completely, and just have the "sit out next bb" option?

I didn't see anyone claiming that grimming and losing isn't still grimming. This was merely another proposal that attempts to reduce grimming.

This proposal on the surface should cut down on the EV of grimming by >50%, which is nice.

But probably equally valuable is the perception of the situation, which is:
I can only button somebody if I lose (which to an idiot might sound like a losing proposition)

Personally, I still like the ratio idea best. I'll put together some counter arguements to the problems with that system identified.