as I said I don't know of any players at my stakes with positive wr who don't practice good game selection. and I like to check how other regs are doing fairly often.. if games were beatable without game selecting, I should probably see at least a few players who are not game selecting and have a positive wr.
however the only non-game selectors are the very high volume grinders (with negative wr pre-rb).

ok, if you want to go by the net-withdrawing definition, then your zoom-player only suggestion would kill the low-mid volume players and would only keep very high volume grinders alive. whereas fish would still get destroyed almost as hard. even rb whores can destroy a calling station pretty fast.

Well, there's no reason someone would play 2 to 4 tables without game selection. The "rb whores" are typically playing too many tables to game select effectively. So to that extent, I'll grant there does exist a dichotomy, although the division is more along the lines of playing habits.

Is there any sample of players who play few tables, don't game select, and are otherwise good players? It seems like an unlikely combination. Also, what about that Mieses dude?

Regardless of what happens here, the games will get better after I release my free pamphlet, "How to Lose at Poker." I'm not kidding half as much as I should be.

What if you could only join a Zoom player pool once, not four times like in Rush? This would change the distribution of hands between grinders and not-grinders.

I've had this conversation with a number of other players who play 5/T and maybe shot take to 10/20, so people who aren't 10/20, 15/30, or higher regs. The general consensus is that a 0.75BB/100 to 1BB/100 winner gets at least 1-1.5BB/100 or his edge from game/seat selection. Thus, the majority of winners would lose after rake playing with either no or negative selection. If you compare 3/6 or 5/T rake to 15/30, the numbers might be different. Traditionally, the rake isn't low at 5/T. I don't think I can prove this assertion, but it is the feeling of the people I talked to that all of our edge before rake would be lost w/o selection.
If you win zero or lose before RB, you're completely at the mercy of the RB program. If they make a change, say to WC, it has a huge impact on your bottom line.
Reducing the number of tables is a separate issue. 8 FR winners who 20 table require 40 single tabling fish to have 20 games running for profit. Fish outnumber winners 5:1 and yet you experience 4 winners per fish at the table. I'm not sure how your single table only zoom poker figures in this. Can you get volume at a limit you can make a living at given this constraint?

I don't know of such a sample. I do know however that I don't see long term high winrate (like 1,8-2+) guys anymore even among the best at my stakes. The best seem to be howering around 1-1,5. Take away game selection and that easily drops to close to zero. Take away high volume for rb and it's not worth it anymore.

Mieses - I don't really see him playing in bad games much. Doesn't seat select though.

I agree big time with this. Personally its Stars VIP system that promotes these Nits to just play, play and play and not to improve and open up their games, thus making it quite boring. They can BE or slightly lose and still be profitable players with high volume through the VIP system. Are they annoying as **** and I'd like to see them go, sure but do I blame them, no.

Dont think there is anyone out there with 1BB+ winrate at 6max games who doesnt table select (last 12 months anyway. Ofc smallstakes+). Make table selection impossible and i also doubt u would end up with many 1BB+ winners, despite assuming that a lot of good players quit.
The only once who would benefit from it im pretty sure are those who already do no table selection (guys who now are in the zero to -1.5BB winrate range). A ton of current 1-2BB winners would probably turn into BE guys, and hence a ton would probably quit PS.
So you would end up with games that are made up of a lot fewer players than today.

I also agree that having promotions that so heavily favor big volume players does not make as much sense in 2012. So to take away some of the rakeback they get and instead put it into fish-friendly promotions or bonuses seems like a smart move to me.

I fully agree that if there's a solution for keeping the games alive and healthier long term, this is it.

+1

I agree the only thing that makes the games beatable at 2/4+ is game selection. If Zoom were the only option, the only way to beat the games would be mass multi-table nit VPP grind, which is what everyone wanted to eliminate in the first place!

If Zoom must be added to FL, then please keep it to 1/2 at the highest, maybe only .5/1. I'm pretty confident it would destroy the games at stakes higher than that.

I'm not saying you guys are completely wrong, but there are a few logical holes.

1) If the bigger winners left the games, that's a lot of money no longer coming out of the ecosystem. That money has to go somewhere. It's not all getting raked away.

2) If you could only join a player pool once, you can't mass-multi-table. This skews the distribution of hands played away from the MMTers and towards recreational players and 2-to-4-tablers. I think you're underestimating the impact of this. Remember when people could only 4-table?

I'm confident that if zoom-only was implemented in the exact manner I advocate, the games would improve. I'm not confident, however, that Stars will implement it in this fashion. The precise implementation will determine the fate of the games.

I've seen a lot of ideas thrown around last few days, but no one mentioned fighting to get the rake lowered. The rake is still too freaking high and the battle to get the rake lowered must continue.

Several keep talking about mass tabling Zoom. You CAN'T mass table Zoom, you only got 4 entries in Rush per stake. GB is taking it to the extreme with the only one entry idea, but his point is valid. There is no mass tabling. Volume possible yes, mass tabling no.

Also I haven't heard anyone refute my claim that by not having a Limit Rush SNE path you marginalize Limit...NL CAP wasn't just filled with people that liked short stacking. It was filled with people using it as a method to get as high up the milestone ladder as possible because it was a easy-ish game to play. NL CAP became the "new limit poker". If there is no NL CAP Zoom, there might might might might (you see me saying might?) be a big group of players coming over/back to limit to make a run at SNE...if there is a stake high enough to do it like $2/4.

NL CAP starting being the alternative to NL. I have no idea if there will be NL CAP Zoom, but if there isn't, there could be a nice pick up of players for Limit as the alternative to NL. And not all those folks will be skilled limit players, chasing SNE or otherwise.

since 2-4 and 3-6 are so close anyway , how about : offer 3-6(or 2-4) as ZOOM only??
and then to avoid nittyness make the sb and bb the same size in that game.

a verry clear point in favour of ZOOM would be if gets offered on smartphones!
I think specifficaly FL could benefit from this since its regarded as a less intense game so more easily playable on the bus or during coffee breaks or whatever.