Just taking another look, in the next hour you have another 4 6max tournaments, for real, its WAY too much

Love the six max offering, there is a huge cluster of them esp with the 215 going yesterday maybe spread them out a bit

Quiet funny, was used to have 70% tables playing stars, moved down to peak times having open 20% Starstables After B215 you need to bring back moar lowbuyin turbos. Those where running prette good at 23:00CET to 00:30CET. Barely something there
Still miss the 2,3,5,8$ 2x Games, you brought now 3x Games, which is laughable after the rake increase in them. The 2x where at least a playable game, as the rebuys where not that high. Not enough regular rebuys aswell, was used to play5q 5c 8c 10c 20c 8r 10r. Now having 7,5+ 11+ and a late 22+, 55+ and 22+turbo are mehgames too. So bring back more 5-10$ rebuys!

Cliff:
-bring back 2,3,5,8$ 2x
-mooooar 11$ turbos after B215
-moar 7,5$+-11$+ could easily have one add 18:00 11+ 20:00 7,5+ 21:00CET had the 11+

bigger bi=bigger rake = more profits

That "boring" stuff is what MTTers need to grind in order to afford the variance of the Big/Hot and other "fun" stuff.

Tournament variance just skyrocket with this changes

Too many naïve responds in this thread. Cant believe so many people dont see the obvious things that are happening.

This whole schedule change is just 1 simple hidden money grab. I was already expecting something like to happen soon with mtt since they did the same thing before with all other formats. We mtt regs were just lucky that we came up last in the pecking order.

Sure there have been some changes before like mostly adding KO mtts and raking rebuys lately. These changes are only not nearly as hard hitting as the worst pay table/blind structures now. These tournaments were not the flagship mtts from pokerstars. Its always been the Bigs/Sunday mtts since day 1.

These flagship mtts are what all good mtt players should be focusing on if they want to get the most profit. You don’t become rich from playing some non red 11$ hyper at 1pm on a weekday. Sure you can fire up tournaments like these 10000 times a year and make 30-50k but this is not what most good regs do. The good regs play much less volume and focus on A+ play, they don’t blast 15 tables at once. They focus on the flagship mtts. Which is what poker is about. Not just trying to click as many buttons as you can in 1 hour but think about ranges and make the best decision possible. Not timeout because you are playing too many tables.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61...ssion-1185862/

So basically all turbo+hyper mtt is just a bunch of money swapping between regs. Sure if you are like me a good preflop player you can make some money in them but they are for sure not the big moneymakers. I doubt there would be many mtt “pros” if you cut out the whole regular mtt schedule and you only have turbo+hyper. Too many variance and single digit rois. Can you imagine the variance for a Sunday million hyper with 6000 people? With regular speed gone then the hots would be the flagship mtts. These tournament as you can see in the link above are already very thin with rois. Sure at the lower stakes its still profitable but at 44$+, basically the level where people start to have a little bit of a clue what they are doing, its single digit rois.

Now back to 2016, Amaya cutting regs money to keep fish longer alive aka everybody losing and only Amaya winning.

They don’t need to change much of turbo+hyper because they are already bad anyways for regs. If you would make those even more faster then well people don’t even make single digit rois anymore. These people who do that then just run hot. So these structures they cant change it anymore and guess what? They didn’t make this any worse! I read even here on 2+2 they made their structures even a little better! Totally against the policy of Amaya in! Well how is that possible? Are we so lucky?

Now to regular speed. Rois way too high. Need to cut it. Cant change rake because already raked rebuys and you cant right away change 100% of mtt into KO mtt(but you can do it slowly!). That would be too obvious a Sunday million 75% bounty KO mtt. So easy decision just cut blind level time and change pay structure and boom job done.


Changing starting stack structure. Why would the playing experience of recreational players be any better when they see 5000 chips instead of 3000 starting? If so? Why not right away make it 200k starting stack with 500/1000 blinds. Looks right away like highstakes poker on gsn! The recreational players are not less intelligent people(please don’t question that, kinda offending to them), they just put in less hours in the game of poker. Apparently some regs asked for this a while ago but they could have known that if you get more chips Amaya just is going to adjust the blind structure also. This is just another simple change to create more hidden confusion to distract us from the true changes that are really happening.

So now with all information laid on the table back to what people are responding here. Great change! Great schedule! Yes for turbo+hyper 3 buck a game mtt players got it a lot better. They can also now start shoving more in the daily bigs. Playing more tables even then they do now because they don’t have to think about playing real postflop poker like we did in the bigs. And there are already more mtts waiting for them to play this kind of poker. 2 times big 22!

And this is exactly what Amaya wants. Weak regs that play 15 hours a day for 250+ day a year for a single digit roi. So they can bank in all the cash.

For me what I want to see is what most intelligent people in this thread suggest. Back to the old blind structures or something that is remotely the same. And I don’t give a **** if I have to start with 1 million chips starting stack and whatever size the ante is. As long as it takes the same time to finish the bigs with linear movement in blind levels aka after 3+ hours in the mtt all the time average stack around the 30bb mark. Not 15bb. If people want to play faster poker like Luke suggest then there are enough other options out there for that. By far the bigger part is turbo and hyper mtt, don’t know the exact numbers but it wouldnt surprise me if its as high as 70-80% of the whole schedule. These daily bigs are the last good regular speed weekdays mtts.

But im afraid these changes are not going to happen since its pretty clear what direction Amaya is going too. We got here a guy called Luke who I played with enough back in the day. Back then he wasn’t the greatest reg and now he is a dinosaur in online poker just like me, aged 30. He is one of the guys who doesn’t want to play online poker anymore for whatever reason. Probably because a lot of his profits got cut by younger better players like so many older regs have so he now goes to the business side of poker. Easy variance free money screwing us still hardworking poker players over. I can only get respect for him again when he starts granting us the 2 most importance wishes of us all and that’s change back paytable+blind structure.

My hate to him is because I know his next reply is just going to be the same lame reply as the last one starting with something relatively irrelevant like the Monday plo8(no offense to these 100 players who play this). So ignoring all important comments in this thread. If he really cared about the players he would start telling the truth, but he cant do that because then he loses his lunch. I want him to stand up to pokerstars like I hope a lot of regs will do. In his case quit his job if they keep these bull**** changes. Just like ike and kanu7 did. Someone with a lot of integrity would do this. For him there is no excuses because he is an mtt player with 5 mil tracked winnings so he knows well enough how poker works.

I just want to play online poker regular speed that simple. If you cant offer this like you do now I will start installing party poker/888 and move my volume there or just quit poker. I read in pads1161 his thread he is now an ambassador for party poker! You can take a good example of him luke how things need to be done. One of the most well liked poker players around with a genuine heart to all the players. No snake.

So basically just revert the 2 changes of paytable+blind structure or make it close to the old structure or just get the **** out luke with your bs. I wonder how you people sleep at night. Spineless. You will get my apology when you revert the changes back or you quit your job. After these 2 most important changes are done you need to right away look at the mixed game schedule. Its unbelievable how easy you just cut this all out because regs have a little higher edge in these games, disgusting. But I do think this mixed game schedule needs its own thread. Its now 2 big topics in 1 thread which better can be divided.

Ps. What you can also do is just watch this ansky video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntncu_LfT3g

This is about cashgames from end of last year but its now just the same with mtts. Killing regs winrates making everyone breakeven/losing players. With this video you will understand the snake strategy that they take. It makes it easier to spot out liars like Luke.

The structures have to go back up on the non-turbo's. I've played a few today and they just feel like crap shoots! 7 and 8 minutes just isn't enough. If possible, please Luke.

reg speed rebuys with larger rebuy period and no rake.

bring back micro games that aren't hyper

think u need to space out the 50 and 100 zoom, its hard to play 2 of them at the same time

Can we add a low-midstakes hot at the time the hot 162 is running? Taking away the hot 16.50 daytime is tilting.

No, VIP tournaments shouldn't be on Sunday, there are more enough tournaments on our plates that day. I don't mind if you move it from Saturday, but not on Sunday.

- fix payouts
- smooth out the blind jumps
- add more micro stakes

basically goliath's post nailed it

in regards to zoom mtts

Finally, Stars got around to butchering the MTT schedule. Surprised it took them this long, not surprised at the strategic roll out right before SCOOP when they know people will be in position grinding before and during scoop.

It's great that there is so much backlash about the structures which I would concede is the biggest problem aside from what appears to be an almost complete culling of the low stakes players options.

I believe the big problem players are up against this time is the fact that Stars isn't going to do jack squat in terms of adjusting. They quit listening to their player base and now their company model is not centered on loyalty or word of mouth advertising. Their company is now squarely aimed at come-and-go player bases who deposit a few times and move on. No more intensive care/customer service for the individual or responding to complaints from the player base. Its not that company anymore.

I would love to be wrong, but I doubt I am and I am sure many others see it this way too. Stars will butcher the structures all they want, and people will take it. I would bet right now, sometime after scoop, rake goes up on all MTT's even just a couple of pips. People will complain, and corporate shill boy Luke and Renegs will do their jobs and cram it right down your throat.

The good news is that you can play on other rooms and drive their action. All it would take is some effort and some semblance of a "union" to get the MTT fields on more deserving sites running bigger pools. The big issue here is getting the fun players to migrate too and I assume stars knows that no/few fun players are going to be really considering the implications of structures that work against the inherent complexity of poker or will bother to consider playing elsewhere while Amaya goes full steam ahead into the abyss. Would be great to see some big names that can garner attention to complain more... upswingpoker.com and that whole crew come to mind since they are catering to new players.

TL,DR

-Stars will ram this new schedule right down your grills with no changes, won't listen to anyone. Not that company anymore.

-Stars will probably increase rake a few pips on all MTT after scoop. I think its better than a flip that they will.

-A loose union of players that agree to migrate to other sites is step one at creating MTT schedule options with good player pools.

-Stars knows exactly wtf they are doing and have their shills/whipping boys in place for you to hate. Nothing will change and its time to reward other sites with your business.

Well said and agree with everything. The only protest that would possibly work is a direct attack on an individual MTT that has a high buy in, a guarantee and is reg concentrated. (EPT sat comes to mind). tbh I'm not in favour of this approach as I think it's a Band-Aid solution. The best method is to move your play to a site that is content to make money off of poker rake and not lotto-poker rake.

people dont understand 3 stack/ nstack

do you to triple buyin? which is raked each time?

may be a good format, but people dont trust it due to, among other factors, the recent negative rake changes and lack of good will towards any changes made. doomed for failure unlness they are heavily marketed and explained as a format.

Pokerstars is pretty ****in' stupid if they really dont think that their changes have an impact on casuals.

I played over 1200MTTs (total) in 2014 and 2015 +~500SNGs

So far in 2016, I've played less than 150 MTTs and 0 SNGs

Loving the 6 daily Ante- Up games that were added and like that a $33 buy in $3K gntd replaced the $55 - $2.5 gntd. Be nice if one or two of these games weren't re-entry but other than that it is great to see more of these games in the lobby. Also Liking the micro Razz / Badugi games as well.

My play has/will slow down to a crawl the next few months but I intend to play some of those daily once I get time to play again.

Thanks for adding them.

Actually it's not only offensive to you mentioning the PLO8 first but also to the O8 high stakes players themselves.

Before:
$530 Wed PLO8
$215 Weekly PLO8
$215 Weekly NLO8
$215 Weekly LO8
$82 Weekly PLO8
$82 Weekly NLO8
$82 Weekly LO8

After:
$320 Mon PLO8
$320 Fr NLO8

Please bring the Weeklys back as soon as possible Luke. Now is the chance to actually put the $215 back to peak time where they have always been successful.

Unions/boycotts have proven to be meh, agreed. Its tough to think of good solutions. I think the best ones will just be natural market driven responses. It might be considered "uncool" in a short time to play on stars as word spreads around that the site is targeting beginners/fun players that "don't understand" bad structures. I think Stars gives these recs way too little credit though. I think a lot of rec players will see through what is happening. It's really gross how they are forcing low stakes players to drastically raise their ABI too with elimination of low stakes segments.

I think what is most disingenuous and worthy of boycott is that while Stars is clearly no longer a customer service/loyalty/word of mouth driven company known for offering the best poker product around, they are cashing in hard AF on the brand equity for being that company in the past.

This is what it looks like when a businesses cashes in all of its brand equity while it transitions to a new business model. It's pretty gross. It's like when a reputable mechanic shop has a thousand positive reviews, then starts cutting corners while screwing old and new clients under "new management."

If you want to see the future holds, just take whatever Amaya says about their policies and apply opposite:

"Enchanced" = ruined.

"Exciting/fun games" = garbage structure formats. games of chance.

"Good for poker ecology" = pushing out regs and slowly crushing the recs. Relies on recs not really understanding whats going on.

"Revised pricing" = Rake increase.

"Feedback welcome" = Complain so you get your catharsis, but nothing will change. Please tire yourself out soon so we can implement the next disaster.

"Big changes/innovation" = Innovative ways to cash in on old brand and get max $ from player pool while they can get it.

"We are poker" = obviously blurring the lines as stars will be less and less pure for poker but continue once again to cash in off their pre 2014 image. Trying to tell you that lotto formats ARE poker.

Just take whatever they tell you and apply real world opposite and you can basically predict the future.

The structure of the new rebuys sucks, the old one was fine. More of the 27 $ deep stacks, please.

hours played 3, rivers seen, 2.

recreational players like to see flops.

What I can say is that Hypers were developed independent of the rest of the schedule. None of the hypers are replacing or handcuffing any other format. Nothing that used to exist was 'made hyper.'

It's probably true that Big 215 would be bigger if it was closer to peak. Same could be said for all tournaments. The $320 Super Tuesday LE will probably not be played by many regs because they are "over it". I think that's fine. Not every game is for every player.

Anyway, the Big 55 is an hour before Big 215. What do we do about that?

I took my first glance at the new micro schedule in the client last night for the ET evening. At first, I was really excited for the new schedule. There were a lot of good tournaments that I would probably enjoy playing. Unfortunately, I likely won't play any of them because of the structure. I hate playing turbos, and to me any MTT with <10 minute levels plays far too much like a turbo. Even some of the structures that had 10 minute levels but enormous blind level jumps (e.g. the $1.10 that used to be at 20:45) played too much like a turbo, and I skip them every time.

Based on a few posts it seems like players want to reach the money quicker while still having more play late in the game. To me, part of the problem is the extended (1 hour+) late registration period. The structures have to be slow enough early for the starting stack to still be a decent size compared to the blinds when late reg ends, but unfortunately this leads to quicker structures late so that the tournament takes the same amount of time.

How would/could the structures be modified if the late registration periods were shortened again? The fields might become a little smaller but I think it would help to improve the overall structure.

+over nine thousand