We're making changes today to add a 2nd/3rd which will launch a few hours before the Kickoff.


Changing the buy-ins would cause a number of problems which would need to be addressed, but the buy-ins aren't set in any way with regard to deposit increments.


We'll take a look at adding a Trial NLO8 around that time, and see how it goes.



We get many hundreds of ideas every month, and there is no possibility of implementing them all. Still, we continue to solicit feedback and incorporate many ideas and requests which come from our players. I realize that it can be frustrating when an idea which is particularly important to you isn't implemented, but that isn't an indication that we aren't listening.


We're discussing this now, in fact. The issue is potential conflict with other series qualification, but I'm pretty sure that we'll find a way to reintroduce weekly Passport qualifiers relatively soon.


The various non-NLHE Weeklies will continue as they are for now, though we are considering changing them significantly (lowering buy-ins, perhaps) as part of the ongoing optimization of the tournament schedule.


There's no question about it, we got that one wrong. It was far too long, and will be changed significantly before MicroMillions III.


Could you please be specific about what you find so distasteful? Have you tried using the custom color options (Options > Tournament Color Options (Beta)) in conjunction with the new lobby?


The above idea generated a ton of discussion here amongst the Tournaments Team, along with an associated idea of being able to give a particular tournament an individual, personalized name. I can't promise that development will progress along these lines, but you've definitely piqued our attention, and I'm certain we'll be discussing this more in the future.


We are steadily increasing and optimizing the S&G satellite offering. As for satellites during late registration, any which existed before the tournament began will remain in the client for a period of time, but no new ones can be created.


We have had 8-Game guarantees in the past and I would love to have them again in the future. The unfortunate reality is that there isn't enough interest in the format to sustain such a guaranteed tournament, which is what resulted in the removal of the previous 8-Game daily guaranteed tournaments. We can take a look at this again in the future, perhaps after WCOOP.


The Steps system was specifically designed to augment the qualification paths to various live events. There are instances of other exit points being allowed, particularly for special series like TCOOP, SCOOP, and WCOOP, but the overall reason for the Steps system's existence continues to be the support of live event qualification.


Thanks as always for the feedback, everyone... please keep it coming!

don't you understand thats why the step system is so dead?

would also be so good for the MTT/SNGs with step 2-4 buy inn.

The Steps system is doing fine, actually. I checked recent participation, and found that over 3,300 individual Steps tournaments ran in the past week. When WCOOP gets closer, the participation will no doubt go up, as it did during SCOOP (by about 40-50%). It would no doubt go higher if we opened up the regular schedule to massive Step ticket usage, but that's not what the system is for and there is no need to take this live event qualification path away to add another way to get into the tournaments on the regular schedule.

Thanks for the update.

How many of those are Step 4+? Step 3?
Why are FPP Steps separate from $ Steps? Why not combine them?

How many non-NLH Steps actually go off? Any at Step 2+? To me the Step Lobby looks very cluttered and I assume it takes some experience for a recreational player to navigate to get to a game they want to play.

I think a big contributor to volume at Steps is being able to use a Step 4 ticket to play a $215 MTT. This is the only reason I ever play them and when I do it's only Step 3 as I don't want to end up with a Step 1 ticket.

What do you think volume would look like if you took away the Step 4 exit point? Why do you offer a Step 4 exit point if your main goal is to provide a live event qualification path?

Having FPP buyin games seperately listed is just unnecessary and stupid, especially since you can buy a step 2 ticket in the store for 1750 FPPs but you can't buy in to a 1750FPP step 2 game with a ticket!

Hi Bryan,
If this is the goal of the steps system, then why not create a similar system specifically for the regular schedule? How about Ladders.

I have some thoughts on tournaments since I play dozens a day. My post is meant to be logical and not based on personal preference. There are some curious oddities I think Bryan, was wondering what your stance was on these since they make no sense to me.

It's clear there are different tiers of buy-ins that Stars is trying to reach. You also have different brackets at :00 (mainly flagships), :15, :30, and :45. The :00 and :30 events are usually the big ones and the :15/:45 are random turbos and hypers.

1. Why are there so many different hyper tournaments of the same buy-in level, same speed, at random times?

I don't really understand why there are so many $5/$25/$51/$82 hypers on the day. I feel like you should either just run one of each every hour at :15/:45 or run like 2 a day as major events. The "Quick" series seems like an amazing idea.

You're probably not running so many due to liquidity issues or killing the poker economy since hypers kill bankrolls? But for example, right now at 9:30, 11:30 and 12:00 there are $82 hypers. These seem completely random to me. Why are there two $82 hypers 30 minutes apart? Why not just run the 12:00 one as like a 40k guaranteed flagship?

Wouldn't it just be way less messy to run like a $5.10/20k guaranteed flagship as well? You have $5 hypers at the most random times (730, 830, 845, 1045, 1130, 1130, 1430?) How does this make sense? (disclaimer: I play every hyper every day from $5-215 so I'm not saying get rid of them or whatnot).

2. Scheduling oddities

Offhand there are many tournaments that should just be cleaned up and consolidated in my opinion. And possibly replaced with something completely different. Some examples

- I don't understand why you include the 11R Action Hour in the same hour as the 11R. At 800 and 815 today, there are one of each. You also include a lot of 11 Cube/11 Quad in the same hour as 11 freezeouts and 11 rebuys. You do this so frequently I'm guessing there is some good reason for it?

It seems kind of bad to me and seems to divide the player pool that might otherwise just play one of those $11 tournaments.

- I don't get why you run the 5C 7.5k and the 5Q 17.5k in the same hour as well. This one seems completely off to me. How many non-regs are there that want to play a super-deep $5 tournament multiple times in the same hour? Why not consolidate their prize pools?

I think you guys should hire someone to go through the schedule and make sure there aren't same buy-in/type games in the same hour. And if there are, they should be replaced with something completely different.

especially this

ermagherd $25 nlo8 6max hyper! ty

OMGOMG THIS

there is little incentive to play weekend majors when one lives in an off-peak time zone. this gave me the idea of some kind of 3 day repecharge tourney that involves all time zones, culminating on sunday with the top 10-20% of players, making the final.

eg day 1a kicks off in europe friday night, and play ends when down to the top X%. day 1b can be early saturday morning europe time, which is friday night across the asia-pacific. the qualifiers play the day 3 final when the sunday majors kick off.

this will give any asia pacific day 3 qualifier an incentive to play some of the sunday majors. games that he/she would ordinarily not want to wake up at 4am monday morning for.

Sunday Deepstack Major 55$bi 50K GTD 5K stack 20min levels
starts when hot 16.50 or big 11 starting, will be aswome! 180 min late reg.

yeah so much for flighted tourneys, that sucks

red spade no flights again

FTOPS and MiniFTOPS schedule?

Anyone play the Steps via EPT Barcelona? Best to start at Step D and on or start at Step A and see if you can run like god?

Would be great if the new FTP MTT Team would consult the players when creating the new FTP MTT Schedule, maybe the MTT reps from the last set of meetings.

Any specific reason for two exact same 5.10 NLHE Hyper-turbo $2k gtds at 11:30 ET?

"new"

no same, but with 50% guarantees (or whatever reductions seem optimal to not hehmorhage $ if the player base takes a bit to trickle back)

people liked ftp for what it was, not for a "starsed up version" it could be**

i would love to have mid stakes cubed turbos... like 109 1r1ad turbo but 221r1ad turbo or 11ar ad turbo or 331r1ad turbo.

of the 3 82$ hypers u have every day after each other, remove the first, and replace it with a 10t1r1a. get a 30t1r1a 1h after that. then move the other 2 82$ hypers 1,5h later after there original starting time with double gtd. this would be so much win!

Ye i have asked for cubed turbos for a long time it would be so nice

like a $8 , $11 and $22

I dont know if there should will be a designated FTP thread. One of the most important things, i believe, is reducing the amount of multientry tournaments. It makes sense for off peak tournaments, a few daily highights, and major series. Other then that I think everyone can agree its bad for the tournament poker economy. You guys are the best at pacing though, so im not worried. Just thought id throw that out there.