max.2 possible stakes should be the next step. Weird seeing someone opensitting 10k and playing 200 at the same time.

furthermore i doubt whales will ever join, if the guy is sitting from 10k-500 all alone. lobby looks clean. too clean.

Lol it's interesting how people like your use such cloudy logic and expect fellow fairly intelligent people not to see right through the fact that the only reason why your saying that is because it benifits you if high stake regs can't sit lower stake zoom pool...I mean seriously the Rec doesn't check any other level then the level he wants to play and doesn't care if he's playing wgc rider or me because he doesn't know the difference... And his winrate vs either of us doesn't change as much as you might think cos the extra skill wgc has is not necessary vs a Rec that your going to play a highly exploitable style vs... Obviously if he played me he would crush me....

I would not have any advantages at all. I'm a lowstakes donk and play way less than I used to. The recent changes are positive for me at the moment because my games are pretty soft.

Some #1-#5 said it himself, of course he would crush the fish harder because he can take lines people usually don't take to exploit certain leaks. And the times of Laliberte and co are over where some huge whales appear out of nowhere and sit anyone at any stake. Recs DO check what's going on. A rec who can afford to play 2k could be pretty intelligent in RL and should be suspicious if there are only 8 stakes. 6 of them only with one guy from estonia, south korea or whatever.

Jeez, you are so wrong. You can't be such a fish, or could you?

Not trying to educate a fish, but just an example:

Crystall would beat LuckyFish777 for 15bb/100. I'll beat it for 30ptbb/100. WCG would beat this fish for 30.1ptbb/100. WCG will beat Crystall for 15ptbb/100, but his roll would shrink after 100k hands against me (we count rake)

do you see what I'm saying?

I used to know a guy that exploited fish for 60bb/100 now could he beat wgc rider no wgc would crush him..... But could wgc exploit whales better then him no I doubt it ...

Against the average bumhunter tho I agree with you .... They prob aren't very good exploiting fish.... But what you have to understand is exploiting whales is a different skill set then battling regs! Obviously if you play a very balanced gto style and then you play a whale you'd still crush .... Your explanation wasn't very easy to understand you quoted names I'd never heard of .... One thing I did pick up I think tho was you only gave wgc a .1 better winrate then you ....

To be fair tho.... In a zoom pool where you can't really pick up on huge exploits vs fish due to lack of game dynamic and lack of volume vs them .... The better more balanced regs will crush them harder.... But I still stand by the idea that the fish doesn't care if he's playing wgc!

this has been discussed extentively in these forums and a general consesus was that it is wrong. A person with better understanding of poker in general will also be better at exploiting recreational players.

In general your prob right.... But there are overlap/exceptions, jeans89 back this up in a recent joeingraham podcast .... He said sauce isn't as good as exploiting weak players as him but better at playing regs.... There was a guy called missy922 that beat 200+ nl for 60 bb per 100 over a big sample heads up vs fish, he never ever played a reg.... But he made some of the sickest adjustments vs whales ....

+1 Golf

"There was a guy called missy922 that beat 200+ nl for 60 bb per 100 over a big sample heads up vs fish, he never ever played a reg.... But he made some of the sickest adjustments vs whales ...." Also...any examples?

Those (60bb+) are the types of win rates you would expect vs bad regs and high hand count fish. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to get wr's like that for the well versed vs bad fish if you consistently got matches that lasted >500 hands. That's tough to do though. The other way is playing extreme spewtards but anyone decent who can find those games will have stratospheric wr's vs those guys.

Ultimately there are pretty strict limits to how many adjustments you can make with a limited sample. Vs unknown spewtards a slightly pop adjusted GTO program is best. What I'm saying is if he got wr's like that consistently it was almost certainly in high hand count matches. There are limits that come into play, even strong population reads don't produce wr's like that by themselves vs anyone who isn't a towering screw off. He must have had strong auxiliary hustling skills anyway and been able to induce tilt and keep the suckers sucking.

A 60bb winrate over a large sample seems pretty unlikely, I have a 21bb winrate over 784k hands in NLHE HU from 1/2 up to 10/20 and I've been a semi 'bumhunter' for years, eg I probably sat out against the top 10%.

Lol , yeah ... Thats why ps blocked ur account , you gave too much action


Idiot

About 98% of all my hands are outside of PS but gl with the zoom pool bro

BTW do I get to call all of you who are not regbatteling zoom bumhunters now?

Sho nuff.

It is in fact in a way kind of funny that ~95% of everyone gloating over KOTH is now a mediocre bumhunter himself.

It's been Less than a week since Pokerstars removed headsup tables and already the pools look quite dire.

The reasons are simple.

Alot of recs don't seem to like the dynamics of zoom HU.

Regs have little incentive open sit the zoom tables as they can just join when they see someone they want to play.

There are 2 things (in my view) that need to be done simultaneously in order to sustain the games longterm.

1. Create a static number of tables on each limit that will have play on them for >50% of the time.

so for the recent games for nlhu it would look something like this

12 tables of 50nl
8 tables 100nl
5 tables 200nl
3 tables 400nl
2 tables 600nl
2 tables 1knl
1 table 2knl
1 table 5knl
1 table 10knl

These numbers could be tweaked depending on current trends.

This will create good reg v reg action Which is obviously good for stars and keeps the lobbies clean.

It is vitally important that the number of tables are squeezed to maximum to get as much reg v reg rake as possible to keep Hu as a viable gametype for pokersites. If there is action less than 50% of the time stars should remove tables to a minimum of 1.

2. If you don't want to fight for a table then you have to pay for it. Literally.

If you want to bumhunt or play a friend or whatever you should pay for the opportunity.

How this would work:
you create a table. (It would be called your name or something similar)
you are asked to pay a fee once open sitting of something like 1bb.
For every 30 mins of open sitting you are asked to make another 1bb payment to keep the table open.
If another player sits, the clock is paused till they leave.
once they leave the clock resumes.
If you leave, the table automatically closes.

This would regulate itself in the fact that if too many people create their own table not enough action would be given and they are therefore paying for nothing.

None of these suggestions are hard to implement and would benefit the poker community as a whole.

I am neither a professional poker player or a heads up player. Also I have no idea if this kind of solution has been discussed in detail somewhere else so apologies if that is the case.

Anyway - I do find the various debates around this topic fascinating. If I were trying to find a solution to this problem I'd probably look to Golf or Chess for example where a player has a handicap or rating that is published and a potential opponent can therefore be guided as to who, when, where or how much he might be prepared to play for.

A ranking system in poker could be based on money won, stakes, played, opponents beaten, etc. The more sophisticated and accurate the better. HU lobbies could be setup with a maximum ranking but no minimum. So if a player is so inclined he can join Pokerstars and immediately sit down with WGCRider and play for 50k but he also has the option to choose to specifically play against players more of his own ability by entering a lower level lobby.

There could be an incentivized VIP program to move your rating up and try to ensure action for higher levels but even without that if you were crushing a lobby you would quickly be rated above its limit and forced to move up. If Pokerstars really wanted to be innovative they could put up a $1 million dollar annual prize to the person rated number 1 at the end of every year. Or have a televised playoff for the top 8 or something. That kind of prize would need the rating system to be pretty sophisticated and ensure players cant hide behind a number one ranking but anything is possible.


The solution may or may not increase traffic for pro's (probably not) but it would achieve Pokerstars stated objective and also adds another level of "game" to the ecosystem, without taking away from the core dynamic of HU poker. With some more thought and some clever analytics you may even be able to introduce some kind of handicap lobby where weaker players willing to take on higher ranked players get some percentage of every pot back - win or lose. That sounds like a bit of a rake win for the operator but the positive game factor may be worth it. As a double figure handicap golfer I'm always happy to find I have been paired with a scratch or low handicap golfer. He still has the edge but its a fun challenge.

The biggest challenge I can see would be keeping scamsters, multi accounters, etc. out of the lower level lobbies but with the right technical input, a steep initial grading system, and some smart assignment of stakes you should be able to make it more trouble then its worth. In an ideal world stakes could be staggered in a way that would hopefully mean as a player becomes too good for one lobby he should be reasonably well staked for the lowest levels in the next lobby.

That's all a bit rough and maybe a little TLDR but I think with the right poker and software minds it could be workable and could really add another layer of enjoyment to the game.

Could potentially also be applied to other forms of poker.

i would love the following:

a "offer private table" button while zoom games. so you can offer a private table to a zoom opponent (or maybe to everyone else). if you invite him, he has the possibility to click "yes" and a private table (limit same as the zoom table) opens. now you can match with him until the first one leaves. then the private table closes again.

there would be no empty tables and 1:1 fights would still be possible.

And recs would be invited by everyone, that doesn't really provide a positive experience.

true. and i thought i had the idea of the century

Its a good idea the invite doesn't have to be displayed, bit like in Sngs atm.

This is all quite pointless discussing, the lobby was less predatory towards weaker players within the previous months than it is now(with the exception of the lowest limits available), the KOTH was great, and much less predatory than the current 6max environment.

People complaining about the bumhunting, etc, are misinformed or using logic that applied to previous years. Using myself as an example, I table select more than most regulars, and with taking the first week of January off poker, have 27kVPP.

The problem here has little to do with the lobby situation, it's the game of HUNL and the ever increasing skill gap between your average recreational player and a Professional. Stars has made it clear they don't want any high edge games around, and are looking to provide games that ensure the rec sticks around for longer, capping the lobby doesn't ensure that, infact with the added competition/incentive to improve with a stricter KOTH, the Rec will actually lose at a faster rate, and his winrate will only decrease over time.

Learn a new game, join new sites, get extremely good, or practice a new vocation.

This unfortunately makes it a no go area for stars far too much hassle.

I know I personally would be tempted to use my dads/mum's/brothers accounts to get more action and I'm generally a quite straight up guy.