Yeah, I meant to make that a lot shorter and then got carried away explaining the differences. I'll try to archive that for future paste-in and community editing.

I miss the days of Stars for US players and FT. I used to love all the different forms of O8 tournaments, but for sure NLO8 had the biggest ROIs. Ahh, I loved those ante-up and those ridiculously huge rebuy tournaments..... ::wistful sigh::

Correct, now I'm more of a live cash-game player, through geographical necessity.

You ain't missin' that much tbh.

Stars has done little to support the O8 MTTs, with exceptions such as the weekly 55 PLO8 6max and the 2R 3xturbos. This, despite it being as popular as any single non-HE game at WSOP (it has to be between PLO8, PLO and FLO8).

Tourneys such as the 11R PLO8 are just shells of what they were pre-BF. I wouldn't be surprised if I more frequently made FTs in that pre-BF, as opposed to now when there are maybe ~1/3 the runners. I don't think the players are generally better than pre-BF, but it's a totally different dynamic in those MTTs (11R, 22s, 33NL) than it used to be, and at least for my style of playing, it isn't beneficial. You may not even get paid for making the FT. Even the 5R PL is more difficult than pre-BF IMO. In most of the low-mid MTTs, it's become try to run the gauntlet of Russian/Brazilian/Spanish LAGs, for the chance to make almost nothing, unless you finish top 3 or so.

There won't be any Spanish LAGs as the only Pokerstars they are allowed to play on is the Spanish version....

This post brings up some very valid points and probably deserves a post of it's own if one has not already been started.

When the US government, in their wisdom, decided to stop US citizens from playing online Pokerstars lost 800,000+ players. To try and fill the void they did some marketing in other parts of the world and we were "invaded" by players from the Eastern Bloc, Europe, South America and may I say (tongue in cheek) Canada.

Most of these players, with the exception of the Canadians, seem to have learnt poker at the same school.

It is wrong to dump all players in the same pot but I'll say that for the "majority" of these people that school has a very loose/aggressive approach more like Bingo than Poker.

Was it easier to win tournaments before than now?

I believe it was because overall the quality of the players and therefore the games, was better. That statement might appear to contradict the point I'm making but it really does not.

In a game where the majority of the players at a table have a reasonable idea of how to play you can be assured that those with garbage will fold to a raise.

In a game where the majority of the players have this bingo attitude you can't be sure of anything.

People can argue that there is more opportunity to increase stack sizes because of these players, and that is true ,but if you are stuck at a whole table of them you really don't know where you stand.

To win a tournament now you have to withstand the onslaught of continual raises by players with crap. Unfortunately they don't know it's crap, they think it's good cards and even when you have the best of it going in you will often get outdrawn in multiway pots.

I have seen our new friends jam and jam and jam the pot only to turn over........nothing on the end.

When did this happen?

I've seen plenty of Spanish LAGs playing and now the Spanish tennis supersook has joined Stars.

You're simply wrong. The "move up to where they respect my raises" fallacy is discussed at length. If you're serious about improving your poker understanding, you'll study this fallacy until you can't believe you actually wrote the excerpt above.

Where?

To further clarify a bit, it could be that in the past your opponents were predictably weak-tight around the bubble and you had better control over them. But that doesn't mean they were playing particularly well, just predictably.

LOLOL fantastic! Only an Ozzy could come up with this. Mate, you only have 22 million people or something, you can't lump all those countries/continents together like that, there is virtually nobody left! I'm not sure what you mean by the Eastern Bloc, much of what used to be called that is in the European Union now.

Good fun though!

The thing to remember about MTTs is the huge variance. If you really want to get depressed take a look at the Noah article on MTT variance in NL tournaments:

http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/01/mtt-pros/

Basically he is saying the best player in the world could play as a full time professional for a full year and still not make a profit.

To win, you want the players at your table to be as bad as possible, even though when you lose to a bad player it seems like this is not the case. Variance does crazy things to the mind.

@allin and leroy

i agree with a lot of what u have said.

My view is the players today in general are made of of mostly aggrotard/spewtard kinda players ad the minority solid/abc/tight players whereas before BF it was the other way around.

Most of the tard players are terrible though with no clue about strategy. It's the lagtard player with a good grasp of o8 and or a good grasp of mtt strat that are most dangerous and imo should win the most money. obv the ones with both will be the better players.

the solid/abc/tight players have little chance on stars to make the most money. In general they will get outplayed by the good aggro players and variance will kill them v all the other tards.

saying that it should still be profitable fo them.

I personally have become way looser over the last 2 years and post BF took a while to adjust.

I have made decent money in o8 mtts since start of 2011 but i often hate the games now playin v a bunch of cluless russians or wherever that just wanna gamble. As leroy said its hard to outplay guys that wont fold and want to get it in nomatter what. ABC players that have an understanding of the game fold so gives ppl more opportunity to outplay post flop than having to get it in pre with ur small edge and hope u run good.

This sucks for the game imo and it's more fun when most ppl generally know what they are doing and more interesting strategy comes into it rather than hopeing stars variance doesnt fk u over for the 50th time that day.

I'm sure my play today would make more money v the same players pre BF but its the fact that i dont enjoy it nearly as much that bugs me more.

also less gettin paid so you have got to play to win even more and when u are allin a bunch of times PF thats not easy either.

I prolly gamble way more against these guys now depending on the situation.

10 min ago just shipped the 22 nlo 1.5k with mostly the same kind of players i was talkin about up there at the ft

I think you are addressing another poster, but wanted to clarify something.

Pre-BF, the 11R PLO8 might have ~250 runners and pay 36-45 places with 3-4x the total prize pool as they do now. Now, besides the fact that on numerous occasions the 11R has been cancelled due to lack of runners (can you imagine that?), it frequently pays only 6-8 places. That means, deep in the tourney, with avg. stack being just a few/several BBs, one is playing on one of two tables, each with 5 of 6 players, for the right to get to the FT... where you may still not even get paid!

I can't speak for other poster, but I'm not talking about "not being able to abuse weak-tight villains on the bubble." I'm talking about a complete shift in the dynamic of the tourneys, to the point where they resemble a glorified turbo SNG more than anything.

I agree, I also have become looser than I was pre-BF. This is for the same reasons as you state, and others as well in my case:

- much smaller fields mean you'll have to gamble early or late or both
- in micro MTTs, no sense playing for hours to make a buck or two (literally)
- I was pretty tight most of the times as a beginner. With more experience, I know when and how to play a much wider range (ya I can still donk it up).

damn you're smooth!

To whom do we have to thank for this? BUZZ?

Whoever started it, thank you!

Mate I'm not too sure of what importance the population of my country is but regardless they don't all play poker!

Likewise the people of the countries I mentioned.

What we are specifically talking about are the LAGs from those countries who have been brought in to try and fill the void left by US players.