Anyways, here's the simple question for the unlimited lobby advocates:

Your change does not benefit PokerStars bottom line. Your change does not benefit the very best regulars in the game. Your change does not benefit casual players.

Why then, are you berating everybody that disagrees with you and why are you outraged that there aren't unlimited lobbies?

Also, Shane, I believe you when you say most people you talk to want unlimited lobbies. For me, it's probably closer to 25-50%, but my point is that there is probably a lot of bias for both of us in this regard. You (and me to a lesser extent) talk to a very $100-500 level regular heavy population of HUSNG players.

Further, I think that many more people would rather just try 2-4 lobbies and see how that goes. If that fixes most of the issues that people are having with double registering all the time, then I think you see a lot of support for unlimited lobbies go away, because the current situation would have improved.

Please do not increase the number of lobbies it at all, 2 is enough and the majority of the community is against this.

Instead of using this thread to argue for selfish things that do not benefit the community as a whole we should be using this thread as a means to get things that will benefit us all as a community, why aren't more people itt pushing more for things like a more husng MTTS, a husng leaderboard, husng promotions and husng advertisements?

i think like upping the lobbies some, like i suggested
2 at 1K
3 at 500 etc
would most likely benefit pokerstars bottom line, same as infinite lobbies would, because there would be less non purpose reg on reg action but there is a possibility that someone sees an open lobby and decides to opensit that instead of his usual 200 for example, in other words stars just won 2$ in rake or so +-

Eitherway im obv not well enough informed concerning ps and how their bottom line works to really argue what does and does not improve their bottom line.

However i don't see much harm in trying a few extra lobbies or even just at high stakes , since most people saying no to more lobbies appear to be mostly (from what i see / know) 100$ and below players .

so perhaps it has to be determined by stake, what is best, obv at 100s there is a big bunch of regs who are for example not that far away in skill from lets say 300$ weaker regs

while 100$ weaker regs are tons better then the avg 30$ reg

Also because people who play now for example 200/300 go on downswing play some 100, people from 60 move up to 100 and stay there for a good bit, so it seems to me that the highest concentration of decent players is at the 100s, (at 300s there are obv better players but there are a smaller number of regs then at 100s)

I think it does, because the very best now are not necessarily the quickest reggers per definition so for the best regs to get an equal amount of fish as the quickest reggers would be an improvement.

As far as the casual player goes, i don't think it will benefit them monetary wise, but i think it will be enjoyable if they at least have a chance to sit first instead of most likely probably always having to join someone else.

with ur second post i agree, I'm also biased because i only talk to 100$+ people.
So perhaps discussing it per stakes is more reasonable.

The main issue right now is imo, the simulsits, and the reward being too big for people who can register quickly. I think its ridiculous. if you can solve this other way then there is no need for unlimited or more lobbies imo.

Further i still want to point out that all the people posting against more lobbies but in favor of a chop function, i don't quite get it, so u don't want more lobbies so u can avoid simulsits easier, but u do want to simulsit and pay rake without playing?

Id really like it if pokerstars for example tried 4 lobbies for a while and then asked input on this, its just too hard to say what is best short & longterm right now, and no one can really prove one way or the other tbh.

It will definitely affect PokerStars bottom line if/when FTP comes back. I admittedly can't explain why FTP had more husng action then the current Stars does now but the only difference between the two would be FTP's lobby system.

I think Fastcolt already responded to your second point well. And for the very highest stakes Skaiwalkurrr was still able to scare everyone else away at the 1ks.

I think a lobby change is neutral to casual players.

Why are you accusing people in favor of more lobbies as berating everybody that disagrees and not the other way around. LOL

I am not sure what you consider high stakes but there was certainly no problem with long lists of regs waiting in line at 1k plus. If someone saw livb or H2Olga registered they would not try sitting below them without getting joined.

+1

A very good suggestion. Overall, a chop will benefit Stars (extra rake) and keep players happy. You could easily police the few people who wanted to abuse the system.

I don't know why everyone is so concerned with reg v reg action and the like. The current system does make it harder for regs to maintain a lobby but it's not that hard at higher stakes and Lotte Lenya/Skai are still able to maintain the high stakes lobbies. There's also plenty of reg v reg action because of same time sits. It is frustrating though when you sit a reg and someone else jumps in the gap you've opened up.

Testing out the 3-4 lobby option at stakes like 100/200 would be cool because they're so traffic intensive. People who are worried about it becoming a hu cash situation are exaggerating the downsides. You can't deny action in a husng so the better regs would sift through the lines playing the weaker regs and the usual reaction would be to not sit again.

I'm really not sure what is best though regarding this. The games have changed a fair bit since FTP. There are more regs and less fish so maybe the current situation is okay.

HUSNG leaderboard like the one they had on FTP towards the end would be cool. It rewarded you for beating multiple opponents which stimulated action vs regs. Cash rewards as prizes, I think 1st place was like 5k or something so an amount that is actually meaningful rather than like a $200 bonus.

Also more promotion of husng's. The banners on the lobby are always like 75th billionth hand or MTT madness or w/e. There's never anything directing recreational players to husng's they just have to find their own way.

In the chat box they have prompts for MTTs, maybe they could incorporate prompts for husngs like "why not try a single table heads up tournament?" and a link to a husng lobby. I pretty much reg for 50% of mtt's i've played because of those prompts lol Something along those lines.

I feel like husng players pay a lot of rake and we don't really get anything in return. There needs to be way more promotion of the husng's to recreational players. Maybe some big challenge or published event where they play husng's. More reporting on Isildur's adventures in 5ks would draw attention to these games. Maybe Isildur could set an open challenge at 5k husng's and stars could promote it. All the big promo events like nanoko's challenge are done in cash or 9 man sng formats.

//Incase the rep isnt aware: there is a lot of regular volume at higher stakes, which forces a lot of us to simultanously sit by ERROR when they click same lobby eachother, without the willing to do so. //

The main point is its really unfair when Two people (aka regs) reg and both of them dont want to play together and lobby issues makes them play eachother just because they clicked the same time, thats completely unfair, since both of them DONT want to play together, and the software is forcing them to do it by -ERROR-, that should be totally unacceptable in any Client based software. Its really basic. It might sound extreme but i even feel scammed when this happens.

--**NOTE**: when you reg empty lobby its totally FAIR someone desiredly sits you. When you open empty lobby and someone else regs at the same time, and he wouldnt be willing to sit you , thats now, really unfair. (2 persons forced by a software to play unwantedly, yay more rake for stars , sounds awesome!)

I dont mind 2 lobbies if you fix the current increasing "Simultaneous sit" problem between regs.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

- Option to ban a player from playing with you in HU game if he ALSO accepts. (Like when 2 players get banned to not play eachother anymore if team 4mans)

- Simply, add a a small delay (2-3 secs) when someone regs into an empty lobby, make it wait 2 secs before someone can sit in. This would fix all problems imo. Simple and effective.

Also agree with all of this

Is it possible for stars to make some sort of list for HUSNGS, where you can add screen names of people you don't want to play, so if you register second and a person from your list is already registered, it doesn't let you register? That would solve the reg vs reg by mistake action.

^
this sounds nice but its a lot of effort for stars to implement that option, if u simply add a 1-3 sec delay needed for someone to play you when you reg new lobby, that would stop all simultaneous sits, and its very simple, and has 0 downsides

+1 more lobbies

4 lobbies at hypers!!

great idea emi!

mmm fastcold and others make some good points, making me kinda want to support more lobbies. don't really have anything groundbreaking to add but:

grinding the lobbies has def become part of the game now and agree with others that this takes away focus from games for those wanting to multi-table. this isn't really a massive argument for or against more lobbies, it's just how it is at the moment and adapt or suffer i guess. my only issue is for those of us with slightly laggy net we get owned but again, gots to be good at the internets as well as poker i guess

those who point to the lack of action right now and say more lobbies would increase wait times need to consider that for people willing to play fishregs it could drastically reduce wait times. for example imagine at the $300 level "Really Solid Reg A" and "Really Solid Reg B" are sitting the two lobbies. There's another 15 regs staring at the screen waiting for a fish to sit so they can join the next lobby. This can continue for 10-15 minutes with no games running.

BUT of these 15 waiting regs, there's probably about 5 who are willing to sit a bunch of the others. If a few extra lobbies were available then there would be more games running because the regs willing to sit other worse regs would have more chance to get at them. It's almost like the empty lobby is bait and the regs who aren't good enough for that stake level will constantly be sat by those who are better and don't want to wait for action.

And I kind of like the idea of being able to register for some games and then do something else while I wait - go through HHs, browse 2p2, get a coffee, whatever. At the moment my time in between games is spent staring at the lobby trying to win the mouse-clicking race and losing to guys with auto scripts and stuff.

At the end of the day the system is what it is and there's an edge to be had for those who are better at it I guess. Is it not possible to at least trial a different lobby system for a week or two though? Would be interested if people who are strongly against more lobbies really notice a big difference.

also agree with a lot of emox's thoughts.

i think the calls for a chop button and the calls for more lobbies are more than likely coming from the fact that people who don't want to play each other frequently end up playing each other.

this

This is a terrible idea imo. Imagine the consequences- fish start blocking regs etc etc. And the list of ppl you don't want to play is always going to increase for everyone most of the time. In the end, this is just going to be like the HU cash situation... You only get to play some fish who doesn't care/know about playing regs etc. Another thing- I can just imagine the posts in the regs thread lol with ppl calling each other out for not agreeing to play each other. It can turn ugly when action starts drying.

Also props to emotionx's idea- the 2 sec delay thing is brilliant. Though it still doesn't remove the fact that grinding the lobbies is going to be the most important factor in your hourly. In fact this rewards the so called "bumhunters" even more now as there is even less incentive for the regs to play them (since it is easier to avoid reg vs reg action altogether).

Tbh more or less lobbies doesn't really change much, as more and more regs come into the game (obviously for those who grind for a living now- it's going to increase your hourly short term). The idea that extra lobbies is going to be "bait" for the weaker regs to be insta-sat by stronger ones is rediculous. Why isn't the 2 lobbies "bait"? Who would rather play regfish and not sit a new lobby for fish?

The fundamental problem is there is no incentive to play weaker regs and police the lobbies- so I still support att's idea of having the option of sitting the next lobby instantly after you sit someone as the best one ITT.

- The only difference between FTP before and Stars today is the lobby system? I doubt the lobby system is preventing Stars from seeing more games (since an unlimited lobby system would mostly just cut down on regs sitting at the same time with each other and being forced to play or chop, IE less games).

- The real difference between FTP then and Stars now is... 1) US playerbase left as a whole, with only regs returning over time 2) FTP, the site you're so ready to go back to already, owes players 100s of millions of dollars. That's money taken directly out of the player pool that is gone right now and not guaranteed to come back. There's also some other variables that make up the difference between FTP then and Stars today, but to say the only difference is the lobbies seems loco to me!

- I'm accusing you guys of berating people because you are. Look at the wording in JTS post. Plus you guys are saying things that are completely untrue, such as "being a lobby grinder is more important than being good today."

- You guys aren't being honest here either. You say you want more lobbies to cut down on simultaneous sits, but you don't know if it will hurt Stars bottom line or not. Clearly, all other things being equal, that takes away from Stars bottom line. Not that all other things are equal, but absent other information, all we have is a clear indicator of less rake going PokerStars way due to less chops/games between regulars, meaning more regulars waiting in the lobby and less regulars playing each other.

- Casual players, yea they play sharks no matter what, but if you ask them to pick between seeing regs play each other more often or less often, they will want it to happen more often.

- Judging from conversations from top players, they so far have indicated that they would prefer the current system, and they believe it is easier for them to sit other regulars when they want to, both for thin edges AND the likely next open lobby (obviously this depends on a # of things, namely the quality of other regs waiting and how many tables the reg has up).

In any case, shouldn't it be better for the overall games to see more regs playing each other, not less? Don't get me wrong, I completely see some positives of doing this, and I can see why it would make sense for many posters here to agree with you, but I also disagree with a lot of the points and I don't think unlimited lobbies is a good idea for the games.

There is also the whole "unlimited lobbies leads to 10+ waiting tables at a buyin, sharks waiting for fish dynamic" which I think most will agree is a negative.

When I get some time in the next few days I'll look over some posts from the FTP days, but I remember multiple regs complaining about unlimited lobbies and "sharks sitting around waiting for people to sit them, nobody playing each other, games are dying."

thats the solution, because then you benefit from playing regs

I ain't saying I necessarily support unlimited lobbies, just that I'd be down to trial like 4 or something.

oh yeah and more publicity/promotions!

Concerning the lobby debate: Both sides are making pretty valid points. The pros and cons of both sides (to me) seem pretty close, so I don't know which way to sway. And what have we learned in hold'em? When a spot is close, it probably means both options are close in EV anyways. They seem close to me anyway, perhaps others think they're not close at all. I disgress..

I would like to comment on the reg vs reg being a good thing for the games thing though. Firstly, let's focus on the higher stakes regulars who we can safely assume are a lot better than the $30 grinders. Secondly, the rake at 100s is 1,9% and 1,7% at 200s. For the sake of simplicity, let's call it even and say the rake is 1,8%. How big of an impact is this? If you were to play 100 games against a reg, you would pay 1.8 buyins in rake. This means you need to go, on average, 50.9-49.1 every 100 games to simply break even.

So if you manage to maintain a 51% winrate against a reg, you're still hardly making any money. How big are the edges anyway? I'm sure many of you instantly think: "OH MAN REG X IS TERRIBLE, LOL HE ONLY PLAYS 36.4342323% OOP LOLOLOLOLOL PRINT $$$". While it is true that almost every reg has some leaks, how big is this leak really? How much money do you actually think this leak will cost him? Is it a big mistake, or simply a suboptimal play? For most highstakes grinders, their mistakes will be pretty small; definitely not enough to justify beating the rake. I think people will (naturally) overestimate their own edge in any given game.

This doesn't mean sitting regs has no merits, it definitely does, which is why I'm leaning towards keeping the lobbies the same (or a combo system). But I just don't agree with the people who think sitting regs actually makes sense economically in hyper turbos. For those about to mention SkaiWalkurrr: this is a special case where the rake in 1ks is only 1.13%. This makes sitting other regs more economically viable (as it should in 1ks). Then again, if you pit Skai and Serk together, does anyone honestly think they will be beating the rake against eachother? This is up for speculation, but I estimate they probably don't as they're both in the absolute pinnacle of skill in hyper turbos.



As a side note, I really like the idea of having the option to take the next lobby when sitting second. It is absurdly annoying to sit a reg and have someone else snatch the lobby before you. I've done this before and went from like 0 to 6 tabling nothing but regs in <20 seconds.

i dont really care one way or another but the 2 second delay seems to make a lot of sense. best idea in here, and its so simple and everyone walks away happy (ish)

at the end of the day husng economy is still awesome right now so we should be thankful for that