It's all relative, right?

I didn't say there is no skill in <25bb poker, I myself used to play a ton of them. Compared to other form of poker, though, the edge is quite small, and thus it has become a game of volume.

Good winrates against other regs - I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that, but lots of regs are ~breaking even in reg matches. Lots of cartel regs admitted this too.

What I mean is it's still possible to beat regs for 51-52% winrate, which in a very fast game like HU hyper is a decent amount. I don't know enough about other formats to guess how much edge they have but my point is that there's a lot of skill in <25bb poker and it is possible to use that skill to make money. The rake increase makes making money off of regs harder which people view as a threat to these games being a skill game. I think we might agree more than we disagree, but if you agree with most of what I said above you should see where emotionx is coming from I think.

Whilst 51-52% winrate (corresponding to 0-1% ROI I presume?) is a decent result in hypers, this much of an edge is indisputably thin. I think we all agree on that.

At no point did I say there was no skill in hypers. There is. For that matter, there is skill in pretty much all formats of poker games. It's all relative, though. The reason why this 20% rake increase damages hypers and its regs is that the skill edge is so small; it's not because there was no skill edge. I hate to say this, but put in a different way, other games would have not been affected as much by this rake increase.

I do understand where emotionx is coming from, and he is making valid points. But I was just pointing out that the skill advantage in this game is fairly small (which he admitted himself), although it certainly exists. That's where its vulnerability comes from.

Also, FYI, I would like to make clear that I wasn't supporting nor criticising Pokerstars' rake increase at any point, as I believe it is a moot point. What we as regulars have to do is taking actions - actions that can deliver a clear message to Stars, making them re-consider options, etc. In this context, I think what was just posted in the $60 division chat is just dumb and inefficient, and am sure there might be better ways of implementing this "strike" idea, for example Joe's idea somewhere in this thread.

My stars secure token just went off. it is only showing a small 3 on the rigth side of the window.

Whats my line?

happened to a lot of people recently, token has an expiration date which was 10/31/2014 for a lot of them. use the one time password sheet that was sent to u with the token to log in. if u do not have it anymore (most people didnt after x years never using it) email stars and they will call u to verify your id and temporarily switch off the rsa request from the software. them u can just order a new one through the vip shop.

an HUNSG is a bubble ...ba dum tsssssss

Pirus hears about the new rake increases just after spin and go's have destroyed HU hypers.

Spin and Gos, rake and last but not least Amaya

pokerstars used to live up to the quote 'we are poker'. they had awesome customer service etc. in recent years they have simply become another global company raping the man on the street. doing things like buying fulltilt and introducing casino games etc. Just scum. Players paying a % as rake simply isnt enough for big corperations and they want more and more money by any means necessary.

I think it was loud and clear which direction they were going when they made play money chips available to buy.

nationalise pokerstars

and when they hided how much rake you pay in lobbies with the simplefied version of buyins. think they could triple rake without most of their players noticing it tbh.

How much is the higher rake hurting everyone?

Not as much as its hurting amaya

Volume has decreased dramatically.

You are right, volume is down a lot actually. Only problem i see, amaya still might be fistpumping since i saw a bunch of cartel regs just grinding spins instead to make up for lost volume... ups..

+1

lol decreased dramatically for who? for HU players or for Amaya? More people will have moved to different game types, HU traffic will rapidly die. Regs will make less due to rake, spin and gos and the games becoming more difficult due to it being reg infested.

Fish have moved on, the new drug is no longer the fast paced action of HU hypers but the chance to win 30k in a 3 seater hyper tourney.

Amaya will not notice much if any difference if HU hypers die. It will mean fishes money probably lasts longer and other game types with higher rake get more action. If all the regs left HU hypers tomorrow it would probably feel like one of us losing £10 on the street to Amaya.

Figured I'd give a shot for turbo HUSNGS due to reake increase. How standard is running like that ?

Very standard. Running 200+ bi under EV in turbos is not uncommon.

I would say you are running very bad tbh, but it's easier to run bad in turbo husngs compared to hucash.

The problem with husngs is most of the variance is in high blind levels. So if you run bad in a few hands at 50/100 either aiev or card distribution with Ax vs Ax etc your graph won't look pretty. So if you want a clearer idea of winrate it's better to filter for ev bb/100 and even better to filter for different stack sizes if you have the sample.

7000 Hands Played, LOL!

Oh, lol. Shoulda checked the chip count: I assumed they were matches and thought, "OMFG, he is running Horrible! Is this really possible? I should quit now."

Few months ago every of his posts was snap-quoted contemptuously; he seems to be perfectly right.

Hyper players after rake increased: