All of the ideas posted about making buyin levels more common across MTT/SNG are awesome. It's basically what I was saying in the other thread but you guys actually crunched the #s. All good stuff... except for making steps able to switch into T$. That's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That defeats the whole purpose of Steps. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

obv this

+1, again.. I would actually be excited to play some Steps if Stars went ahead and did this.

One thing that has held me off from playing in the past were some of the step downs being annoying (2 down to 1, 4 down to 2), but I suppose its best to keep everyone in the system..

Part of maintaining the integrity of the system is to not have too many exit points which cripple the later levels. As it is now, we probably have too many exit points. We allow more at specific times, most notably during major series like the *COOPs, but I can't see aligning a larger portion of the regular schedule to the Steps system.

the biggest bug bear i have is that people can play a certain level and end up winning an entry into the level below (or 2 below) - who wants that as an outcome? It would be much better to restructure to give the same level ticket again or the next one up, and a cash prize for the remainder if necessary.

Step 4 is by far the worse offender since you can end up in step 2 (whereas step 3 only offers step 3 or step 4???) - it should be changed to payouts of step 5 and 4 tickets, ie 700, 700, 215, 215. This is $9 more than the current payouts, but charge an extra $1 rake if you must, as these are basically unplayable at present for any serious high stakes player. Step 5 is ok as is since the $215 tickets can be recycled in any number of mtts.

To increase games running, please offer a six-max alternative and discontinue euro steps - instead change the live event $ values for step 6 according to exchange rates on a weekly basis or whatever.

Finally, and of course it will likely never happen, but having something year round where players can take the cash from step 6 (if only in t$ as a SCOOP or WCOOP main event ticket) or play more 2k events would undoubtedly make them more popular than just attempting to funnel players into live events. Id be interested to know how much they run when wcoop/scoop is on/approaching as opposed to the rest of the year.

BryanPS - Is Pokerstars making any plans to get the Step system going strong again? The steps volume is very weak right now. As the steps system is right now they are not running anyway.

imo your view on the exit point "problem" is flawed. I believe the more options the players have with their step tickets, the more people the step system would draw in.

Jackal69- I agree with you on the step 4 payout, needs to be changed.

Let's standardise all sng buyins so that we can buy any kind of sng ticket with both fpps
and steps tickets. If you're not able to play a step 4 or 5, because the popularity of the
tournament lets you down, you should at least have the opportunity to punt
a sng with the same buyin.

there is no logic at all here

more exit points, more 2k tournaments online, more steps will run, how can you see this otherwise???

Like was said, getting stuck with a bunch of lower level tickets dissuades some grinders/game starters from playing Steps and helping to create additional liquidity. E-mailing support to get all your tickets combined is kind of a pain/deterrent after awhile.

Making the use of lower Step tickets to register for a higher Step automated would be a help. I.e. I have a bunch of unused Step 2s but want to play a Step 3. One of my options when I click register is to use 3 Step 2s and $1. (since it sounds like you want to minimize exits, always requiring a little extra $$ (instead of rebating $T for using Step tix that > the value of the buyin).

Guess it could get a bit complicated if I'm registering for a Step 5 and I have tickets from Steps 2-4 available. Maybe you can program it to offer the best combination of tickets equal to (or just below) the buyin amount to minimize the additional $$ needed.

If some feature like this already been added in the past year, then nevermind

LAPT columbia had no Step 6 sats. I miss the ones with 4 packages
Now EPT Barcelona has cash sats but doesn't have STEP G... why?

I have a couple of Step F but they seems useless also.

I just had a look at the Steps tab and was struck by the enormous number of lobbies available for non-holdem games. Out of curiosity I decided to count them. There are 97 (ninety-seven) games at various buyins both cash and FPP, for various games like razz, triple stud etc etc.

Now, it's 19:17 WET/20:17 CET, or if you prefer, 14:17 ET (server time), which is slap bang in the middle of peak time. Does anybody want to take a guess at the total number of people registered in those 97 non-holdem games? Answer in spoiler...



Why don't you just tidy up the lobby and get rid of all of them? Absolutely nobody wants to play steps unless it is NLHE.

It's only a little thing, but might just make the game a little more accessible and might just make the Steps lobby a tiny bit less intimidating.

TT

TeamTrousers - good point. I think having all the different poker games would be a cool idea but they just dont run, like ever. Its always NLHE and its been like this from the start. NLO8 and PLO8 have run maybe 10 times in the 4 years the steps having been running for me personally. No other game has run that I've even seen. All non NLHE games need to be taken out of the lobby list and make it easier to view. I think making it simpler for the recreational player is important.

Get rid of Euro steps.

Make lots of exit points for the *COOP series.

Offer a Step 6 tournament that pays cash prizes all year with a different payout structure eg 1st = $8100 2nd = $4500 3rd & 4th = $2700. There would be a danger that these would become dominated by high stakes players buying straight into Step 6, so make it ticket entry only.

In these world wide tough times, I think a lot of people would find the prospect of a good, quick, cash score online as a more attractive prospect than winning a seat in a live tournament on the other side of the world.

+1 To getting rid of steps (non-nlhe) that never run. Maybe keep the O8 if you must.

Why not combine FPP and Cash Steps? It doesn't make sense that someone who buys in with FPPs can't play in the same game of a player who buys in with Cash. All tournaments should have a FPP buy-in option IMO.

+1 To making a Step 6 that pays cash prizes. If there is fear that they would become inflated with high stakes regs then make it ticket only entry like the previous poster said. This may increase volume at Step 5s (and lower).

If there were more exit points to MTTs then I would consider playing these more often.

any good explanation why there are no step G for EPT barcelona?
regards

Next EPT is in f... october :|