Those aren't mutually exclusive.

I'll look into expanding NL offerings at that time.

+1 to wadzon
we will lost nl600 (max 1 table per week)

+1 to Wazdon.

This is a terrible terrible idea and I strongly encourage stars to rethink this change. It goes completely against their self interest. If this goes through 3/6 nlo8 would be killed. Most of the players playing are buying in for less than 40 bbs. Fish like buying in short, because they actually have a chance to win in the short run. There is a reason hypers are so popular instead of regular sngs. Eliminating 20-40 bb play would be like stars deciding to eliminate hyper turbos and force people to play regular sngs. A few shortsided regs would be happy, most fish and players who like playing with fish would not be.

The timing on this is also terrible. Several people have sne plans and this change might kill that. I can't speak for others but me personally I have to strongly reconsider my next couple of years of plans. I have gotten 31k vpps this week and was planning to get elite, maybe even 1.2 million vpps and play for the next several years like that. Now I may just enter the job market.

Most of my vpps were coming in hu and shorthanded games that break as soon as people get more than 40 bbs deep then the same players go to a new table. Pokerstars should just watch the lobbies for a week to see how the games actually run. This change would eliminate the most popular format of the game. Sorry for the incoherent rambling, playing while typing out this post.

Full disclosure: orange moon is me (lost my password was too lazy to find it so just made new account), but this issue is so important I went through the trouble of hunting down my old password so I could post this from my normal account. Not trying to make a bunch of gimmick accounts to support my position.

A few things to add. Who are the ones in favor of making the games deeper? A select few regs that are monsters and would obviously love to make everyone deep so they can crush with a high winrate and the fans of these players who dont actually play in the games. These regs are not the ones playing tons of hands and making sne. Their volume is quite low.

There is talk of making the games "sustainable" but what does this mean? Making the fish buy in deeper so they can lose faster does not seem like the best way to go about it. Letting the fish buy in for 20bbs so they can actually win sometimes seems much more sustainable then forcing them to buy in deep. The games are more popular in nl08 right now then plo8 because the fish can just shove 20bbs in. This may make some
2+2 regs unhappy but it should be about what the fish want, not the regs.

Why not make 20-50 bb tables or cap tables as well as deep tables and then compare traffic?

Cliffs: Fish like to flip coins, they can often win flipping coins. Fish flipping coins is sustainable. Making them play ales or buklah deepstacked is not.

I'd like to give my impartial opinion as someone with over a million hands of NLO8. As a US player, I would LOVE to be able to play on Stars right now.

I would not push Stars to increase the buy in over 20bb's for most of the reasons Adacan mentioned. Also, you all need to start thinking about what is good for yourself vs. the metaworld of the NLO8 community. IMHO, there is a profitable strategy at 20 BB's in addition to playing deep stack (100+bb's), but 40-60bb NLO8 is kind of stupid.

I would recommend to add 5/10 and 10/20. Bigger action may bring a larger player pool of non NLO8 players from higher stakes PLO/NLH. Also, when 10/20 and 25/50 ran on FTP, there seemed to always be a ton of observers trolling my games. This couldn't be bad?

It's great news if those high-volume shortstackers will have to adapt or play different stakes.

In the short term volume will drop down, sure. But that's already happening without the change. You know there are people who look at the games, see all short stacks, and don't play them. I mean, you should know. But people are too short-sighted to see this.

I disagree that 40bb is any more stupid than 20bb. It's not a massive difference, but there are definitely more situations to outthink and outplay people. Consider that that in a big MTT the average stack is closer to 40bb than to 20bb.

It's better for the health of the game to have a game that people can beat for a nice win rate, instead of something where win rates approach zero as the player pool declines.

The General opinion cannot be in any case.
Someone 20 BB well - someone 100 BB.

But why so one solution to efface those who are good 20 BB?
If it is the protection of recreational players, you can let them choose for themselves what they fun to play?

Make several types of games like holdem.
For example: 20-100 or CAP and Deep.

ps
About the "shortstackers will have to adapt ".
And then time will show in what will be the traffic.
Or us to adapt to increased stacks or they are short.

agree with wadzon. Why not make cap tables then? Or shallow tables? People who want to play deepstack can while those that want to play shallow also can. There is a huge demand for shallow nlo8. Simply eliminating it makes no sense.

because 'cap' is boring, those 20 bb regs make profit of those deeper stacks, because the deeper stacks get frustrated, and intend to call lighter then most shoving ranges of the 20bb regs.

If they make it cap & deep only. U will no longer see those 20bb regs, because those 20bb regs dislike to play against other 20bb regs.

I would not mind 50-100bb tables! Or 100-250bb (for plo) like u do on the lower limits.


Edit: 40bb-100bb it is.

40-100bb tables are terrible, stop listening to low volume players please. I'd say 95% of the tables on 3/6 start as two players playing heads up, basically flipping for 20bb, if you observed these games for a while you'll see that I'm right.
I think there are a total of 4 SNE players on 3/6 who all play shortstack.
If you kill 20bb for 3/6 I will predict that the volume of 3/6 tables will drastically decrease.

I'd say if you really need to add 40-100bb tables, leave the 20bb tables as well and see how it develops?

also +1 to wadzon and adacan.

Ps, could you add some kind of table starter for 9 max plo8?!

You don't see that these tables started by short stacks are short-lived? Very often someone doubles up and leaves, and eventually the table dies.

Or it's one of those tables with nobody making money unless a real big fish happens to sit down.

It (short stacking for points and profit) may have worked in 2012, but its best days are already gone. The fish are disappearing.

The same way nine-handed tables went extinct, short-stack poker will die too. There just isn't enough money left to feed mediocre, robotic players.

I welcome the short stacks to play more hyper turbos and get higher stakes going over there.

Fewer tables running, without four leeches on every table, and making the mega grinders change their strategies: maybe not a perfect situation, but way better than what we have right now.

nick, why you dont keep 20-100bb tables and add 40/60/100-250bb deeper tables additionally?
That would be a good solution and everybody would be happy and could see that there will be so much more traffic at the 20-100bb tables. You dont need to force shortstacks to play deeper. most shortstacks, when they double up dont leave the tables (for example noone of the sne chasing players as far as i know), only very few players do that but will be changed after you introduce the antiratholing solution, right?
I am in general neutral to this, but imagine for example the sne players. they worked so hard to reach that status and they basically profit of sne this year and now their plans for 2014 get damaged. i just say it from their view because they dont seem to be active on this forum.

So why not just add deeper tables and see how the traffic/request really is?

nick, can you please give me an overview how many hands are actually played by 20bb players and how many by players who buyin for 40bb+? I think that would be interesting for this.

and by the way: In the moment it is very often possible to find a table without shortstacks because they already doubled up and dont leave.

and i am against cap tables.

and if nlo8 is unbeatable at the current state it is not because of 20bb players but because of too much rake at least at the mikro and smallstakes.

so i would prefer that you add deeper tables instead of your current plans.

i think winrate of the good nlo8 players is still much higher than nl holdem playes have at same stakes although rake much higher and 20bb existing.

ok but i am neutral. i can understand both (short and deep players). but deep not enough action, too much nit game. and that is why other players prefer 20bb. decisions are easier and you cannot lose so much with many split pots. probably the players wouldnt play anymore.

Almost all who here unsubscribes protects point of view as it would be better for him.

Why not try to do so - to the time showed how a better place for all?
If Pokerstars interested in directing NL8, it seems to me it is not difficult to do for a month different versions of the desks.

Let us judge traffic and recreational players.

Personally, I would love to play only hyperSNG. But no traffic to the limits above.

Actually you can do what you want. Lived without SNE 5 years and it looks like I will continue to live.
I think that my opinion may be wrong in this matter, because there is no distance in the cache.

Would just like to hear the opinion of the players, who are now SNE.

ps
while writing the post is not seen messages whitesnow
but the meaning seems to be one and the same was

Wadson you've got to get a translator or something. It's close to imposible to understand what your are trying to say.

Just my opinion on a few of the topics beeing discussed:

• SNEs playing shortstacked: True (not 100% of them, but close). But they will still be playing the same volume after this change, so nothing new there.
  
• Recreationals playing mostly 20 bigs: True. But i think they do it just because they can, and because most don't know any better. Once they see the new min is 40 bigs, i think most of them will still play, because in the end they just want to play.
  
• What many of you seem to be forgetting is that PS is a poker site, not a lotto site. Easiest solution here would be to add a new type of game called "Flipping coins", where the RNG just flips coins every hand. But that wouldn't be poker. Poker is a game of strategy, psychological warfare and etiquette. Almost none of that exists in the current state of the games. I think it is best interest to PS to offer good poker games. And that is more important than the personal interests of each single player. Another example, ratholing is such a horrible thing for poker and it happens so often in this games, that anything we can do to prevent it is good in my opinion. Even if it goes against your own personal interest.
  
• I agree with gumaaa that games being beatable is very important too. Actual state of the games makes it impossible to sustain big winrates (if any at all), because of the massive rake (another thing that HAS TO BE CHANGED by PS) and the shortstacking, that flattens everyones winrate to near zero, where only the site makes money.
  
• The people describing 40 bigs as "deep": Come on, that's not even close to being deep. It's a lot better than 20 bigs, but still very shallow.

<3 translator

Games aren't going to start nearly as often as they were. Most games start with 2 people playing 20bbs hu and the tables fill up after that. Most people aren't going to want to be playing hu 40+ bb deep. Action will suffer for everyone, even those that want to play deep.

Also, the option to play between 20 and 40 bb deep should not be taken away. Many people like playing at this stack depth, especially recreational players. If Pokerstars wants to add in 40-100 bb tables that is fine, but they shouldn't take away the option to play 20-40bb.

If you're talking about 3/6, that's really not how most full tables start. The tables that last for a good amount of time are not sustained by those players. If they do get going with only short stacks (or 3 out of 4, or 4 out of 6), either the table dies off soon, or only the house gets any profit from the table.

Watch the tables that do fill up and deal for a lot of hands. They have more diverse stack sizes, and the short stacks don't drive most of the action.

On the Stars side, it's deeper stacks that create more rake. Short stacks end a lot of hands with no rake pre flop, and don't generate large pots post flop.

It's true that no table will fill completely without at least one short stack (with the current situation). But the games where anyone actually makes money are built around deeper stacks. Even the pro short stackers depend on deep stacks to get their edge.

How will raising the buy-in minimum to 40 affect the games?

I'll make some guesses.

Fewer games run initially and some players move to other limits or games.

The mega grinders buy in for the new minimum and use much of the same strategy anyway.

Tables that fill up last significantly longer.

You'll see a lot more action from players who are turned off by short stacks at the present. This includes recreational guys.

More hands will see the flop, and you'll have bigger pots with bigger edges more frequently.

There will be more people who will be able to climb up the stakes from .25/.50, .50/1, 1/2, and so on.

do you need one too? whos wadson?

.^sc

Lol. They dont care about you ,whatever brings money to their pockets is good for them. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a fool. They just pretend that you are important to them. Its just business nothing more. When they lose this huge rake for all ring games, then maybe i would reconsider not before that.

About BB topic.
I dont care is it 20 or 40 but at the moment with traffic as low as it is I think its bad for the game. Its just chases new players away, they lose couple of bigger pots and they are gone. Adding Cap game would be fun.
And aless o8 istill remains coinflip doesnt matter how many bbs you playing, its just nature of the game.
At the moment its just PS to decide is it just coinflip for regs and SNEs or do they give new players opportunity to learn and try the game (ideas - 20bb, cap aso.). There are 3-4 deep stack players and others play small stack, dont understand why change that. Maybe when US players return, not now.

Well hopefully once traffic dies they reverse the changes. Most of the people who I have talked to hate the changes with many saying they will quit playing. Recs don't want to play deep. Also there will be a lot less reg on reg battling, aka fewer games starting.

Since 2014, i just quite playin NLO8 because of 20bb players. Ales is 200% right. This is not poker, just playing flips against them.. I played all 2012 and 2013 at small and mid stakes.. This is just borring.. I am sure lot of rets are tired with it too.. But, if PS raises this minimum buyin to 40/50 BB, peraps i will be back to this game. Right now, i think there is much more value in PL and FL, but the trafic is pretty poor.. (Sorry for my english as well)

I'm not sure what this fixation is with 3.6.

I think if the shortstackers get put of 3.6 they will buy into 1.2 or 2.4 instead.

I think its very unlikely these guys will just stop playing.

People like playing shortstacked, that is why shortstacks are so popular. If they wanted to play deep they could already buy in to 1/2 with 120 like they do at 3/6. The reason recs play shortstacked is because it is fun and relatively low edge. They aren't going to play deep with the same amount or if they do they wont play long because good players have too big an edge. This is incredibly shortsighted. If people want deep tables that is fine, but eliminating the most popular form of o8, because a few regs dont like it makes no sense.