Yeah, I don't know what the best fix for a leaderboard formula would be, but its clear that any way that you slice it, the system is ****ed. Like right now 9mans pay 10 pts a player and 18mans pay 8.5 pts.

Just to explain why its impossible to fix, suppose 180mans were on the BOP. If they paid out 10pts per player for these, then the leaderboard would be all 180man players -- do you see why? There's something similar going on in 18mans. Unfortunately, paying out less per player doesn't really solve the problem either, so basically yeah, I don't know what to do.

I think you are onto something though, that hypers are easier to get in more games, and they have less rake paid. So for the people paying more rake and playing less games, they [normal speed and turbo speed players] should have more of a shot to win the leaderboard. So turbos should have some sort of bonus or something.... like for example maybe hypers count as half a game and get half the points.

But anyways all this is kind of moot, we should look into what is going to replace bop.

my guess is that not enough 18m run in the uranus division to give those players a chance to compete with the hyper and turbo grinders. If you go to a bi where 18m traffic is decent i think youll see those guys atop the lb usually. But i could be wrong.

They system is definitely ****ed and needs to be fixed.

I agree that the system is broken and I don't like the disparity of 9 vs 18s in terms of points in BOTP. That being said I overall I love BOTP as a promotion but have seen the rumblings of people hating it. Can I get cliffs on why people want to replace it and with what? I'm not against replacing it per say I just want to understand where people are coming from.

The general reason is that it isn't very efficient at getting new players to play STTs for the amount that is being spent (2.7mil/year).

replace $100 9m with $60 9m and add $15 9m

Like the remove $100 9-man for $60 idea, it's as if we had a conversation on such

Not that the current points are right, but if they're all equal (per player), shouldn't the edge go to the higher variance game? I assume that why Stars adjusts it.

Agree that lower rake games get an added advantage per $ raked. Obvious solution is 18-man hyper ....

well it is in PS interest to have all regs play as break even as possible, so there is no interest in tgetting ROIs up for regs... the emergence of hypers certainly helps with that, but this development is not driven by PS but rather fish enjoying the fast format.

one of the previous posters is absolutely right, you need to follow the fish, not complain about "your game" dying...

While i agree that rake needs adjusting, more important than lower rake would be better promotions (or promotions at all for stt)... what happened to the BoP revamp? why not scrap the systen adn just hand out 7$ tourney tickets accross the board utnil the budget is gone... the money will find its way into the various buy in classes and even a shotgun approach like this would do a lot more for the games than BoP does...


First thing that comes to mind, in a 9 man you acctually "defetaed" every individual player, in a 18 man you profit from eliminations on the other table... still BoP is a flawed system, i think everybody in this thread is in agreement on that...


SO much +1 on this... or any mttsng hypers acctually

I dont get how theyre being shafted when all things being equal, 18m grinders do better in BOP than 6m or 9m?

If people are switching away from 18m for their last few games its because theyre looking to reduce variance and lock in a decent score by placing in their last few. Kinda like folding your way into the money instead of staying aggro and going for 1st. In the past ive actually played 18m for my last few games whenever ive had a high score with a few games left to play.

Like Alex said, take it to its extreme and score 180m games the same way they do 9m. 180m grinders would win a huge majority or the BOP money. The reason that 6m grinders have been doing so well lately (esp at higher stakes) is because hypers go off way faster than 18m and give those players a ton more shot at good laps.

when i played 6.50 and 16$ 18mans 3 years back top20 bop at those stakes was 70% filled with 18man players, highest roi games = highest chance of luckboxing 50+ buyins in 100 games or 30 bis in 20..

oke, lets stop wasting our keyboards on bop if its supposedly going away soon ;>

How about adding the 6max sats to the BOP leaderboard to balance the fact that our player pool has been drained and draw some more players to the satellites?

Could you please elaborate on why you think this, because I don't understand it.

Are you suggesting the lower a reg's ROI, the more games they have to play to make money?

Something like that.

Think he means:
Breakeven regs = rec players' money last longer = more rake.

But breakeven regs = a lot of them stop = less games go off = less rake.
So it's not 100% correct and only works shortterm.

what i was getting at... regs take money out of the poker economy, the lower the ROI the less money they take out; yes if it drops too low regs will stop playing and lilquidity on the poker room goes down, question is if PS is not big enough now that they do not need (so many) regs for liquidity.

Or to summarize the more liquidity per $ taken out a reg has to produe the better for Pokerstars

Okay I did some simulations to try to compare stuff. Here are the results:

Player #1: 6max hyper, 17.1% 1st, 17.1% 2nd, avg 10.26 pts a game , pays $351 rake per block, roi -1.00% + 2.1% rb = 1.10%
Player #2: 18max turbo, 6% 1st, 6% 2nd, 6% 3rd, 6% 4th, avg 9.18 pts a game, pays $720 rake per block , roi 0.22% + 4.32% rb = 4.54%
(*assumes 60% rb)

Now I ran 1000 blocks for each player and looked at the top 20 scores I did this 1000 times and made a chart.



So yeah, its definitely unfair for 18man players especially considering they are paying double the rake basically.

Btw if you guys ever want any type of simulation I can code anything pretty much instantly so just let me know.

ty for simulations awice

15$(60) 9man hypers please

Thanks for explaining. I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure I agree.

If (hypothetically) PokerStars were to halve the rake on all SNGs, I don't think their profits would diminish by >50%.

Winrates would increase, regs would move up in stakes, higher stakes games with equivalent rake would flourish. Fish benefit as their winrate goes up due to the slightly increase due to the lower rake.

There might be a flaw in my logic but that's how I see it...

No, i think your logic is correct, but it doesnt stop there... if winrates go up (and they would if they reduce rake) playing the games gets profitable for more people, maybe some old, loosing regs come back into the games because they are marginal winners again (so they take money out of the economy again) and a new equilibrium is found at probably simmilar levels... I would be amazed if PS is not running all sort of simulations and at least they are probably very confident they are earning the max with their current rake structure...

i think the only thing that can change that equation is competition, not players win rates, therfor i think asking for promotions is better than asking for rake reduction, because the one thing is (potentially) putting new money into the economy from outside, whereas the other is moving it from PS pocket into ours... dont get me wrong i would LOVE to get some money from PS, I just dont think this is what PS wants to do... new money from outside, now there is a united front...

btw one thing i did find flawed, I think your are mixing revenue and profit, i agree their revenue would likely drop by less than 50% but that is different from profit, profit might be completely wiped out by reducing rake by 50%...

Fish don't benefit from rake reduction, their winrates are way too low to feel the difference and also if PS promoted rake reduction it would only attract regs, fish aren't aware how important rake is and that could also make a weird effect that games get tougher but with lower rake so now your on the start again.
On the other side this economy needs role models to motivate new players to start playing poker, and if I as a new player would hear that it's easy to beat games I would definitely invest some of my money to try poker and I think that's the way to go, so lowering rake to get more winning players and then promote how everybody is winning and poker is cool could be a good but risky strategy. I think PS is doing good business and don't want to fix something that isn't broken yet.

Actually, they'd be bankrupt within 1 year if rake on all offerings were cut 50%.

Please make the satellite hypers start immediately like the cash hypers. Is there any reason why they don't? It's so annoying.

Ok, interesting thoughts, thanks for the inputs guys, maybe my thinking was a little basic.

I'd be interested to know if their revenue decreased from changing $15+1 SNGs to $13.89+1.11, as that would provide some evidence for showing that raking the games at a lower rate can actually yield increased revenue.

They will never tell the truth about this. Never! Biggest rape ever to the sng community!

well, i dont think its any secret, all it takes is a glance at the lobby to figure that out.
I've read on someones blog that sometimes off-peak he plays 8 15$/9 turbos per hour.
i'd assume traffic dropped at least twice compared to what it was on 16$ post bf.. but they had to expect they will kill 9m turbos when instead of lowering the rake on all levels they risen the most popular one ;D (to make it look more rounded up)

i would bet my left nut that if they dropped turbos rake to like 5% they would rake more in the long run, traffic would rise more than 50% imo (not even mentioning that some players would play higher stakes coz they would became betable, so overall avg reg would rake more)

I am the one that said this. Just log from 9.00-15.00 cet and 2.00-9.00 cet.