Quote:
Originally Posted by PokerSki13
The casual 2/5 player (me) now plays 1/2 because $1000 buyin is to big. One thing for a once a week guy like myself who has a good job and plays for fun (and is a decent player who is a small winner over the past few years) to come in with $1,500 to play 2/5. It is another thing to have to bring 3K. I like to have a minimum of 3 buyins when I play. Given that I play for fun I am now playing 1/2. It was obvious that this would happen and that is why there are 25 full 1/2 tables on a Fri/Sat night and 6 2/5 tables. Go back to $500 buyin and it will change. Either way no big deal for me as I enjoy playing
I think you are right with the buy in possibly causing problems.
I don't play much NLH but i can relate from a PLO perspective as that is what I play.
Haven't been there in a while but harrahs chester would occasionally spread a 1-2 PLO game, the complaint i had was that it was a 60-300 buy in. Many of us wanted them to bump it to a standard PLO buyin for this level which is usually 100-500. We of course want more money on the table, bigger stacks etc etc.....
Many people commented on here that it was scaring away casual players because it was more intimidating to them with a larger buyin and wouldn't give the game a shot with the higher structure but would if it matched the NL buy in structure of 60-300. As in this situation mentioned by the OP, many of the players could very well afford the bigger $500 buy in but that is not how they wanted to play the game.
Even though effective stacks are whats important different people have different ways they like to play their games and I think there is a tradeoff sometimes with increasing buyins in PL and NL games, you can play for bigger stacks but you also run the risk of scaring off some players who might be intimidated or not want to play in the game as a result of the larger stacks.
While everyone has their own opinion of what short stacked is, raising the buyin from my experience tends to attract some better players and push some other, sometimes bad, players away from the game, as with everything it has its good sides and bad sides.
Another thing to note is that it increases the minimum from 100 to 200 when you play with a max 1000, which i know you don't want short stackers but it does also reduce the player field slightly.