jan82 can you please tell me your table playing philosophy? i think its only play with 10 tier playing if more then hu and sit out every other possible tier if other regular is present

Quick question whats the average amount of tables people play on HSPLO, lets say 5/10+ (thats what we are discussing with time not average of all ring game players in all games) and how many persons have complaints on these stakes? Follow up, whats the average tables for stakes between 5-10 and 50-100?

Also if you see this, what is the reason FLHE have a different rakestructure then NLHE? Why can not PLO have it for the same reasons (do you agree PLO and NLHE is different games)? (Its pretty clear to mepot limit two cards is not no limit four cards, and PLO is more similar to FLHE then NLHE preflop but also in other regards but feel free to argue NLHE=PLO).

This is same kind of 'truth' that it was just a 5 second change for table speed (it was at least two more influent changes, less time to act without money in the pot 35-->20 and warning timer cut down from 15-->8 . More on my view HERE.

Do you still believe ''The difference at HSPLO is just 5 seconds per action (quote PokerStars Nick).'' is a 100% true statement?

I among others believe this would be a change in our daily play that is simply wrong to define as 'see little to no difference in their daily play'. I would go as long and say thats plainly wrong, lots of people will have trouble starting tables affecting everyone and personally every table Ill sit on under the new system I call 'fast vs 2' (preflop time is very important part of PLO and why change timer at all? please answer reasoning for that, esp postflop) will I see the difference and hate it. Please don't do this for HSPLO.

I play as long as i think it is +EV to play a table. Sometimes i have to quit tables even though it is probably still +EV simply because i have better tables running and i am not really great at mass multitabling. So probably the same philosophy as for most other non-SNE and non-comepetitive-"i wanna battle regs and become the best plo player in the world"-player i guess.

Under the current system for time bank replenishment, the timebank increases by 10 seconds every 50 hands. This is an extremely long wait if your timebank has reduced to zero. It would cause me to leave a table I don't want to leave , incase I found myself timing out in a very large pot. I can't afford to wait 50 hands at zero seconds.

There are reasons outside of "playing too many tables" which can cause a timebank to reduce to zero. For example dodgy internet connection , nagging spouse/kids, phonecall, computer freezing temporarily.

In my opinion a change should be made to replenishment, so that after a timebank has emptied, the first 10 seconds of replenishment is MUCH quicker than the current system (e.g. 20 hands only - or less). This will at least allow the player to "get back to safety" of 10 second bank , without being forced to quit table.

Any further increase (e.g. to replenish back to 20 or 30 seconds) should take much longer - e.g. the current 50 hands requirement.

Or how about you have option to post a BB to buy 10s if you've lost your time bank (next hand)? At least this way, you have an option and the other players on the table are rewarded slightly.

Nothing tilts fish like me more than ppl on crappy connections timing out every hand....an you want to extend that torture.

The problem with what you're doing here that noone seems to be acknowledging is that the time is only gonna get shorter and shorter over the years.

It's like Steve said, that changing the minbuy from 30-40bb in the long run will not abate the complaints. In 1 year all those exact same guys who were thanking you for the change will be bitching about how it isn't 50, and so forth.

Just like in 1 or 2 years you're gonna change the time to slightly smaller than it is now, and the rake to slightly bigger than it is now. This is why the change of the time concerns me, because it's pretty small for high stakes as it is, and does not need to be any shorter.

I think it should be longer if anything, because the time issues that affect Midstakes do not really affect HS. Also of note, is that the population of rec players is very small at HS. I think the profit you make from this change would be 99% at low stakes right...

I think when your time bank hits zero it should be 1 second per hand up to 10 will to get you to a safe zone and then 50 hands for another 30 seconds will be fine although something like 30 hands seems more reasonable to me. Basically, you get 1 second per hand, something like chess rules.

Something like this would be pretty reasonable, at least up to 5 seconds or something.

+1
Exactly! Most of the rules getting worse and worse every year, and its just for the improvement of stars' profit, nothing else imo.
I wonder how in a game that runs fine for so many years everything has to be changed so urgently that was good before?!?

Again to say for the timebankrule: PLO is not NLHE or FLHE
In PLO 6max average 55h/hour are played, in NLHE about 100. Thats cause the game is more complicated and more time to think in some situations is needed.
In 50 hands PLO a lot of diff decisions will happen, in NLHE i mostly fold preflop and quickly got a new timebank. ( I dont play NLHE so sorry in case i'm wrong and the timebank is different for diff games, but i dont believe so)

And ofc the rakestructure has to be diff for diff games, but stars will never lower the rake and make less profit, so stop dreaming guys.

P.S.: Timebank 0 is unplayable, we play for cash not for playmoney, there are decisions to be made for more than a month's loan of an average guy even in midstakes, and it pretty much sucks if it makes WOOSH and your hand is folded,
so there alway should be a min of 2-5secs in the timebank
to receive last warning b4 the cash is gone...
Btw I also hate those guys using the whole time for every decision esp preflop and so slow the gamespeed down, but then look for a solution to punish those slow *** instead of punishing all the players.

New timing and min buy in at 40bb are in effect.

Looks like 15% more hands per hour. Feels like Need for Speed. It will definitely cut on either my volume or my winrate, well played Stars.

15% more hands per hour. 15% less tables

Btw I like the new changes, mass multitabling turtles might not but imo poker is never meant to be played in that way. It should be about being one step ahead of your opponent. Not about playing as many tables as possible to increase your hourly winrate. They should ban all HUDs too that would be great!

im very interessed to hear from pokerstars why NLHE has diferent rake structure than FLHE... they are more similar games than NLHE and PLO... if i would choose the most similar games between this 3, off course its NLHE and FLHE.

=p

They want as large of the reg population as breakeven as possible. It's the maximum return. It's the same reason that sng rake structure has been changed over the years. PLO is still very soft comparatively and too large of a population is beating it for a large amount to justify lower rake and more incentive to play. As a mid / high NL player I've seen this same argument for the last 5 years. It's why 20-50 bb tables were removed entirely (rake was too high proportionately to beat it, roughly 25% more because there was less folding preflop....sounds a lot like PLO except no one was beating them long run)

Let me add that before PTR was taken down I don't think anyone was beating <15/30 limit. If I'm not mistaken everyone lower were just mass grinding rakebots.

^
You're exaggerating. PokerStars had consistent winner at pretty much all stakes (they have significantly lower LHE rake structure than most sites). On other sites stakes like 2/4...5/T were pretty much the rakeback grinding you described but at 10/20+ winrates of best regs were clearly positive even on sites with worse rake structures.

If you're looking for "rakeback grinding" poker formats you should look at SNGs, especially 6max superturbos. Even with PS structure (~4% rake at smallstakes, lightly lower at higher stakes) it's very typical that even the top regs at $60+ have something like -1...0% ROI. And if you look at some other networks like iPoker where superturbos have 8-10% rake you'll notice that most (good) regs have about -5% ROIs and they make their money with 80-100% rakeback they get from rakeraces.

(Yes, I spend/spent way too much time on PTR/SS analyzing different formats, rake structures and sustainable winrates)


edit:
2012 graph of one of the biggest midstakes lhe winners
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aIlgDG9CVV...600/PTYear.png

On a game with 19BB/100 SD a winrate of 1BB/100 is pretty massive actually.

I could be exaggerating a bit, but I'm pretty sure I remember looking at PTR for 5/10 top LHE winners near year end and all had <10k winnings on the year. Of course there are going to be a few sickos beating the game thru skill and probably positive variance along with bumhunting very well. The point remains rake is much higher than it needs to be. This has been an ongoing discussion in the NL forums for years now. $3 cap is some arbitrary number decided upon when online poker was in its infancy simply because it was the standard at a Vegas casino iirc, and not because it allowed for typical profit margins in a normal business. I don't read or monitor much of the PLO forums, but it's clear in the NL forums that stars only cares about maximizing revenue long run, and who can blame them. That's the real reason I think they are holding out on changing rake structures in PLO. Fwiw is <200 PLO really beatable given rake (and not including rakeback)? Serious noob question, as I've heard rumors that its probably not given rake is effectively 80% more.

Obviously they are, and it'd be pretty dumb to expect them to do anything else. In these recent PS threads posters have tried to suggest changes that they think could be profitable for both regulars and pokerstars in the long run.

And it'd be unfair to say PS is exceptionally greedy, when they have pretty much the lowest rake structures online (excluding small national sites like RAY, SvenskaSpel etc.). Although for low/medium volume players you could argue that the effective rake is similar (or even higher) than competitors' as other sites offer better rakeback/bonuses.

If anything, PS has history of running their poker site really well and listening to their customers more than most sites. But of course there's always room for improvement.

although the winrate is minuscule. Look at it in comparison to rake paid.

contrast that to small/microstakes PLO. the winrate would likely be very high but the rake and $ won would be reversed.

Exactly

I don't really understand how 1BB/100 winrate is miniscule with 19BB/100 SD game. It's pretty much comparable to 6-10bb/100 winrates in PLO.

Obviously the "value" of big bet is completely different in FL games than the value of 2bb in NL/PL games. If we want to "convert winrates" between different poker formats, we should always be looking at winrate compared to SD.

I'm really not trying to be a dick here, but I have no idea what you're trying to say. Which one is the unfairly raked game here in your opinion, LHE or PLO? If you're answer is both or neither, then how is the ratio of rake and winnings still relevant in any way?

Due to completely different nature of the games, you can never expect them to have similar winnings:SD:rake ratios no matter what is done to rake structures. In my opinion both games clearly go into the "rake makes it hard to beat, but it's still possible for best players to have reasonable pre-rakeback winrate" category.

Just looking at results of the very best small/midstakes players it could look like LHE players are better off than PLO players, but you have to remember that there isn't enough HS action at LHE nowadays, so best players at 10/20 and 15/30 are actually the very best LHE players, or at least super close to it. Unlike in PLO, where you'd rarely see the absolute best players grinding plo400.

chinz,

icwudt with the 1BB/100 & 19SD in LHE being similar to 6-10BB/100 & 150SD in PLO.

The figure I'd like to see (sorry I wasn't going to go through that graph and do the math on each stake level) is rake in BB/100. I'm confident that PLO's will be extremely higher.

I'm just trying to say that PLO rake is too high. Maybe we're saying the same thing because if you're saying that high rake has killed the LHE games, then surely the even higher raked PLO games will end more tragically. Not to mention that PLO has a higher SD which to me, means more variance, which means it's even harder for results to converge to show true winners (if there are any with this rake).

sorry, it's past 3am here and I'm probably babbling nonsense

time to go see if i can beat my old record of bit over 1800 hands/hr with new speed


you must not be playing much 400plo lately chinz also

Ankimo,
Using blinds as an measurement tool would be extremely unfair when comparing FL game to a PL game. LHE games have the highest $/100 rake out of any cash game. That graph was mid/highstakes, but at smallstakes LHE the rake paid compared to winrates of very good regs is probably even more sad to see than in PLO. It's typical to pay 2.5-3BB/100 in rake at games where 1BB/100 winrate would be considered very good. In fact I'm not sure if anyone has winrates that high at 2/4 to 3/6 LHE 6max these days.

But as I already said the games are really different. You can't simply just look at the amount of rake paid compared to attainable winrates and make any statements based on it. One thing you can say though is that LHE and PLO are both definitely in pretty bad spot compared to NL.