A link to AWice's final report post for those that missed it: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...2&postcount=42

1. There have been promotions in the past where you need to deposit $100, if you play SNGs 10/10 days, you get a $100 bonus, if you play SNGs 5/10 days you get $50 bonus. This is an example of a bonus that would get new/more recreational players depositing and playing SNGs.
   
2. Cash games have milestone hands...why can't SNG players have milestone SNGs and spam the lobby like cash ones do?
   
3. The occasional higher FPP multiplier week only on a certain type of SNG would bring in more recreational players to the games too.

A big drive early on in the life of the hypers particularly could do a lot for the long term longevity of those games. Waiting around until January 1st to implement any changes is a really bad move for all parties.

Personally, I would be pretty annoyed if I could only beat the $100s for 2%.

Just because you can't, doesn't mean others can't.

Lol what? No I have no interest at all in changing a specific game into something completely different.

There is way too much emphasis all round about "ooh what do fish want?" It's going to be completely divided what fish want, you can't please everyone, well maybe you can in vague ways. All I remember from being a fish years ago was I wanted to play from anything from half an hour to 4 hours to maybe an 8hr MTT. It depends on their mood and time allowance, they roam from game to game. So you may aswell forget changing anything drastically except for sorting the terrible BOP out. Add a few more levels to reward all aspects, luck, volume, skill. Whatever is sorted out about Leaderboard stuff, it needs to involve Stars adding and paying out MORE than they already do to their customer base, not taking what they already pay out and adjusting it to look better.

Lowering rake should have nothing to do with what win rates are achievable. It should be about how many extra holidays a year does Scheinberg wanna milk out of us? If he's feeling generous and wants to remain the best site in the world he'll drop it. End of.

Starzz you really think thatd be changing turbos into something "completely different"? Seems a bit hyperbolic.

Me--Boss,can I have a word?
Boss--What is it?
Me--When my pay review is up,could you keep my wage the same as it was last year?

Boss--I was actually thinking of giving you an increase to your salary.
Me--No,my wage is fine as it is thank you.
Boss--Thats fine,see you in the morning.

Boss drives home to his big mansion,lights up a big fat cigar and says "lol sheep"

Are you saying you're beating the 100s for more than 2% over a decent sample?

Taxidel thats a bad analogy. For one Stars isnt asking us if wed like a rake decrease. I agree that rake (at least in the hypers) is pretty fair. Way better than on any other site.

Stars told the reps that its off the table. If we just complain about rake and demand it being lowered when there's basically no chance it will, Stars might not take us as seriously on issues that we could change or that do need to be changed. There are still a lot of people that can beat sngs for a decent winrate. If noone was then Id agree that rake was too high. IDK if you guys read Alex's post or not, but a drop in rake doesnt just go straight into people's pockets. When rake is dropped and games become beatable for a larger winrate, people will move to that game and bring it back into equilibrium. That's why money is better spent in other areas than lowering rake.

Also, if you think beating mid-high stakes supers for only 2% is bad, try grinding on Ipoker or Merge.

what ruse said! come join us on merge where like 2 people beat the $5 hypers pre rb. then you can bitch all you want

Yes.

Top post imo. Was litterally going to reply with something exactly like this.

Like I said before and also Gramps has been asking around, what do people think of changing turbos from

20 30 50 100 150 200 200a

to

30 40 60 80 120a 160 200

Yeah any significant rake decrease will never happen, of that im sure. Agree that because of this money is maybe better spent in other areas.

Wouldnt go as far to say there are a lot of SNG players beating the games with decent winrates (not at $60+ anyway). Pretty lol if u think it has to come to the point where no one is beating the games before rake is decreased tho.

And yes if people are beating a particular game because the rake is decreased it will attract more regs, but tbh in most games it cant really get much worse in terms of regs/game anyway.

Sounds like somewhere in-between a turbo and a hyper. Charles Darwin would approve.

Eliminating bb20 and bb30? lol yes, massively so.


PS to FTP structure? Don't really care, will crush them regardless. An earlier ante I'm all for though.

Well i dont even play hypers but i know a few very good players who do play the 6max $100s from what they tell me anything >2% longterm is just crazy

lol whats ur sample like 5-10k games? in games where the "true" ROIs are 0-3% that isnt even close to a significant sample. And i speak from experience playing the F50s over 60k+ games.

But GL if u really are that ignorant.

The hypers are still in their infancy, at least if they get super-saturated by talented players who haven't even touched them yet, the much lower rake can support more grinders in that ecosystem. Unlike just about any other form of STT out there.

Only high stakes reg/turbo players would really care, but I think doing a rake cap like Party would be a good idea to revitalize those games. Something like a $10 cap, especially if done in conjunction with a BOP revamp would probably actually make money for Stars (they pay out $520k per year in BOP to $300+). Could potentially be a win-win for Stars and players.

Idk, mouldy's been a beast for a long time, if he says he's doin it, I don't really have a reason to believe he's not.

I'm a 6max turbo player. I think I like this; idea is that recreational players get first 4 levels to fish, rather than first three in current structure, and breakevens get more awkward mid blind levels that they have to play, is that right?

My concerns would be;

Does avg duration increase/decrease, the structure looks slower to me?

The impact of another change to sngs: when rake/buyin/structure was tinkered with last year, even though the changes to midstakes games were positive there was a big dropoff in traffic in these games, really don't want that again.

Also, I play some on stars.fr now, they don't seem to implement the changes that .com does (eg max 4 open lobbies, it's unlimited still at .fr), any reason, alignment across sites for any changes would be best.

WK, there probably arent too many guys beating $60s+ prerb but i assume theres a decent amount who make a good living post rb. And there are lots of grinders who make a (relatively) decent living and beat low and midstakes prerb. If you compare Stars offerings to other sites in terms of traffic, rake and attainable winrate I dont think youll find another site even close. Supers on Ipoker arent beatable prerb from the 20s and up. There are very few regs on Merge beating the supers pre rb. Winrates may be smaller than they used to be they are in every type of online poker and that has more to do with external factors rather than Star's having rake too high. Obviously it sucks to see your winrate keep dropping and traffic go down, but take it from someone that wasnt able to play on Stars for 8 months after BF, we have it pretty damn good.
This is why sites need to spend money attracting more recreational players rather than lowering rake. Rec players dont choose a site because of how low the rake is. Regs do. Rather than being up in arms about getting rake lowered we need to come up with some concrete ideas about SNG centered promotions and present them to the reps.

Dont get me wrong Russ, i fully agree that PS has the best offerings by a long margin. Im just trying to say if things continue the way they are we will get to a point where there is just about no one beating the games pre RB ($60+) and i just dont think thats right.

But im a realistic person and i know we will never get the rake cut to a point where the games with thrive again like the good old days. So yeah, money is better spent on other aspects such as promos/bonuses/new player incentives etc.

I really do think we need a rake cap to SNGs. it would allow all the BE regs to move up in stakes to the highest levels and as a result prob wouldnt impact all that much on PS revenue, it any at all given that high stakes SNGs are only a very small portion of their profits anyway.

when online poker is legal in usa (and you can deposit with your credit card) and if they wont be segregated, i do believe veeery good old days will come back :P

Why are the starting times of the hyper sats still 1min, in contrast to the 15sec we get at the 100$ cash hypers? Please change that accordingly.

It really comes down to Pokerstars having all the power when it comes to SNG/tournaments rake. We can't "strike" like cash players. Yes they are the best run online poker company by far but they're still in it to make as much money as possible and that probably means it will take something special to get them to lower rake.

I find their argumentation a bit weird though, Stars is basicly saying they wont lower rake because "lowering the rake doesn't mean the players make more, and we want the fish their money as we sped tons to attract them." I find that these 2 statements are a bit contradicting. If indeed lowering rake has little impact on game profitability, Pokerstars still takes as much "loose money" as they did before that, right? So something doesn't add up imo.

I like the new vip programs for us sng players.. Bop right now is just.. Trash