I played limit ring games for a few years on stars (before it was taken away from me) and I don't recall rat holing or short stacking being a problem. When it did occur, it was from the type of player you wanted at the table. If rat holing or short stacking in a LIMIT game keeps them coming back, then I wouldn't want to stop them.

And what's with people suggesting that short stacking gives a player an advantage in a limit game? Sounds like a huge disadvantage to me. Am I missing something?

I do appreciate the effort to improve limit games, but I think there are better options out there.

No reverse-implied odds, plus in multiway pots the short-stacker can use the threat of action on later streets to deter callers, just like in NLHE (except of course that threat is reduced to the bet size rather than the other players' stack sizes).

Come on stars. So many good replies here I can only be another number, but yeh cliffs:

Ratholing non issue at FL.
(I hate it how 888 rebuke you for rejoining a table say 30mins later with 25BB when you left up and say ''ratholing' is against company policy, behave'. Way to talk to fish.)

Min buy in fine. Noone's mentioned that raising it effectively lowers the stakes at which a fish on his last few $ can play at, probably good 'for the game' or Stars, but I shouldn't think most players want that.

Spend your effort reading other threads/thinking please.

Limit (as in the game!) promos please.
Party managed a good double points one last year.
I like the max pot bonus idea But never gonna be done, wouldn't really address any issue maybe just a few more maniacs HU.

agree with most of the good stuff above^^

PS needs (imo) to focus more on attracting recreational players and gamblers and less on rewarding massive volume. Some "euro" sites are realizing this and have taken necessary steps, but for some reason PS keeps tagging along with the same strategy as always.
I wonder if there is any well thought out reasons for this, or is it more a case of "what has worked in the past will work in the future" reasoning?

+1, there's no reason a player should be able to sit out indefinitely when the table isn't full.

Although short-stacking isn't really a problem at LHE there a few players at higher limits that do it. There is an advantage to it if done properly and I honestly don't know if the few players doing it are doing it for that reason. In any event, I think the rule changes are good though there are many bigger problems as others have mentioned.

the overwhelming majority of promos are freerolls which are usually NL.. or big guaranteed donkaments with often big overlay, also NL.. winning live seats to NL donkament events in NL donkaments.. not promoting/helping only specific games? MY ASS
we are paying more rake in LHE than comparable NL stakes, sponsoring a fair chunk of the promotions directed almost exclusively at drawing more recreational players into NL games (donkaments and cash) while getting back basically jack**** in the form of LHE promos.

also, I don't understand why it would be a problem to have promotions which are switching the spotlight from one game to another on, say, a weekly basis. like, play 1000 hands of, idk, badugi this week, and win a ticket to a freeroll badugi donkament. Next week, LHE. Next week, PLO. Maybe also write some promo article about each game when it's their turn, talking about why it's fun to try from a recreational players pov - or even better, have some of your pros enthusiastically talk about it in a video (just don't choose Negrenau for LHE now, lol)
This way, you can gradually promote all games, while encouraging recreational players to try their hands in many of them, so maybe they end up liking one or the other.
Organizing mass promos for all games at once is unlikely to draw new players to one specific game so how is that supposed to help with a dying LHE pool? Especially if most promos are NL oriented anyway.

I'd be embarrassed if I worked for Stars in that capacity and hadn't thought up something like this ^^.
I remember back in the day when I started out on some ongame skin, they had a different game freeroll every night. Great for new players to learn the games and choose their favourite, hence how I ended up with FLHE

Well we were kind of told this in January too, although its hardly black and white. We were told that they wouldn't consider any kind of promotions that specifically targeting a game in that it encouraged a player to play one game over another. So, for example, a deposit bonus that can only be cleared at LHE. But general things to bring attention to a game (through superstar showdowns, that kind of thing) are fine.

Now with that said, I agree with all the points above - right now most freerolls are about NL, superstar showdowns, most pros are NL, all live events are NL, Zoom appeals to big bet and not fixed limit games, all "we are poker" TV ads feature NL etc. I strongly disagree with a lot of Lee Jones' recent comments about it being a "natural death" of LHE (I paraphrase), and I was surprised with the things he said and felt they didn't fit with what I was told in January (although its good if he's speaking his own opinion and opinion on these topics and not just a company line).

Any LHE-specific promotions are a rebalance of what I see as years of subtly selling players on big-bet games.

It's funny, i'm a lot less married to LHE like many of you, I've played three poker games in my poker 'career' and i'm facing learning a 4th (Spainaments) and it sucks but i don't mind it, i don't feel I was "born" a LHE player and have no issue learning something new if it's more profitable for me. But for the good of recreational players and poker sites, I think it's really important they support LHE, even if it does mean "propping it up" by making the game a better deal (much lower rake, specific ongoing LHE promotions). There is nothing natural about LHE's lack of popularity, it is one orchestrated by poker sites to sell NL as the sexy game. It looks great televised, it's more fun in donkaments. But to many, it's boring to play, and you need to invent stuff like Rush to make it palatable.

LHE is fun to play. All the other reps in the January meeting agreed that LHE was important game for PS to spread, it acts as a good "stepping stone" for new players, you can play "real" stakes for much less money, learn the ropes without risking a stack.

I doubt if PS looked at their balance sheet, Badugi was a profitable move. The cost to develop and test it vs the small rake they generate from the few games they deal. But they did it because "they are poker" and they want to spread everything, be the home of all poker games you've heard about, offer everything going. LHE is still as popular as the new sexy game (PLO) despite zero coverage, attention, and a very high rake. But if midstakes games stop running around the clock--as they have done everywhere but stars, and at stars at the end of the SNE cycle I can see the same thing happening--then everyone loses.

Aaaanyway, that's all way OT and well-trodden ground. To the OP: As with most I would be somewhere between mildly and quite strongly opposed to both suggestions, personally i've never had any problem with short stacks, and any negativity in some people exploiting a short-stack edge is more than made up for recreational players being able to play higher stakes for their $x.

Any ratholing policy that is "if you win more than 12BB, you must return with *at least* 12BB" is I guess okay, but personally if a player wants to split his roll across two tables or bank some of it, I'd rather that then he stops playing. Any ratholing policy that means you have to return with what you had makes little sense to me.

Either way, as others have indicated i'm not sure these 2 decisions will have much positive effect overall. I think Table Groups enabled by default will have more of an effect on the games.

If you want to pretend to to be proactive, start with the easy stuff.

BBV ----> that way.

Isnt it <---- that way?

Some people prefer to go <------------> both ways.

And no response from Stars as usual...

The average skill level gap amoungst the players is closing in and rake is killing the game. Stars needs to give back more vpps and fpps per hand. Stars will be making less money per hand dealt but I truely feel they would make that money up by saving the games and players being able to put in more volume etc.

Increasing vpps and fpps per hand will encourage players to go after more milestone rewards and vip bonus rewards and make up for Stars making less per hand dealt by players puting in higher volume and bad players will be able to play longer and will also be encouraged to deposit more to go after rewards.

This really needsto be considered by Stars asap. I think about a 40% increase in rake back vpps fpps rewards would be about right to get the games where they should be.