We're trying something new here at STTF in order to allow everyone to find the best games, best networks, discuss rake, ROIs(OVER VERY APPROPRIATE SAMPLES (2k+ games)), and more. The Mod team will work to make the appropriate sites aware that we have these threads and that adjusting the rake, structure changes, etc. are probably needed in a lot of cases to bring a lot of volume rake players to their sites.

Is it likely nothing will improve? Yes, however, we still want to give everyone the ability to find their best game if they are sticking with STTs/SNGs.

With all of that in mind, there will be NO tolerance in this thread or any other network thread for inappropriate samples, BBV, trolling, attempts to derail a thread, or inappropriately badmouthing a network. Reviewing a site negatively is fine, but in a constructive way. There will be 0 warning for infractions or bans if necessary regardless of whether its your first post or 20,000th.

If you post a hand, make sure it has relevance to pointing a flaw in the structure of a game, do not post for strategy discussion, post those in STTF.

Awesome idea. The carbon rep has seemed really open to changing things to suit the new players, so hopefully we can get him to look this over. Im still kinda new to networks so im assuming every problem i see with Carbon SNGs are problems that all merge sngs have.

The biggest problem i see so far with merge sngs is how quick the blind structure is. I play the supers so maybe its different at the other games, but there is no level between 200/400 and 500/1k. At least add a 300/600.

Another huge flaw is it will only let 4 tables of each game be available in the lobby at a time. If you want to load up a set of 16, its a big hassle to keep going back to the lobby after a game starts to add another one. There are also a ton of popups you encounter when starting and finishing games.

IDK if this is a problem with the site, but the hhs dont seem to be compatible with sngwiz or HEM(at least partly) The wiz rep has told me that merge support is one of their top priorities. With respect to HEM, i can get the hud up and have every hand in my database, but the buyin doesnt import and neither does the prize won. This makes it hard to track your profits and luck adjusted winnings. I think we should try to get merge to change how they do their hhs, cause ive copy pasted one from HEM and it looks completely different than any other hh ive ever seen. Example

<game id="33672334-26" starttime="20110425181400" numholecards="2" gametype="23" realmoney="true" data="20110425|Hummingbird Room - Super Turbo|33671714-1|33672334-26|true">
<players dealer="1">
<player seat="0" nickname="WWkrzyzewskiD" balance="$2800.00" dealtin="true" />
<player seat="1" nickname="USAgovSUCKS" balance="$2600.00" dealtin="true" />
</players>
<round id="BLINDS" sequence="1">
<event sequence="1" type="SMALL_BLIND" timestamp="1303773242428" player="1" amount="200.00"/>
<event sequence="2" type="BIG_BLIND" timestamp="1303773242428" player="0" amount="400.00"/>
</round>
<round id="PREFLOP" sequence="2">
<event sequence="3" type="ALL_IN" timestamp="1303773244115" player="1" amount="2600.00"/>
<event sequence="4" type="CALL" timestamp="1303773245788" player="0" amount="2400.00"/>
<event sequence="5" type="SHOW" timestamp="1303773246087" player="0"/>
<event sequence="6" type="SHOW" timestamp="1303773246288" player="1"/>
<cards type="HOLE" cards="Ts,Kd" player="0" hand="King High"/>
<cards type="SHOWN" cards="Ts,Kd" player="0"/>
<cards type="SHOWN" cards="7s,As" player="1"/>
</round>
<round id="POSTFLOP" sequence="3">
<cards type="COMMUNITY" cards="8d,Qc,2d" hand="King High"/>
</round>
<round id="POSTTURN" sequence="4">
<cards type="COMMUNITY" cards="8d,Qc,2d,6c" hand="King High"/>
</round>
<round id="POSTRIVER" sequence="5">
<cards type="COMMUNITY" cards="8d,Qc,2d,6c,Jh" hand="King High"/>
</round>
<round id="END_OF_GAME" sequence="6">
<winner amount="5600.00" uncalled="false" potnumber="1" player="1" hand="Ace High" pottype="n"/>
</round>
</game>

From looking at that, it seems one of the problems is that they identify each game by some weird name (humminbird table, dragonfly, instead of the buyin amount and format.

Thats a lot of criticism but overall I really like merge. Its way better imo than bodog or Cake. Id really like to hear if anyone has a decent sample in the supers and what kind of rois theyre getting. I should have 2k games in a week so ill do a TR once I get a few more games in.

From the looks of it, Wiz supports Merge now:

http://www.sngwiz.com/tiki/Release%2BNotes

Could be wrong though

Going along with the hand history problem I have had a few times where a hand has finished and I wanted to open the HH window to review it, and it won't load a HH for the SNG. Anyone else had this problem when playing SNG's?

Verified works with wiz now. Thanks TFG, this is gonna make reviewing so much easier.

so let me post my 11k superturbos graph on merge network plz.



standard?

abi 23$ 3roi. Standard 180 buy ins downswing?

Very small chance of it happening if your true roi was what your roi was at the top of the graph, but within reason if your true roi is closer to 3. Possible either way

Depends what your roi is in the specific games you were playing during the ds. The worst I ever had on FT was 90BI downswing when i had a ~4.5% roi. Those were 65/35 though, Im assuming that 70/30s are gonna be a bit higher variance. I mean 180 is obv possible, but it could be other factors other than just variance. Have they recently changed the structure or the rake? Were you playing higher bis during that last downswing than during other Ive heard that the mid and high stake supers are close to unbeatable right now. I wonder if some regs started moving from FT and Ipoker before black friday. If you had a HEM graph you could obv analyze how much of this is luck based, but I guess that isnt possible on merge yet.

Another gripe about Merge, maybe just Carbon. The sng filters are atrocious. If I want to include 5 dollar games, i also have to include every game up to 22 dollars. And all the super turbo above the 2s are labeled as turbos, so filtering by type doesnt work.

wow nice posts.

My main question is if anyone played 10k sngs with this 70/30 payout structure. I was pretty sure I was runnung hot at the top of the graph and my friends allways said "get ready to it" and I was like "lol games are soft and i m ready for it", than I had it... My stats are like +9roi 2.500 10$s, -0.75 roi 4k 20s, +2.5roi 4k 35s, +6roi 300 50s. I also have a high roi on 100s (played only something like 100), the reason is that I play every 20$ / 35$ and I table select on 50/100/200 buy in.

I m pretty sure a 4/5 roi is possible, at least one guy has made it over +10k games, but I dont know any guy who is winning with 4roi over lets say 15k games who had this kind of dowswing. The swing is more wired because I have made 2/3 really bad calls because of tilt, but my game is very close to what it was in the first 10k games, so I m really wtf fml!!!

oh and nothing u can do about filters

Whatever ROI people have to this point is largely irrelevant going forward. These games are about to get worse, and there's going to be a migration over of good SNG grinders from Stars/Tilt in the next few months, without any corresponding uptick in fish. In fact, fish may deposit less in the near future, being somewhat scared by the headlines of the DOJ action.

Obviously you can still make money, etc., just going to be tougher going forward. At least there's decent rakeback opportunities here when adding in all of the bonuses, promotions, etc. from some of the skins.

+1.

that site is going to turn into a regfest with the quickness.

Heres a carbon/merge software improvement thread. Would hurt to make some suggestions that could make the site more grinder friendly.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...hread-1028039/

There's a lot of reports of bots on the DON's. At least there were a month or 2 ago.

I only put in 1k and I've been playing 50NL, 100NL, and SNG's. All 3 games seem reg infested, often by players that usually play higher but probably only put in an amount like me and are playing lower games.

meh I dont think it will became unplayable ever, because:

1) higher stakes grinders do not have enogh games going on.

2) the ev of small to mid stakes grinder will be very low with 4-5% rake + more reag heavy field.

I have a small to midstakes cash background that made the change because the sngs at this particular network where pretty soft back in the day (limp/calling with 22 or folding with less 1.5bbs on the bb...) . I won the sng leaderboard once and made top5 another 2 times, but if the games get worse I will go back to cash games... and that day may be close. today i just stop registering because we are 6regs opening sng over sng on the 35s and only played one 55 because the second one had 5 regs registeres when I saw it.... sick life.

Have you played many of the supers? Whats your take on them. I almost like the faster structure now. Its amazing how many people will fold their BB when they have 1.5-2BBs behind.

jjyykk you mind commenting a bit more on the 50/100nl play? How many regs we talkin at a 6/9max table?

I play weird offpeak hours but I'm getting about 3-4 regs per 6 max table and super turbo.

Thank you sir! That's not too bad depending on the quality of reg. Guess Ill be finding out for myself soon

I think the fish will come in due time. I also think a lot of it is going to depend on us to spread the word about Merge. We are less than 2 weeks removed from black Friday so I'm pretty sure that the majority of the increased traffic is from regs. I just read that online traffic is down 22% overall (worldwide) since 4/15 which tells me that a lot of the casual players (fish) are staying away at the moment. Once the topics of conversation turn from "Is it safe to play online" to "Damn, I ran good tonight" they will start to come back.

I'm sure we all know fish who play casually. Last night I walked a friend of mine through the Western Union transfer process. The wire transfer sounded like a lot of work to him but today he is donking away money at the tables. I also posted step by step instructions on a sports related forum that I go to and explained how easy it was.

If everyone else does the same the fish will return....

Really good idea lempke. Ive been hanging out in the carbon support thread and answering depo questions and give my opinion when people bash the site.

I think we need to put the pressure on merge to have more sng-centric promos. Pretty much everything they have now is rake races or individual rakeback bonuses. I think a network with different skins is gonna be a lot slower make major changes like that.

Yesterday I played during peak hours and I think the Super Turbos at 20+ are pretty ridiculous. I see FTHater1/Jhub30 (two amazing regs) at nearly every table + there are about 3-4 regs at every single tournament even down to the $10 level.

Obviously some of the regs aren't great but even bad regs will cut down a winrate of a 6 max table. Traffic for other types of SNGs is pretty much dead as of now. There'll be an occasional $22-$55 turbo but probably about 5 per hour at *most*.

Also really wish you could filter for Supers, filter out Doubles, etc on the lobby. The All-In button is really nice on the software though!

I was heads up in a $5 SNG (6 man) touney last night with a guy (PlzCoolerMe) who had an 11% ROI and a $20 avg buy-in on Stars.

This.

Although, it imported the wrong buy amount for me.

Also, the blinds on super turbos normally start at 50/100? I don't play superturbos normally, but I played one and the blinds started high and the stacks were very short. 1,000 I think? Standard?

Played some low stakes STTs on Merge last night... some Turbo and some Std (OMG!). The Std blinds are 7 minutes vs 5 on Turbo, so not that different really.

New blind levels take some getting used to. I do like the blind timer right on the table. Play was soft, but that was probably as much to do with buy-in as network.

There is NO volume. I played several different STTs just to get a few going at once. One STT takes almost as long as a set of 16s took to load on Stars. Also, I do NOT like being unable to see the buy-in without going to the lobby. If I'm playing multiple buy-ins at once, knowning buy-in would help in some decisions.

Had trouble with HUD last night, but think I got it fixed this morning. Otherwise, it's game-on.