I was going to make a long post explaining my reasoning but here it is:

Cash games.

If Pokersites cared about player base, they would not spread anything lower than 0.5/$1 limit and $25NL/PLO. If Pokersites cared about player base, they would not rake anything on $5nl and $0.10/0.20 limit.

Tournaments:

There was a time when pokerstars did not rake ANYTHING from $1-4 MTTs. Now they do. Why rake those now? Bottom line. Also is there any need for a pokersite to charge LIVE RAKE FEE? Seriously, you can play live and they charge $50-75 on a $1k tournament. Same on stars/ftp and they pay no overhead/no dealers.

SNGs:

Sng players get screwed constantly. With the high (8%) rake that never ends even if you play 200$+ level (which is supposed to be high stakes), just think of the outrage if 10/20NL players had to pay $8 on rake in 200bb pot. there would be an outrage. The dilution of sngs is disgusting. There should be NOTHING more than turbo Sngs. Let's face it, no one normal wants to play normal speed sngs and the only reason to have DoN/Superturbos is so that the "pros" can 100 table them with little to no thinking, diluting the fishy SNG player pool. Also, there should be a limit to how many SNGs one player can enter (or at least at a certain level). I don't need player X playing 40 lowstakes sngs when they could be playing higher and beating those games. Whatever happened to "moving up" also, this would help the bigger games as well.

See, all your points have major issues.

Of course the sites care about their bottom lines, but that's not always the only thing they are concerned about (or perhaps with NBI they just haven't realized how little value they give them, I don't know).

If all the husng guys complained about the rake and it was proven to be too high for the games (I'm guessing this will happen at higher stakes within the next year), Stars/FTP will probably reduce it. Look what FTP did to the super turbos. Look how Stars responded to requests for the rematch button, for the 2x VPP promo we got screwed out of awhile back (ended up giving us 2x as long with 1.5x VPPs).

I'm sure Stars and other poker sites most profitable games are those that are most popular with players, so the two "goals" kind of compliment each other in many cases.

Also, people want lower level cash games, micro levels, why would Stars offering 10NL be a negative for the playerbase? So many casual players like to play at those levels.

Ry, A big reason why there were so many people making a lot of money in 03-06 was not only because people didn't know how to play but because, if i recall correctly, 25NL was the lowest game on Party poker (which at the time was #1).

Can you imagine if Party had 2NL/5NL/10NL? How many players do you think the 25NL player base would have lost? A ton.

Also, if stars cared about micro level cash game players, they wouldn't rake them at all.

Anyone playing under 25NL at FTP is getting raped and it's not that much better at stars.


Edit:

Also, CAP TABLES. Jesus, there is already a ceiling limit on how much you can make in SNGs. It'd help the site AND player base to cap the number of tables one can join.

Why can one only play 24 tables of cash but play 100 tables of SNGs?

Also, I am in favor for banning any real time program that make you play better. Whether it be huds or table ninja.

Also get rid of HU cash games until..400nl.

omg, that song is so ****ing awesome !

no blind increase sit&go's sound really good to me , it is an oportunity to really play poker and uotskill/beoutskilled the other guy. The normal husng get to a point where blinds are t100 and it is push fold - the room for skill playing is limited by the time/blinds constraint.

you want NBI?

GO PLAY CASH.

so...the late game doesn't involve any skill?

It involves tons of skill , but in late game u depend on cards / luck too much. There is not much waiting for a better spot in late game.

Well, thats not fair. For example, I don`t like to play cash, so I don`t play it and have my own reasons for it, which are important in my case. But I like NBI just because there is no push fold actually, and such game is more convenient for me. So I am sure its not fair to ban these games or smth like that, they are giving a unique opportunity to play tournament w/ a cash structure.
But I agree that the method of timing out in 200bb HUSNGs is awfull. As for me the solution is to reduce waiting time from 15sek to, lets say, 10 sec and to change 200bb deep tournies to 100bb. I really dont see any pluses in 200bb and sure this is a major mistake - 100bb must take their places.
Well, thats my humble opinion concerning this topic. Just couldnt keep silence cuz recently I started to play NBI (50bb I like more) and found that theu suit me well. And I do not berate anyone timing out))

lol at cowboymarco coming here and bragging. Sick timing down skills yo.

AHahaha omg that song is awesome.

so you're saying all I have to do to make 70k a year is learn how to time down properly? in his defense there's gotta be a bit more too it than that right? if not sign me up. we're all here to exploit the **** outta each other right?

You also have to be very patient and know very basic calling ranges vs tilting players, and just know how to play extremely nitty in general, as the blinds don't increase and players lose patience far sooner than you would (if you're playing the proper flytrap style).

"He's putting the twigs and branches out there and just waiting for the sucker to fall in"

lol we've got the whole animal kingdom here in HU SnGs. We've got sharks, venus flytraps, porcupines(bad regs who slowplay when another reg sits them), donks, fish and if you ask phil helmuth I think you'll find a few more.

lol. Nice.

Played cowboymarco last night and he wasn't timing out or even being a nit. He's a trash talking idiot but he is one of the better regs on the nbi's though that doesn't really make him good.

The song was awesome.

I don't blame you for doing it, but I think pokerstars should disallow it.

hahahaha such a sick song.

Just an idea but if you feel like grinding for a while, just sit this guy and play him on the side. The song was hilarious.

What are the lyrics at about 1:28?

Awesome song!

Is Pokerstars still letting people get away with this?

yea he's not doing anything that's against the stars rules..

It has to be my new Top 1... seriously. So much

flashdance,jason hoe,cowboy marco are my top 3 songs in my mp3 player