It's pretty silly hearing anti-shortstacking rants coming from someone who used to shortstack.

Haha I realize that! Looking back I think I misinterpreted your post where you were pointing out the way the tables were at the moment you looked at them. On first read, it looked like you were refuting my post based on info that occured well after I wrote my post. But I did see that you qualifed what you were saying later on in your post by admitting it was much later in the day. My aplogies for missing that.

OP, I believe your main assumption is flawed. Recreational players aren't hoping to play deep stack poker, the OPPOSITE is true. That's why they buy in for less than maximum and don't rebuy. I've seen several donk friends of mine table select by choosing the one that has the least money on the table, because they don't want to get bullied by any big stacks!

I use this fact all the time when I start new 6max tables: I buy in for less than 50bb, which makes the fish choose to play with me MUCH more than that other reg sitting at two tables alone with 100bb.

This really isn't the point. Of course I would be lying if I said I didn't want to make more money, but what this is primarily about is the fact that the games are turning into a joke and that I believe letting these shortstackers do their thing is detrimental to the product Poker Stars puts out and the integrity of high stakes games.

Based on many of the posts here and the opinions I have heard over the years, people don't truly understand the situation. I hear things like, "maybe short stackers prefer to play that kind of poker" or "They figured out how to exploit the regulars so they deserve to make what they make." These statements are rediculous if people understood how simple short stacking is and how they're exploiting the fact we want to play "real poker", not exploiting good players in general. If we all decided to play short stack poker, the short stackers would die because the way we play would be suited for short stack poker and playing optimally versus them. But because we raise hands like 67s and 3 bet with hands like 78s etc, the short stackers can shove versus a range that beats ours, and not only ruin the action in the hand versus the full stack players, but exploit the fact that we are playing good poker. This is not right.

Shortstacking is something you could teach a ten year old in like 1 day or two. It's not complex. You can literally exploit the best players in the world by printing off a chart and correctly following it. There is something wrong with poker when the highest levels can be beat by people who don't know that a flush beats a straight! I wish I was joking. But that particular set of knowledge is not even necessary to make money at 5/10nl as a shortstacker. Of course if you want to be a better short stacker, being a good player will help, but YOU CAN ACTUALLY BEAT HIGH STAKES POKER AND NOT KNOW A FLUSH BEATS A STRAIGHT! Something is wrong with that.

I stand by all my original points. Granted, people will have issue at times with the way I do my thing as well, and people are entitled to that opinion. But all I am really looking for is that you need to actually be able to play good poker in order to beat the best players in the world. It wouldn't seem like asking to protect the integrity of poker at the highest levels would be something people wouldn't be in agreement on, but nothing surprises me anymore.

BTW, Moonshine really said it best in this thread. Great post!

Heres your whole post in 1 sentence.

Posting this in the same thread where you bemoan the fact that the games are overrun by shortstackers makes me think you're kind of a dumbass. How many busto railbirds and microstakes grinders do you think you just motivated to start shortstacking?

Leatherass, you cant make statements like "YOU CAN ACTUALLY BEAT HIGH STAKES POKER AND NOT KNOW A FLUSH BEATS A STRAIGHT!"

Yes, you shortstacked and think it is easy. However, you forget that you are a world-class player and certainly know the hand rankings of a flush and a straight. Until you take a mouthbreather and teach him to beat HIGH STAKES INNANET POKER (without showing him a hand ranking chart), please stop saying retarded, unverified ****.

I fail to see the problem with 50bb and regular tables. Its too bad all the regular games run and stuff, Pokerstars should stop that ****.

Start 50bb tables

OP is right.

Hmmm is it making money?Well,if so then everybody can try to make that money the way they want,you protect the bummhunter well i protect the shortstacks(even tough i hate them big time).This Op just dont make any sence at all and thats why i just change the shortstackers for the bummhunters because they both have the right to play and i am sure most schortstackers try to make money as well just like the bumms.......

I hope i do know what this game is about otherwise the past five year been a waste of time.

Peace

lol no. How the hell does a reacreational player know who is a regular and who isn't?

increase the time limit on buying in at the same table for a different amount

um...how do you know short stackers aren't amateurs? I won some freeroll monies on PS and grinded it up to $22 and then got bored and short stacked a .25/.50 game. I was the fish and I was the amateur short stacker.

op thinks 50bb is as short stack too (if I understood correctly)/ he would want everyone to buyin for 100bb min....

Isn't the ridiculous amount of mass multi-tablers like yourself way, way more detrimental to the online cash games than the short-stackers?

I don't have any data readily available to prove my case either, but I think it would be much easier to make a case for that, than your weak attempt at laying the blame on the short-stackers.

Even just among the "semi-recreational" poker players I know and play with live, many I've talked with (40-50 persons recently, at least) has just given up on playing small- to mid-stakes cash-games completely, as they don't want to compete with people who sit at 12 to 24 tables, bumhunting to such an extreme that they need to piss in a bottle. Many of these guys are winning players, but the hourly online when playing $1/2-ish is so ridiculous now that you need to mass multitable to squeeze any kind of significant money out of it, compared to the much softer (and much more fun!) live play.

There's a lot the poker sites could do to combat this trend, but anything that would cut down short-term on the rake seems to be a no-go. And that's simply also why they don't want to disallow short-stacking.

(I'm not a short-stacker, by the way. But I don't really mind them. I play a little 6-max mid-stakes now and then for fun, and it sucks a lot more to play a bunch of multi-tablers than having a short-stacker or two on the table.)

The mass multi-tabling set-mining nits killed all the fun of playing full-ring, the mass-tabling sit-out bumhunters killed the fun of HU. 6-max seemed the last refuge, but it now seems to be going in the same direction. No wonder people are migrating to PLO.