+2 for alexei. +1 for cts. I play tons of 6m, nl and plo, along w HU. I play ZERO of my 6max on Stars just for this reason. By the time I can navigate the lobby and select a few tables I would like to play, the wait list has increased to 48 and I could have joined 10 tables on any other site. Although the FTP lobby does look childish with icons and colors... it gets the job done. It would be my suggestion to somehow arrange the 9m and 6m tables for a given stake side by side to make table selection faster. To make room, you could possibly make it an option to display all the irrelevant table stats in the lobby(use a table stat preference or filter?).

I would love to play more on stars due to the large player pool, but have zero interest in doing so until this exact problem is fixed. GL stars and keep the suggestions coming, lots of good ideas so far.

Question for PSDave,

How fast are the fast tables really compared to normal tables?

Just in my experience the fast tables really aren't that much faster... maybe 10 or 15% more hands. if that's actually true, I dont' really see the point of their existence.

Yes.

60 minutes would be pointless.

Sorry, i'm not high steaks playa but do you ever ask these questions of like micro/small stakes players who I assume would be a poker sites bread and butter.
Why is it that high steaks players are asked what they want and it is assumed that they know what is best for the game overall, a solution is formed and filtered down to lower stakes where the solution may not be what is needed.

I know it is good for a site to have high stakes games running as it attracts new customers, but also ignoring a core group of your customers will possibly drive them away.

1000% this. 1, 2, 3, hour ratholing timer is just a band-aid on cancer. It will make things a bit tougher on the SSers who chose not to multi account to get around the timer. It will also be a nuisance on recreational players who want to bounce around limits and gamble. The real problem, the root of the problem lies in the min buy in amount at the "regular" tables. 20bb is simply not enough and leaves no room for postflop play when there are 4 of these players at a table. It goes completely against what NL cash poker was originally intended to be. It is just a flaw in the system that many players have been exploiting for far too long without the sites doing anything about it.

Well finally FTP listened to their players and had the foresight to realize this is what was best for their games in the long run. This is what is best for the overall playabilty of the games for all players involved and what the spirit of NL holdem cash poker was created to be which was a multi street game of decisions, not a 1 or 2 street game. FTP has also been working on and continues to work on their HU lobby and the state of those games but that is a discussion for another place. However though all of these things combined have made FTP by far the industry leader, a position Stars held until just several months ago.

I personally think if you guys don't get down to the heart of the problem, which is the min buy in amount and you just try to put a quick fix on this problem, you will just make the overall state of the games worse than they are and upset a lot of players in the process. I really hope this isn't Stars big fix for the ratholing issue and you have something more in store for us. If not Stars will become a complete laughing stock for big bet cash game poker.

This would be easy to differentiate, but harder to judge. An appropriate default might be to allow someone to rejoin a game for less than they left with iff they are using "their last remaining money"; those with additional money in their account must wait for the timer, or release funds by splitting a stack and playing in fewer games.

as a user of pokerstars i think that ratholing must dissapear by raising the minimum to 35bb or more like FTP system

as for the time to ratholing like others users say it has to be for hours at least 6 hours

fwiw FTP made it 35BB and the short stackers just found a way around it, you need to just structure it in such a way where they cannot "beat" the system. It has to be atleast 40bb as there is a huge difference between 35 and 40.

fwiw you can make it like 1 hour for stack sizes 50bb+ but if they bought in for 20, ran it up to 40 then they have to keep that 40 for 24hrs. There are a million solutions but 2-3 hours and a small increase in minbb isnt a solution it just changes the problem.

who cares about the timer? im not pissed off because ratholer X left with 800 and returned with 400 a little while later. im pissed because ratholer X is replaced with ratholder Y who is replaced by ratholer Z....and to get rid of each one someone also has to double them up along the way, and if we dont our games are constrained because we cant open as much.

wtf does a rathole timer have to do with anything?

Ratholers will just move to other tables with my money due to a longer timer and the next person in line will still be more shortstacks. It's karma when a ratholer double ups through me, leaves the table, comes back in 30 minutes, and I bust him, then he rebuys, and I beat him for even more money. The longer timer will extend the timeframe for me to gut the luckbox Rats.

The solution, as mentioned previously is raising the minimum buy in to at least 35-40BB's to all regular tables. It will also make the games more enjoyable for the regs and the fish.

Wizard of odds said that a 3 hour timer would effectively kill his ratholing strategy. Its seems like it would be a reasonable compromise between 12 hour and 1 hour. As to the structure you need to get cap games up and running and raise the buyins in the regular tables. Nothing particularly original about it, but it seems like the best solution.

introduce a filter for 'hide empty' tables at the least, this is very easy and lets you filter away some of the chaff. an ftp customisable filter would be ideal of course

Couldn't you just make it so if your account has less than your previous buyin you have to buyin for your whole roll (which will be less than what you left the table with)?

60 minutes minimum. Several hours would be great