This. Also:

The best change you could make would be to fix the waitlist system. One suggestion I made years ago was that if someone times out on a waitlist dialogue box, automatically remove them from all waitlists. This mostly occurs (and I'm guilty of it as well) if someone quits for the day, leaves their computer, and forgets to get off all their waitlists.

This would help keep games from breaking, something everyone wants.

I don't like it when a guy is sitting out for the maximum time with no intention of returning - that is just a waste of a seat. However, even this is not the issue. The issue is the crippling rake. Its good that it has been reduced a little at some stakes but please do more. The business about returning with a smaller stack isn't really the issue, as others have said.

wow, I seriously hope it didnt take you guys too long to come up with these new ideas.
Anyone who plays LHE even semi-regularly would know that whether you implement these changes or not wont change anything.

Include someone who knows anything about LHE in the brain-storming next time maybe?

like everyone else has said ratholing is hardly even an issue as it happens so extremly rarely in LHE.

rake on the other hand happens every hand and should be addressed.
the player pool could also use some promotions to try and re-liven things ups.

something that i would like to see though is higher stakes FLHE zoom...maybe up to $1/$2 or $2/$4
only seeing 10cent/20cent at release was kind of disappointing

If you want to make those changes, I don't think any limit player really cares one way or another...they have minimal impact. There are other bigger issues.

The first thing you should do is have the system boot players sitting out if they table is not full. Currently they can sit without getting booted (they would get kicked off if the table was full after a few orbits). Often these players are playing at other tables, but don't want to play extra shorthanded (or whatever reason they have). Many times they are sitting in the only seat Id sit in...so I don't sit and the table breaks as a result.

There are so many threads with lots of good ideas how to promote LHE and what to improve/change, but I'm almost certain we never mentioned ratholing and shortstacking.
When I saw this thread I expected SOMETHING, but then I just lol'd.

This post from gnalf sums up these changes really well:

BUT... At least there is some activity from PokerStars, which is obv good.
All we need is a change that matters.

You could state your proposition of a "change that matters" instead of lolling people giving inputs to improve games.

Hi Stars,

Policies against ratholing are fine, but don't mess with shortstacking. The best games are always guys that buy in for 8bb. Why are we going to prevent them from doing so or force them to move down in stakes?

The main problem for me at hu limit tables is the inability to turn off autopost blinds and stay at a table. This is very annoying and stars is as far as I know the only site that does this. I probably lose a few hundred a year on this if I am hanging around the house and miss the beep or accidentally have my sound off. It also leads to aggressive cheesy button stealing.

I would even accept a reduced timer as a compromise for this if you want to get rid of people just hanging around.

Please add one section higher of hu tables, either 15 30 or 20 40.

Keep up the good work, otherwise.

We already had many discussion in numerous threads about "changes that matters". I was an active member in everyone of them, so I'm not just trolling here.

There were zero LHE promos until now, even though they promised them like 5 months ago.
All they did was lowering rake at 2/4 (and 1/2), after they actually increased it. That was obvious good and much needed.

- this basicly means less play time with bad players, how will that help good players? and they will just leave and go to play at other tables, so i can't see how this rule will help.

²

Maybe I just never noticed, but in my 500k hands I played LHE, I don't think I've ever came across a good player that intentionally had a short stack, let alone left and came back with a short stack.
In those improvement topics PS said there would be a promo that would benefit LHE. Tons of ideas have been given, both for software and promotions, some of which had a very low cost. Never seen anything. The only thing we've seen is Daniel Negreanu burning some money, which will likely be the first and last time, since not everybody has money to burn.

I feel like opening some of those LHE improvement topics and searching for the term 'shortstacking' would've given you a good idea how much of a non-issue this is. At least we'd be THINKING Pokerstars was brewing on something useful.

It doesn't look like they're willing to do anything unfortunately... however they were getting a lot of negative comments in the threads in the Internet Poker forum so this is their way of showing they're trying? While not actually doing anything. Just like the recent decrease of 1/2 and 2/4 rake was fixing the rake increase introduced earlier. Lee Jones said in his thread they weren't going to do anything to help any specific games, contrary to what we were told after the first player meeting.

I am seriously so confused: why is almost everyone encouraging policies against ratholing? It's LHE, I've never seen a problem with this in all my hands online. Sure, make some min buyin of like 8BB, but that's all you have to do.

And in fact, in LHE, you SHOULD be able to remove chips from stack without leaving the table, as long as you leave at least, say, 20BB. Say someone with a 100BB account balance opens up 4 tables, buying in for 25BB at each, and busts at two of them while running up the balance at the others. Why should he not be able to take some chips off the tables he's doing well at to replenish his stack at a table he's busted at.

Ratholing, shortstacking are not issues that have been brought up at the player meeting in January where Hood represented the player community, it wasn't an issue then and it's not an issue now afaik.

Bumhunting of weak/new players is an issue but due to the fact that the games are getting tougher, player pool getting smaller and rake remaining unfeasibly high, the only way to dig out a decent winrate is to seek these players out so frankly I would leave that alone too.

This thread is kinda irritating because much time and effort has gone into many other threads about limit holdem and what would help the games, and then Stars makes this post which doesn't address any concerns from LHE players.

How about going back and looking at the outcome from the players meeting in January in which many assurances were made about promos / support for limit holdem and acting on the words given to our player rep.

LHE players pay a hefty amount of rake in comparison to the rest of the player pool. The rake remains way too high especially at the micro/low limit levels.

I don't think this has been brought up to date but I think it needs to be mentioned. Limit holdem players pay more rake than No Limit players yet No Limit players get the benefits of increased multipliers at the micro limits namely NL2 x10, NL5 x 8.5 , NL10 x7. How about you started to offer greater incentives along these lines to the lower limit guys?.

introduce higher stakes HU tables, like party (KOTH system), where regs are forced to play vs each other to get the good tables