Steve stated that they need to give at least as many identities as the table limit, because each table you're on requires an identity. So if you had only 6 identities, you could play only 6 tables. Just lengthen the expiration period of the identities, IMO.

the sad thing is that afaik other sites are all exactly the same in how they differentiate taking rake from plo compared to nlhe.

we just expect more from stars given they are a better site and have had the opportunity to have the difference explained to them repeatedly.

im really interested in finding out what the other solution is. definitely sounds promising, and delay in implementation possibly means it actually could be doing something real.

eldodo42, i dont want to be rude but if you played plo for the last years, how can you be here the main adviser about ratholing in nlhe? You are not competent.
Pokie, dont you undestand that it is a dream of every recreational to double each stakes one day from microlimits to high stakes? Thousands of recs try to do it every day, by probabilty only a few do it and they are desired players on highstakes, so calculate and it would be more than 6-8 ratholing per day.

This is why we would set the timer shorter.

This is very, very wrong. People that have played with 40bb for years will not suddenly learn to play with 80+bb instead of giving up a little rakeback. What you are also not considering is that by implementing this system, the value of being able to shortstack/rathole goes up, so you are basically upping the reward for being multiaccounting. Now instead of a bunch of shortacks at the table, you can be the only one if you just multiaccount and give up a little rakeback. Seems like something a lot of people would do.

Yeah, then in that case, making it 3 x 20 hours or 4 x 20 hours would be a suitably lengthy expiration date, I agree with you there.

That also means that I agree that the player gets assigned the shortest stack identity of their 24 identities, so long as the expiration date is long, like four days worth ideally.

If it's 24 identities with each identity having an expiration date of 24 hours or less, then this will make no difference to the games at all.

Also, if someone is using his first out of 24 identities and is playing at table Alpha. The player eventually leaves table Alpha with 85bb's.

He looks in the lobby and sits down at table Beta and he also sits down at table Alpha again. Does he start at each table with 40bb's, as he is just using two new, unused stack identities? I think this is fine personally.

No, the timer needs to be made longer. If we have it as 24 tables with a 20 hour expiration date, then virtually no one will be affected and this will be an irrelevant change. Most 40bb player's first stack identities will have long since expired by the time it takes them to have 24 stack identities at 60bb's+.

This is only a relevant change if 50%+ of the whole 40bb reg player pool is now affected by the change and suddenly they are forced to play deeper more often as they have run out of 40bb stack identities.

With the change you are proposing, I can see only 2% to 5% of the 40bb reg player pool being affected.

Our 120 minute timer for seating at the same table will remain.

Couldn't this timer interfere with the 18 or 20 hour timer set on the 24 stack identities?

As I understand it, the stack identity system exists currently, but it is only table specific and lasts for 2 hours at that particular table.

By introducing the 24 individual dynamic stack identity concept, this conflicts with the current system.

For example, I sit at table A with 40bb's, I leave 10 minutes later with 65bb's. I then sit down at 24 different tables at once with 65bb's on one table and 40bb's on 23 other tables.

I then quit one of the tables that has 40bb's on.

I then reopen table A and sit down with my only free identity available of 40bb's. Would this suddenly force this 40bb identity to be a 65bb identity like one of my other identities that is already parked on another table?

now that a better notion of what a player is has been established: a fixed sized container for stacks, let's see if we can classify player types.

playerA - buys-in at one table, doubles up, leaves table and opens two tables, putting 1/2 of the stack he won on each
playerB - doubles up, leaves table and puts the stack he won at a table at a higher stake
playerC - opens 2 tables, doubles up, leaves 2 tables, joins 2 tables with min buy-in

it may not always be so easy to spot the ratholer, but you should get a pretty good idea of how players behave in the newly defined context. why C is unwanted can be argued quite easily - this player is always taking money off the tables, where A and B keep their money at the tables.

question is, how to know this in advance? i can't think of a way to do so, but a way to go could be to define multi-tabling better.

but then again, this may just be a wild idea.

I've been thinking about these ratholer suggestions a lot and i think it is way to complex. Its hard to explain to people and i see a lot of loopholes. It also imposes a disadvantages for people playing many hands a day. It will be an advantage for pure bumhunters who just play with droolers and hence few hands a day.

Therefore i think the best way to go about this is making 3 table types, 20bb cap, 40bb cap and 75bb-200bb tables and name the last one the "normal" table (for plo just 40bb cap and 75bb-200bb 'normal' ones, no need for 20bb plo raketrap). This solves the ratholing problem in a way easier way. Offcourse it has nagatives too, but i feel like its better then the complicated system.

That's very hard do believe.
Is there any way you could provide some numbers or any explanation how is this possible.

Thank you.

Hello. I am playing 2/4+ 40bb . I want to know what everybody mean when you talk about "ratholig" ?
Ratholing = double up and leaving a table? ( if the recreation player on the table is necessary ? )
Many 100 bb players when double up also leaves tables.
If 40 bb regs and 100 bb regs have the same rights it is unfair to force 40 bb players to play 80 bb+ because 100bb players have advantage .

18-20 hours is too much time . Imagine , 40bb player end his session and go to sleep, He wake up after 8 hours and want to play. But he cant play his favourite 40bb . He can play only 80bb+. He wont play and start to play on another poker site instead of playing on Poker Stars.
Thats why it is reasonable to reduce identity time to 8 hours. It is very reasonable.

p.s. All this changes in this topic are very difficult for understading for me. For recreational player this rules are very difficult for understading. Somebody can decide to play on another poker site where rules are simple.

If you want to make something with ratholes you can only make 1 simple thing. Increase the returning time to the tbale up to 24-8= 16 hours. So the shorties would create new tables in table starter. There will be more game = more rake for stars

Right, because shortstackers never get stacked.

Thx my Russian friend, that would make a lot of people happy!

I'm just an interested observer who doesn't even play ring games, but I'm curious as to how many recreational players we think are 24-tabling with 40BBs? I really don't see how anyone other than a professional ratholer would ever need 24 "stack identities?"

I don't think we need to define player types in this situation at all. The players you describe above, A and B are fish, pure and simple. Player C is typically a reg but could be a fish.

Either way, the simple way to define between the fish and the ratholing regs is volume. The fish don't play lots of volume for the simple reason that they can't as they lose all their money before significant volume can be acheived. The ratholing regs can get lots of volume in because they are profiting (slightly) from the game. Simple.

So we should just be coming up with a solution that effects high volume players but doesn't hurt the low volume players in any way.

Lets not try and confuse things and delay stuff even more by trying to make things more complex and attempting to define player types and everything, this isn't necessary. We want results now, not more discussion.

I'm not having a go, I'm just worried about discussions getting led down the wrong paths, that can stall things.

+1

....but i don't have high hopes anymore....

dont underestimate recreational. You think he can't play 24 sng or mtt per day? The same is with ring games, sometimes they reach the limit. So imagine a businessman, depositing 5k every month.
One day on tilt he reaches the limit and can't buy in small amount. So do you really think you can explain to him this complicated solution? He don't give a.
And he will never ever play Pokerstars.

Pokie,

You can't just treat people differently based on stuff like volume, number of tables played, etc. The goal is to come up with a set of rules that would be adequate across the whole field of players. What you are essentially saying is along the lines of: If you are an Supernova, you can't rathole, but if you are a Gold Star, rathole as much as you want. That isn't fair and further I'm sure Stars would never consider it.

ty, this leads to a pretty accurate definition: significant are stack transfers actively executed by a player.

Just checked the lobbies of 1/2 NLHE 6m & 9m and PLO 6m.
Came up with the following:

Less than 10% Shortstacks at NLHE 6m.
Over 40% Shortstacks at NLHE 9m.
Slighlty over 20% Shortstacks at PLO.

I don't know the reg/fish distribution at NLHE but at PLO half of the shorties were big fish and the other half mediocre regs (not a single decent one when i checked).

By the looks of it I'd say it is a problem at 9m NLHE only, so I don't get it why other games/formats are changed?
It's the same nonsense again treating NLHE (9m) & PLO the same.

I'll check the lobby later/tomorrow again to confirm numbers, but don't expect much different results.

No, this is not what I am saying at all. Gold star players still have to put in decent volume unless they are midstakes+.

I am on about super low volume players that play until they bust; they are one group of players. The other group of players is everyone else.

So we treat the recreational players well and don't interfere with how they want to play the game, because they're the customers and their money feeds everyone including stars. All other non-recreational players are the ones that most people don't want ratholing 80bb stacks off of the table.

I agree with the first paragraph. This identity thing sounds kinda cool at first but when you think about how to make people understand how it works it's just tilting. Too complicated, subject to abuse, difficult to understand, clearly far too difficult to implement etc etc.

Please, please, please no to the second paragraph. Further segregation of the player pool would be worse than the way things are now. We've already been there and done that and it was horrible. If these are the ideas that this guy is going to push for I seriously caution this community for advocating that he go to any future meetings.

The best idea to date was simple, effective, easy to understand, easy to implement, could be coded by Stars' development on their coffee break and would only negatively effect a very small and possibly fictitious segment of the player pool.

That idea that was put forth last year that had a lot of support by this community was limiting the amount of times a player could buy in short to 'X' in a 24 hour period.

When X is set to the optimal number 2 things happen that help to create a poker utopia.

1. Recreational players can continue to enjoy the game the same way they always have because they aren't putting in enough volume for X to have an impact. Even on the off chance that they do hit X in the time frame, a pop up with a link to the website explains the rule and the recreational player finds it easy to understand and most likely shrugs it off as no big deal since this would be a rare occurrence rather than a link to an 18 page document about stack identities that causes them to cash out, uninstall and go play WOW.

2. Small scale ratholing still exists but systematic ratholing is completely eradicated.

So what's the problem?

Stars rejected this idea because of the negative impact it would have on a very particular segment of the player pool. These players are those who:

a) buy in short
b) do not rathole
c) play enough tables or long enough sessions for the limitations imposed by X would not allow them to continue enjoying Poker Stars the way they currently do.

For the rest of this post, I'll just refer to these players as non-ratholing-shortstackers or NRS players for short and hope to make it clear to all that they are indeed fictitious or at the very best an extremely minute group. These players by definition differ from a purely recreational or beginner player in the sense that they play enough tables simultaneously for X to effect them.

I'm sure most regs who play the games day in and day out will agree that this group of NRS players are far and few between. Most players that buy-in short across a substantial number of tables rathole at a predetermined amount the vast majority of the time.

There are of course those ratholers who do stay when they know that the table conditions are too good for them to leave some of the time, but for the most part they are systematically ratholing.

But according to SteveD, there are NRS players who are not systematically ratholing who would be negatively effected by X. This is the only reason why we can't just go forward with X. I've seen these players at my tables that Steve is talking about. They buy in for 40bb and I've noticed them across a dozen or more of my tables with multiple stack sizes sometimes ranging from 40bb up to 200bb. I'd watch them to expect them to leave when the bb came around to them and to my surprise they would stay.

So now I'm completely contradicting myself right? I called them fictitious and yet I admit to have seen them at the tables. The contradiction is in the fact that there is literally no way that these players are NEVER ratholing. Perhaps they don't systematically rathole to maintain a mathematical advantage over larger stacks, but it is almost impossible for them to be true NRS players because that would imply that they never leave a table mid session and replace it with a min buy-in at another table.

Let's take a presumed NRS player that opens 12 tables at the beginning of his session and seeks to maintain that number of tables as that is what they are comfortable with and helps them to hit their vpp/volume goals and what not. For this player to truly be a NRS player, they must never leave a table other than to end their session. This is where I call BS and say that NRS players are fictitious. If a player is playing enough tables to be effected by X then they are almost certainly employing some semblance of a strategy or system at the tables.

There are a lot of reasons why a supposed NRS player could leave a table with a stack size greater than 40bb and open another table with exactly 40bb other than for the sole intention of ratholing.

One reason is that the table goes shorthanded. A NRS player who is mass tabling is probably not going to want to play shorthanded especially since things are actually more complicated for these guys because they're playing such a wide range of effective stack sizes at a given time.

Another reason is just realizing that either the table or their particular seat is just -EV for them so they leave regardless of what their stack size is. That is fine but if they happened to buy-in for 40bb and leave with 45bb, then sit down at another table with 40bb again, it's still a rathole.

This is why this group has to be fictitious. Sure there are players who put in the volume but don't deliberately rathole for the typical reasons, but they still rathole. Should we make exceptions to rules based on intent? Certainly NOT!!! That could only lead to another year of meetings of discussion on how best to implement software features that reads peoples minds to determine whether they are ratholing to maintain a mathematical advantage over larger stacks or for other trivial reasons.

I can respect Stars for not wanting to alienate any segment of their player pool, however, its hypocritical to go to these lengths of not implementing a near perfect solution to the problem so as to not alienate a minute or completely fictitious segment of the player pool at the expense of a very large and loyal one.

I hope Stars can see the light here and stop pretending that NRS players are a real thing worth working around. Even if they never ever intentionally rathole, they still have to be doing it some of the time unless they just mindlessly 24 table with with 40-200bb stacks with no regard for any kind of table selection.

Oh but wait, that would be impossible because nobody is putting in that volume with zero table selection and beating today's games. Implementing X amount of short buy-ins in a 24 or 18 hour or whatever would actually benefit these NRS players regardless of whether they are winning or losing.

In order for them to be winning players without systematically ratholing then they must be competent at their stakes with deeper stacks so they benefit by not being allowed to buy-in short great than X times in the given time frame and play deeper more often. Not to mention the fact that mass tabling is easier when your stack size is more consistent. When I 24 table and see a flop with a player who has 67bb I dont need to look at my stack because I know that I have them covered. The only time I need to glance at my own stack is when I am involved with players that are at least semi deep since the difference between 100-125bb stacks is pretty negligible. Mass tabling, buying in short and not ratholing would require you to check your own stack size every single time you are in a hand with a player over like 45bb. Anybody who multi tables knows that fractions of seconds are precious so playing more consistent stack sizes would benefit these supposed NRS players especially if they are already winning.

If they are losing players (can't understand why anybody would put in substantial volume for X to be a factor and still not be winning at least post rakeback) then you are doing them a favor by either a) limiting their volume a bit and thereby making their bankrolls last longer or b) giving them an incentive to rethink their game plan.

Please Stars, just do it. Limit the number of short buy-ins to some optimal number for some optimal time frame and just be done with it. It would be the best thing you've done in the last couple of years.

totally agree

consider raising the upper limit at 40-100bb tables to ~300bb and implement these ratholing restrictions to all stack sizes, otherwise its fair enough to create different cap tables...
still cant understand the problem of ratholing at zoom tables...