TLB for >40 man SNGs, i posted on this thread where BryanPS posted the new TLB (Yearly and Monthly)...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61...26/index6.html

trying to take advantage of the oportunity and promote a TLB for 180s SNGs, if you´re a 45s or a 180s SNGs grinder please get in there and help us making a >40 man SNG TLB a reality

and if they do they'll make changes to try and fix that. Stars are well ran. they aren't going to bollocks everything up for a gimmick

+1000 to leaderboards for 45 & 180m

-1 to zoom mttsngs. I'm concerned about the quality of the game; loose recs being able to spam fold for new hands, also the lack of table dynamics - flow/image - pretty much only being able to use your HUD. I can't see the overall tightness of the zoom games being appealing to anyone.

Also: anything new regarding the potential 45m structure change, ie surveys or w/e?

I'm not saying I'm for zoom, but people worried about randoms hitting fold a lot obviously didn't play rush on ftp. Those were some of the softest games ever. Fish play J4s because they think it's a good hand, not because they are bored.

I can't fathom how anyone can think giving every player a ****ing great big FAST FOLD button and the option to immediately receive new cards without waiting for the current hand to play out can have any other effect than to encourage them fold more.

Langerdang (a few posts ago) and teamtrousers (on the previous page) both pretty much nailed it re zoom mtsngs. Alex's patronising, know-it-all style of posting has become quite tiresome, especially as he's nowhere near as smart as he apparently believes himself to be based on his last few posts itt.

I wouldn't say it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but on ftp the fish still played like fish, sometimes even fishier.

I think in their eyes the lack of table image was a bigger deal than the quick fold, and some of them thought they could now play ATC like maniacs and get away with it because they are supposed to be playing tighter. It was usually their bet sizing and timing that gave it away.

That said, it is a different game and kindof meh, but whatev. Focus on the other drawbacks then if you dont like it. The fold button is not the problem.

that is what I was thinking would be good about starting at 25-50. Let rebuys go until end of 150-300 w/ante level. Would be bunch more rebuys and bigger prize pool.

I don't understand this whole ZOOM thing, ZOOM has been around for years, it is called stacking not ZOOM.

I completely disagree with this. I think it's kind of biased because you agree with their opinions. When really nobody knows what effect Zoom SNG's will have.

I guess I can see where others are coming from with the "know-it-all" part but AWice says numerous times it's his opinion of what will happen. He also tries to help others a lot with no personal gain and I think his posts in here and MTT strategy are some of the most valuable (as in top 3 posters overall) on the forums. Please don't stop posting!

Okay here is like a Q and A for zoom.

Zoom will make games tighter and thus less soft.
Same argument applies for zoom cash games, and they are as soft as ever. Also, FTP ODR MTTs were extremely soft.

Zoom is harder to multitable
If you currently play 15 tables, you play say 900 hands an hour. Now if you 6 table zoom, you are going to get the same 900 hands an hour. I even think its easier to multitable because when you get to tile 6 tables instead of stack 15, you can keep the context of the hand better in your mind, because when you say, defend your BB, you see the flop come down, instead of it disappearing for a bit and popping back up later.

You won't be able to put in volume in Zoom
Actually you can put in more volume because its easier to get to your maximum play capacity. Eg. say you have the capacity to play 1800 hands an hour. Reg 12 zoom tables and bam, you are at capacity. If you regged 30 normal tables it would take a lot longer. And yes there will be people 12 tabling rush tiled. ****, there were players 16 tabling rush cash games on FTP. And no this isn't "200 hands a minute." 1 rush table = 2.5 normal tables in terms of hands/hr. This means 4 rush tables = 10 normal tables, not "16-18". This is based on actual hands/hr in the actual games that happened.

(*) A note about Stars ZOOM algorithm
ZOOM on PS is actually different from RUSH on FTP. They sound very similar but the algorithm for choosing who sits where is different. On FTP you are in a pool when you fast fold, and the tables are drawn from that pool. That means you are more likely to play hands versus fast folders. On PS they use a more complicated algorithm. This makes it so that it is more fair. This also makes it so that there is more of a delay between hands, especially if there are only a few tables (just like ZOOM at high stakes cash.) Between this and reverting to a normal tournament after one hour, the late stages of a tournament won't be stressful, and playing ZOOM in general won't be as mentally demanding.

Strategy will evolve faster since players will want to develop default ranges
This already happened and will happen regardless of zoom. Basically as players mature and play more tournaments, they will encounter the same spots over and over again and will want to develop some idea of what to do in them. The biggest evidence of this is that PS has been raking less and less from the games over time with the exact same rake policy. The reason is because players on average are playing tighter every year. If this happens it is actually implied that Zoom is successful, because the reason that Joe Blow got better at poker is because Joe will end up playing 25 tournaments on his off day instead of 10 (because they are zoom tourneys and he only has a couple hours a day to play) and over time this will add up.

I agree with most of the above but it is all most applicable to cash games.

I like how you avoided every point I made though and just came back with some math, like I said most of which is not very applicable to ZOOM as a tournament format. It's a positive for cash games because it eliminates bumhunting which was well on the road to ruining the games.

Have you played a lot of ZOOM in cash game format to substantiate your claim that they're "as soft as ever"?


This is true but they were still a young game in the greater scheme of things when FTP went under. They'd be really soft on PS to begin with too but this is why your claim that the "anti-Zoomers" are being short-sighted is laughable because the exact opposite is true.

I don't think you can accurately make comparisons between FTP Rush and what Stars Zoom will be like in terms of softness. Games were soft on FTP Rush for a number of reasons:
1) FTP was softer than Stars
2) It was pre-BF
3) FTP had US fish as well as Spain, Italy, France
4) FTP had an extra 140mil or so on the site that shouldn't have been from failed deposits.

All good points. ^^

Imagine games full of players with pseudo funds in their account splashing around, must have been nice.

now that you bought ftp (ty for that) plz plz plz plz keep the turbo-deepstack-knockout 90s in fulltilt... cant wait to play them again!

TLB for 180s is unlikely so let's get creative and come up with some good promo ideas that Stars will go for. Couple points we should focus on.

1-Simple and straight forward (imo the BOP is so confusing and can't imagine a rec player understanding it)

2-Benefits wide spectrum of players from the recreational player to pro grinder, promotes playing more but not impossible for a casual player to compete at fair level

feel free to add more pointers and without further delay here is an idea I have.

This could even be an ongoing bonus

micro 180 Trifecta--win a $1, $2.50, and $4.50 180 in a calendar day and win $x prize or ticket to online mtt.

med 180 Tri--win a $3r, $8, and $15

high roller 180 Tri-$15,$35, $60

180 Superfecta--this one could have a monster prize and maybe first person to do it wins a year of free entries into the Sunday Million. Win a $8, $15, $35, and $60 in one day.

Similar variation could be hitting for the 180man cycle in a week, winning one of each buy in.

happy hour on sngs.

Instead of FPP and VPP increase I would like to see those funds applied to the prizepool, so nice overlay for everyone. What about double prizepool promo, that wouldn't cost that much and would be awesome.

Really?

I like smkdsalmon51s idea a lot, but I really don't see promos happening too often for 180s, for every $3r that kicks off stars makes less than $50, maybe $30 pre RB, they take up the server time for 2hrs just for $30.
I just don't see where the moneys going to come from to run such a promo.

double prizepool promo would be great. Or maybe just give us all $7.50 cash for every $15 180 we play.

They throw around millions of dollars for those Billion Milestone promos and the MTT/SNG players get zero of that promo.

$2.50 180 with double prize pool is $410.40 - $39.6(rake) = $370.80 run couple of those every so often and they could even give no VPPs for the games to cut costs.

I think they should start doing 10-25% overlay to 180 man prizepools during off peak hours to get the games going. Little under 10% is breakeven point if my calculations are correct.

How does PokerStars benefit from giving an overlay? Do recreational players care about (or even notice) overlays?

take your logic and reason elsewhere plz

WE DEMAND FREE MONEY

No idea, I always try and pick the brains of casual players and find out what things they like/dislike about the online poker rooms. Isnt much in common everyone has their own absurd favorite things. I have heard numerous complaints about the PStars MTT lobby and have had to help a few casual poker friends find the tournament they were looking for.

I wouldn't be opposed to Stars just giving all the biggest fish direct cash bonuses, would help the games overall and we would all get our share over time.

yeah something really needs to be done to get the 45s and 180s running later at night.

Being a Canadian, after 10:00ET is a pretty common time to play for me and the only time for most Canadian Recs with daytime jobs.

Could be partly due to the POS schedule stars has after the Nightlies finish late reg. In the 180s that do run, it is like 90% fish. Most regs awake at that time dont play because they cant get any volume in but im sure many more would if they could keep regging for a few more hours.

I think some sort of accomplishment recognition would be the best to attract more players/fish such as badges or the trifecta challenge mentioned above.

It doesnt even need to be an expensive promotion as players just love to have something to work towards, even if its an essentially meaningless accomplishment like a badge.

For example, the 11 180's never ran, but adding the "New" text beside it kickstarted many more games.

Just kinda seems like stars has forgotten about MTTSNG players as the games slowly die. Guess i can hope for rush on demand now.