Hey Guys,

I recently posted a blog about some proposed changes to online games (rules, software, etc.) I won't spam you guys, but you can probably find it. The post itself isn't important anyways. There's a thread in NVG about it, but as you know, threads there aren't always the most... productive.

I have seen many of the threads talking about HU Lobby changes, or other ideas for game changes. It seems that everyone is discouraged because the sites haven't listened yet.

The reason I'm posting: I can't promise anything, of course, but I had a 90 minute phone conversation with Pokerstars Steve about my ideas, and will be having more conversations over the coming weeks. I fully believe that they are listening and are willing to make some changes.

I felt very unprepared for that phone call. I threw together a blog with some ideas I'd been thinking about for a couple of days, and I've skimmed through some responses with other ideas.

I am sure some of you have put a lot of thought into some of these things, or even if not, maybe you've thought of something that hasn't occurred to anyone else. I was hoping we could start a discussion, and reach a general consensus on a few things.

I would really like some help putting together arguments for Must-Move tables, as it's something I think would be great for the games. (Or if you guys have a better solution, then I'll present them with that)

Some other possible areas of discussion:

-HU Lobby (though this has been discussed plenty and I've read the threads)
-Waitlists/Global Waitlists
-Screen Name Changes (also has been discussed to death, so maybe not)
-Games to be spread, lobby alterations, etc

Basically, anything that you think is a great idea, both for the players and the sites, let's try and get it done. Keep in mind, we need a good list of the pros/cons, and arguments/evidence for why it will benefit the games (and the poker sites). I believe the overall goals should be: Promoting the play of more hands, making games more comfortable and enjoyable (especially for recreational players), and general fairness and protection against cheating. These are all things that both the players and the sites want.

I think Steve and Pokerstars in general (and hopefully some other sites) will drop in and check out this thread, maybe even respond to some points.

I realize that I'm in a position to be listened to only because I'm well known in the online poker community. I'm not an expert in how games should be changed/run. I do think that I can do an excellent job of logically explaining the merits of a quality idea, but I need some help coming up with the best ideas possible. I would really appreciate some help so that I don't waste this opportunity for all of us to be heard.

Thanks guys.

-Phil

Thanks for the chat today Phil. We'll definitely be reviewing this thread.

Gl Phil, if anyone can help make these changes, it's you!

Thanks Steve!

Alright guys, I'll try to get the ball rolling. I think I may have scared a couple people away from making the first post by asking for "really great ideas."

Here are some ideas that have been shared with me (not necessarily ones I'm in favor of):

Global Wait Lists:

Like an interest list in live cardrooms, everyone that wants to play 5/10plo signs up for a list (and indicates how many handed they'd be willing to play?). They're seated at tables when enough players are signed up. When a seat opens in a game, the first player is pulled from the one universal waitlist.

Some details will need to be figured out to accommodate multi-tabling while still preventing abuse of re-listing yourself and continually quitting games until you get the one you want.

HU Quitting on Button

When you are playing HU, if you want to sit out, you are forced to play (or pay) your BB first. If you break and come back, you'd get your button next.

An alternative is, you indicate that you want to quit, and it randomizes how many more hands you play at each table (1 or 2).

The second is "fair" while the first encourages action.


6max Quit After BB

Same concept as above, but in 6max games, when you want to quit, you have to play (or pay) your BB on your last hand.

Could also be worked out so you pay a smaller price to quit, but still provides no advantage to rushing to button people.

Breaks instead of Sit-Out

No sitting out on an individual table and holding seat. If you want to take a break, you sit out all tables on next BB. If you want to sit out on an individual table, you are booted after 1 minute. Perhaps there is a max amount of break time per hour.


Lobby Sorting

Customizable tabs - see all of your favorite games in one tab.


Again, these are not all my ideas or all ideas that I endorse. I'd just like to get some conversation started.

guarenteed nothing happens

i think global waitlists are a great idea. a possibility for working it out could be that tables are created as normal and once the waitlists form for a certain stake(assuming same format of course) everyone on the waitlist is put at a table that becomes a must move. if you are in the main as well obviously you would have seats at both, and cant move into a game youre already in.

so if a game is running and there are x people waiting it generates a new game and the waitlists are taken away from the main once the must move is started. at that point, no more wait list exists and only the option to get into the main game by playing in the must move game. essentially it would create a table where everyone is on a waitlist, which is what must move games are. and if this system didnt allow sitting out(more than whats allowed already 3 orbits or w/e) at these tables it would be ideal.

this would cary some characteristics of king of the hill by forcing everyone to play with each other instead of wait for fishy games but seems like it would be overall beneficial. the reason it is better than koth is because people would still be allowed to start as many tables as they want, just once a waitlist is formed for a particular game and a must move table created you have to be playing to get in. just brainstorming, thx for posting phil.

Sweet, good to hear you have some discussions going with pokerstars. I don't really play live poker so I'm not super familiar with must-move games but basically if there are 4 people on a waitlist they get put on a new table and to stay on the waitlist for the game they want to play they have to play at this new table until someone leaves the table they want to play on? This would be great for the games if so because it will solve the problem of the casual player noticing that there are always 20 people on the waitlist for their table as well as creating more action. I can't really see much of a disadvantage to this, should be a no-brainer for stars. Since people multi-table, they then should have the choice of moving from the new table or just playing both of course when it's their turn to move.

I love the concept of having to play or pay your bb before quitting a game, it really encourages action and completely removes the rush to sitout as soon as a recreational player leaves that we have at the moment. There should maybe be exceptions such as if you get stacked or lose >xbbs in a hand then you can quit without paying your bb, i can imagine if you play poker occasionally for fun and you get stacked and then charged another bb from your account to leave the game then you might feel a bit aggrieved by that.

The sitout on 1 table, sitout on all rule has been floated a few times and the main problem would be that there are legitimate reasons to sitout on 1 table but not all. I think with the 1 or 2 minutes leeway that you suggest so that you can sitout on some of your tables but not all for some amount of time this could work though.

You mentioned something similar in your blog I think but I would also suggest a cap on the number of 1 person HU tables per limit. I think the key is to encourage action without shutting out everyone but the very best players at a limit from playing HU. The cap should therefore vary by stake. I would start by estimating maybe a cap of 5-10 tables at 25/50 HU, moving up to maybe 20 tables at much lower stakes and 3-5 tables at 50/100. Each player should only be able to take 1 table per limit. This doesn't force anyone to play the top HU players at a limit but does mean that if you want to sit HU you have to be prepared to actually generate some rake and action. It's probably not too difficult for stars to generate some algorithm based on their historical data for how many players sit HU atm which calculates how many tables to allow at different times of day at different stake levels to create this environment of forcing some action but not favouring the top players too much. Even some arbitrary number will improve things greatly though. Fwiw, (worth saying since I frequently see accusations of self-interest when things like this are suggested) this wouldn't particularly help me or other people who play anyone but struggle to get action as this would generate action between the weaker players at a limit to fight for the right to sit rather than get the best players action. Mainly this would benefit pokerstars by increasing rake generated and then pokerstars again as well as all players by reducing the embarrassing effect for a casual player of seeing 40 people all sitting waiting, not playing each other but queueing up to play him. If anyone doubts whether this will actually generate action, they have KOTH and a table cap on party and there is much more HU action there than there is on stars as far as I can see despite a smaller player pool and almost no 6max games being started between regs. The reason my proposed solution generates more action than KOTH if you get the table cap right is that on party, if I was to sit at all the 25/50 HU tables this would kill the HU action a lot of the time at 25/50 as a lot of players will play most people but not everyone.

I think tablestarting has to be rewarded in some way. Right now, whenever I start a table, it usually is HU until a fish joins. The bumhunter can now get a good position on the fish, whereas I have no option to do that. Thus, tablestarting is a disadvantage and lowers my EV on a full 6max table, although it generates more traffic for the client (and thus more rake). That is quite paradox from an economical point of view.

I think the rakeback should be adapted in advantage to those who sat first. I also think rakeback should be significantly lower for those who join tables via waitinglists. It might also be an idea that the 3rd player (usually the fish) can only sit down where the 1st has direct position on him.

Tablestarting is to be encouraged and maybe there are other and better ways to do it, I dont know. As I said, right now it is a disadvantage and that has to change.

oh also a cap of 1-3 6max tables per limit with 1 person sitting should be introduced with any measures that improve the games otherwise there is a risk that people will replace their old methods of trying to play recreational players with sitting alone at 6max tables and the 6max lobby could end up looking like the HU lobby does now.

Good post planB_ except for this sentence imo: "It might also be an idea that the 3rd player (usually the fish) can only sit down where the 1st has direct position on him." Shouldn't take away the choice of where to sit from people i don't think. More VPPs for table starters and less if you join from a waitlist or something is a good idea if it's not too difficult to implement.

How about being able to chat to high stakes players from the rail without having to have $100,000 in your account. I mean, full tilt allowed it, and it was a huge success.
For instance, "Observer chat privileges are available only to those who have a minimum buy-in for this table in their account"
What a joke..

I like the ideas about ending the table in the bb if a table breaks.

About the hu lobby. Do we really need "fast", "short fast", "short", "normal" and "isildur" tables? And do we really need to be allowed to sit at one table of all of those on each limit. I think one standard 30bb-200bb table would do fine. That would clean up the lobby by a lot. Alternatively you can also keep all these variants, but allow only one empty table per limit, instead of one of all types.

Definitely agree with Kanu about semi-KOTH being optimal. Out of the sites I play, Party is the only site with a pure-KOTH system at the moment, and it's fairly obvious to me that it's also the site with the most heads-up action at those stakes. However I agree that letting one really good player take up all the tables is denying many of the lesser-tier players a chance to play each other, which they very well might. Therefore having a capped amount of tables available, but only allowing each player hold one or two of those tables at the same time (unless playing), while still forcing the rule that the quitter has to give up his table would be clearly the best system to match the criteria Phil presented. I'm also a fan of forcing everyone to pay their BB before quitting.

cap the waiting lists to 4, once the list has grown to 4 on table #1 the players waiting get seated at another table (table #2). Assuming someone leaves table #1 whoever has been playing the longest at #2 or whoever was higher on the waiting list previously get first refusal on the empty seat on table #1.

also pokerstars should start really punishing these high stakes bum hunters, if they're not willing to play poker until scout sits then don't sit down at all. If they break the rules, just ban them completely. It's not as though pokerstars will be missing out on any rake unless scout decides to start 6tabling 8 hours a day.

next HUGE problem for pokerstars,

HU TABLES. I did have one quite good idea, to remove the visable HU tables completely and allow players to "challenge" others at HU, if the opposition accepts the "challenge" then a HU table is created and they play. The challenges should be capped at 2 or 3 (to avoid everyone challenging scout when he logs in) and challenge requests should be hidden somewhere in the table options or something. (we don't want to scare off fish by everyone challenging them HU)

otherwise just get rid of HU tables completely. The HU lobby is a complete joke with 99% of players waiting not wanting to play unless your PTR shows you -$xxxx.xx

oh yeah thats another thing pokerstars, do something about PTR (poker table ratings) they are breaking the "no datamining" rule (and publically admitting that fact) yet you still leave them to go about their business...?

KOTH isn't the answer to the HU problems, it benefits the top 1 or 2 players at their stake too much. What happens when when 2 specific people want to play HU but they cant because the lobby is swamped with mini-galfonds?