I know a good amount of Mtt'ers and a decent amount of them mixed Zoom in with Mtts when Zoom first was released, I don't think they really do as much any more but I'm sure if they had easy access to it in the mtt lobby they would. We have to manually turn off an option to prevent pop-ups and announcements in the chat every other 30 seconds telling us about a new tourney starting, similar concept in a way, they could filter it out if it's not of interest.

To add to this. If Stars did more things similar this idea, where they link or offer easier segways between game types, I would imagine it should increase the return rate or average volume for Rec Players. Seems like it would make them more curious of other games and also make it much more likely they find a game type that they really like.

1. Mandatory min buy-in 50bb on the regular tables, like zoom (shortie testimony, but not necessarily relevant)

2. Rewards and achievements, fun promotions (say an example "hand of the week" promotion, this week if you win at showdown with T6s you get a shiny badge or so). This is actually important imo, fish like those

3. Get rid of table starters for good (badgers_uk's idea to instead make it more fish friendly sounds good on paper but in practice i don't think it can work)

4. Faster way to report players: implement checkboxes (standing for certain common infractions) to tick immediately by just right-clicking the abuser, similar to YouTube (screenshot). And the last checkbox should be "other" where you can just type it yourself (the way it is currently implemented) if the infraction is not found in the common infractions list above

5. Ban the jesus seat script already

i hate to be the devils advocate
but stars mentioned time and time again that they are not planning on changing the 40bb stack since they have every right to do buyin for that amount,
however, stars is planning on fighting the ratholing which will solve a part of the shortstacker-problem
furthermore, im pretty sure the testimony by the shortstacker is from a gimmick-account

nah he's the real deal, http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=71

but like i said it doesn't mean that much

and so will we (the ones that keep their business running), tell them time and time again to increase it, until they might be willing to

i just think we should fight for things that stars could/will actually improve

if natis gets the time to talk about something, i think that time is wasted if he just tells them to increase the min buyin for the 100th time,
i rather see him talking about the danger of seating scripts (especially at midstakes+)

no. some of us understand that upping the minbuyin is only one of a multiple ways of resolving the problem. And also not an ideal way in many people's opinion.

Amazing.

i like it too, but beware that this is a very easy thing to abuse
a fish might lose a pot, he is mad so he reports his opponent for something he didnt do
a lot of pissed off regs could do this too
so its a great start for a good idea but it needs some tweaking to avoid abuse

one of the most logical solutions imo is that when a player abused this option 3 times he loses the right to report other players for a certain amount of time,
if he abuses it again, the penalty he receives will become longer

shorties can rathole 24times every 24h or something like that?

Added Supernova perk imo

that also works

I like the idea of gimmicks, fish like PKR for its daft graphics, and they like 888 for its webcam tables. Defo something stars should look into.

I have a couple of friends who didnt even know that you could trade FPPs for cash, they dont understand the VIP system atall.

Min 150bb buyin for Deep tables.

I back alot of things that have already been said ITT too obv.

^This is an absolutely brilliant idea. I'm sure Stars will be very interested in considering it too. Definitely propose this Natis.

Brainstorming with the achievements idea:

1) Some from PTR that seemed cool were the royal flush achievement, the steel wheel, and the sandbag for check raising 3 times.

2) Winning with an unimproved 32o on the river by bluffing

3) Making your opponent fold and show a better hand than you have

4) Stacking a team pro for at least 100 bb

5) Sitting with Johnny Chan and making a sick re-re-reraise with air and getting him to fold. This one might require signing Johnny Chan to Team Poker Stars.

6) Something for sitting down and playing a high stakes game.

The general idea is having achievements for things that are achievable by the average recreational player, that could be cool to display at the table. The one for earning a million lifetime VPP's is definitely not the way I want to see the achievements thing go.

A difference between Stars and other sites is that other sites have ongoing promotions for the gambler types like bad beat or high hand jackpots. At Stars you can just sit down and play poker; there is nothing else to shoot for. Achievements will help them bridge this gap without hurting their product.

There are loads of achievements you can make, i don't think it's really worthwhile listing them all. But another cool thing would be to actually earn something for these achievements. Possibly complete 10 achievements and it unlocks a reload style bonus for the player (so encouraging to still deposit etc). Unlock more achievements and win a free entry to some tourny etc etc etc. A

And having the ability to brag about them to their mates (using something like boom player). There are loads of ways to make this type of thing work.

i'd love a 72 bounty variation. i know it's not worth pushing for but i think it would be a lot of fun and it would make fish go absolutely crazy and add a spew gear to the games of some regs

+1

i know i don't play online anymore, and I'm sure NL still has some issues, but not bringing up the rake situation in PLO would be pretty atrocious.

I'm sure Stars can do a lot to make NL games better for regs and fish alike, but the status quo is already incredible if you compare to PLO.

For those that don't know anything about it, rake is ~100bb/100 at small stakes games. Here's a huge thread with a bunch of analysis from a SSPLO player who's final conclusion is that nobody is beating 100PLO and lower over a big sample, the rake is just too high.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...raked-1315665/

PLO really could be the future of poker, as NL games seem to get worse and worse as time progresses, more and more rec. players move to PLO. Currently, it's nearly impossible for someone to move up from uPLO to ssPLO to hsPLO.

I know many of you, just as I did, made the climb from micros to HSNL, and it really should be possible in a game that is attracting more and more players each year.

It would be great if this problem was fixed by the time US legislation happens and the player pool is flush again.

Sorry for the off topic rant Natis, but all of the posts in the thread seem to be looking for gimmics to rejuvenate what seems like a dying game, while the potential future of the game just needs some re-tooling.

Love this idea

the difference, NoT, is that this is as unbelievably easy to state problem, which has been stated and restated and PokerStars surely are aware of it. Unless you have something groundbreaking to say about the issue, or have arguments that have not yet been put forth and/or are so compelling in their nature that they could make a baby weep, I'm not sure what you'd want Natis to do other than tell PS for the zillionth time that PLO rake is too high.

very true. some insightful stats here: http://leggopoker.com/blogs/clayton/

and here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...raked-1315665/

@NoT, one of the reasons nlhe is dying is due to the fact that so many people have now worked their way up through the limits. The fact that plo has such high rake that that's impossible might actually be a good thing if you are looking to play plo at higher stakes. Obviously this sucks for prospective ssplo regs, but think about how soft poker would be if anything under 5/10nl was gone (or unbeatable due to rake). A lot of the reasons plo is so soft today is because you have not only rich whales who like the variance, but you also have msnl/hsnl pros knowing full-well they are -ev in the games but trying to learn. This makes becoming a good plo player a goldmine, whereas if you're a good nlhe player not only do you not have the additional regfish who know they're -ev but want to learn the game and can't do so lower, but you also have way more competent pros just because of it being so easy to work your way up and learn by trying things without ever being in a -ev situation.

I'd still be inclined to ask about lowering the rake, just trying to point out something that may not be obvious to everyone but actually is a fair amount of the reason why plo is so soft.

IMO (!) those stats reflect so much of level 1 thinking which kind of responsible why they're stuck at PLO100. 200k hands of 4bb/100 @ PLO 100 is about 10k in winnings and rakeback. Why would anyone still play 100 then? There are so many fishes at SSPLO that finding good PL200 tables shouldn't be the issue at all.

I know there are some people here that grind NL100 here just because the like the free-variance-easy money but since free variance never happens in PLO anyway i fail to see any more legit reasons. Thou I'm open to be convinced otherwise.

Seems pretty insane to me that the PLO community didn't get its own representative. I'm certain Natis will do his best to represent the PLO community, but they definitely deserve to have a regular player at the meeting. Every game/limit has its own set of issues that need to be addressed. Even SSNL and MSNL have very different problems.

@Zach: Wouldn't having weak regs move up to midstakes be a good thing for the medium/strong regulars at midstakes? If Stars hypothetically eliminated rake, 25nl regs would have the bankrolls to move up to 100nl and the games would be significantly softer. Then 100nl will shot-take midstakes, and so forth.

1. The weak regs can improve and become strong regs
2. Which would you rather have? A pool of whales and weak regs or a pool of purely whales? Or even would you rather play 3-handed with 2 whales or 9-handed with 2 whales and 6 weak regs?

And you can actually see it in practice with live poker. Limon actually brought this up in his well, that in the 50/100+ games there's just a huge barrier of entry. It's not like you can grind 25/50nl then grind 50/100nl etc. and build up a bankroll. If a whale sits 20knl the game will run, and the only ones who will be able to play are those rolled to play 20knl and people who have made their money from places other than poker. This cuts down on the # of professional players that could possibly play and necessarily makes the game softer. Online poker has somewhat changed that and I think that's what limon was commenting on. I think he said if he were god of poker and wanted to do what was in his sole best interest he would eliminate all games 5/10nl and lower from the face of the earth (I think he regularly played 10/20nl). They'd have to start at 10/20nl+ if they wanted to play and thus it would be super-hard for anyone not wealthy through other means to get good at the game, and most people wealthy through other means aren't going to put enough effort into poker to become good.

The one positive though to lower stakes is say you're a 10/20nl reg and a fish only has 1k to burn, they might go to 5/10nl, if they double it then move up to 10/20nl whereas if 5/10nl didn't exist they might not even play poker with it at all.


edit: that said the player rep doesn't only represent the strong higher-stakes regs and I think the majority of plo regs want the rake lowered, I was just pointing out how it's possible that high rake would be a good thing for some players.