Hi all -
It's the holiday edition of the Roundtable.

Q: Wait - Zoom tournaments?!?!?

A: Yes, indeed. They're in the new software release, so it's just a question of putting a final polish on. We hope they'll be out in the next week or so. Of course, these things occasionally slip, and job #1 is making sure they work properly, but we're getting very close on these.

Q: Are you going to announce changes to the VIP club any time soon?

A: Already announced at the Amsterdam VIP Club Live event. You can watch the awesome PokerStars Steve Day announce them on this video. If you prefer your information in nice dry text form, you can get it here.

Q: How are things in SNG land?

A:

• We've got $3.50 NLHE 9-max Hyper-Turbos now, if that's your bag.
• We just deployed $15 and $30 6-Max NLO-8 Hyper-Turbos
• And, we've started to roll out the auto-unregister functionality from HU SNGs. The first ones to get it are the NLO8 HU Turbos. If a player disconnects for more than 60 seconds while he's registered for one of these, he'll be unregistered as long as the tournament hasn't started yet. We'll deploy this feature across the whole HU SNG space in the near future.

Q: What's new in the cash game world?

A: Well, let's see...

• We've changed the stud game structures to make them a bit more consistent in terms of the size of the antes and bring-ins relative to the stakes. For the most part this involved making them larger where they were particularly small for a particular stake.
• Run It Twice is now on all NLHE and PLO at $.25/$.50 and above. We're also about to deploy it to all flop-based NL and PL games at $.25/$.50 and north.
• Run It Twice is in $.25/$.50 NLHE Zoom, and should in all pools by the end of this week or early next week (with the usual disclaimer that if Something Goes Wrong, there will be a short delay).

Q: And what about MTTs?

A: Biggest news is the Saturday Super-Knockout($154 + $154 + $20) is doing real well after just two weeks. It's on Saturdays (!) at 18:00 Western European Time (19:00 CET). They got 889 runners last week so there's a bunch of money in the pool and the cash structure means that if you knock out one player, you're freerolling after that.

And keep your eyes open for TCOOP announcements soon.

Q: What's this about Open-Face Chinese Poker?

A: All the cool kids are playing it. There's a pretty good description of the rules in this blog post. It's sufficiently popular that we're going to have a seminar about it and a tournament ($2K+$150 buy-in) at the PCA.

Q: So will PokerStars be offering Open-Face Chinese Poker?

A: That's pretty unlikely, to tell the truth. But then again, I never thought we'd offer badugi.

Q: Say more about the PCA...

A: It's the tenth one (ninth at the Atlantis) and this should be the most epic of the bunch. If you've never been to the PCA, you owe it to yourself to come down and participate. The tournament line-up is amazing, there are cash games of every sort, and it's just a glorious gathering of the poker community in a tropical paradise. What's not to love?

Q: I'm sold; how do I qualify?

A: There's a full satellite schedule here. And even if you don't manage to qualify, I encourage you to come on down anyway. You can just walk in and play the cash games and tournaments (there are plenty of side events) and hang out with all your favorite poker players.

And finally, PokerStars Steve and I will be at the PCA, along with a number of folks from the poker management team. If you're there, please look us up and say hi. Meeting players face-to-face is the high point of the event for all of us.

Regards, Lee

Zoom Mtts ...yay !

Saying $3.50, $15 and $30 isn't particularly informative. What's the rake?

+1 to open face chinese poker

hello mr. lee jones,
what do you think about introducing nlo8 heads up with 60, 100, 200 and 500 dollar buyin? these are already there for plo8, so why not nlo8?

These questions seemed staged.

Loving the 15 and 30 dollar nl08 6m hypers. Im sure you guys are watching current traffic and will make decisions in the future but just wanted to say a lot of people would like higher buyins.

Chacon a son gout

• $3.50 = $3.31+$.19
• $15 = $14.41 + $.59
• $30 = $28.83 + $1.17

These questions are staged. However, I'm more than happy to answer interesting and constructive non-staged questions.

Glad you're enjoying the NLO8 hypers. I'm sure the Deliverer of Hyper SNGs will see your post and be appreciative. I'm equally sure he'll consider ramping up the buy-ins if and when he sees success at these levels.

Regards, Lee

Any plans to run satellites to the WSOP main? The passport ones are much higher buy in and run way less frequently than the regular WSOP ones you ran in the past. I'm sure its all due to Black Friday but gotta be something creative you can do to get more seats.

Chacun à son goût.
http://www.robbiewilliams.com/news-b...h-to-their-own

Thanks Lee, lots of nice updates coming.

Do you have any idea when more information will be released about the vpp goals promotion in January?

Lee, any thoughts about shortstacking problem at cash games?

Are there going to be zoom 180s ?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/96...tacks-1253293/

What about the shortstacking and ratholing?

What about low stakes CAP poker rakerape?



What about myJesusSeat abusers. I am victim of this program and will play no hand if same ****ing regs are instasitting on my left again next year January.

+1

Full-ring at 200nl+ is swarmed with them .40bbers now take up most the seats at these tables and the situation seems to be getting worse. Really dont understand why stars doesnt even want to acknowledge the problem, let alone do something about it.

Thanks for the clarification! Not sure I dig the comment though. Who wouldn't want to know how much of each buyin is actually going to into the prize pool that they'll be playing for?

+1 to news about shortstacking/ratholing in NL Full ring games.

Also, are there plans to deploy RIT at stakes below .25/.50?

+1

Lookin like my ticket reads i'm somewhere around +6 to this.



Mr. Jones,

This is obviously and easily the most talked about issue regarding Pokerstars and possibly the Poker World right now. I also believe it was the most talked about issue at the recent 'Player Rep' meeting as well.

There is one thread on this forum that has over 700 comments regarding this issue, the discussion on this thread generally took place prior to the player rep meeting. There is a second thread which started after the player rep meeting that has well over 700 comments as well. This issue is creating a lot of tension in the poker world awaiting answers from Pokerstars. A lot of players' plans and goals for next year are going to be based off what Pokerstars has to say about this issue and it's now December 13th, yet the players can't seem to get a peep out of Pokerstars regarding the problem or any sort of future plans.

Can we please get a comment from Pokerstars regarding this issue, as you can see it is pretty important to a lot of players. A lot of very loyal customers of Pokerstars have put a lot of time and effort into this issue, at the least we deserve a comment on when we can expect a comment.



Thanks for posting info,

Natis

+1

I know this thread is about Stars but shortstacking on full tilt is also a problem. Raise the minimum buyin to 50bb or ideally make it even higher. If someone wants to play a short stack there are cap games and super/hyper turbo sngs specifically designed for that.

It is frustrating when you want to play 100bb poker and have to deal with half the table sitting with 40bb. At least up the minimum buyin on Rush/Zoom.

Deep ante tables aren't the solution, nobody wants to play on those including myself.

+1 to info re: short-stacking infestation; the ONLY issue of interest/relevance to many players. Cheers.

+1 to info on SS situation

what is the problem with 40bb? many players want to play as high as possible so sit with 400 at 5/10 and not with 400 at 2/4. i think the shortstackers are weaker than 100bb players in general so it is an advantage for the good players to keep it.

Lee Jones,

What are Pokerstars plans regarding Hud use? Any possibility of a symbol next to the players screenname designating they are using a Hud?

Jess