btw its interesting to me that my notes on you make sense to me now
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Edit (not related to pkrbg): lemme give an example to show my workings:

Would you all play poker like this: You post a strat thread with your HH decision, let everyone comment with their best line, and then let your villain decide the line you take? This is insanity, why should someone even have to point this out (also how can we expect to play future streets profitably)?

Your right! Know was is asking for a 27-man payout..lol

Since there are now $5k 6-max sngs, will $60 45's ever be reconsidered?

Then the players would like to know the effect of this change on the game and the calculation process you used to arrive at the results....

What players?

adyo def just trolling at this point, guess it's time for another banhammer

How often do the 30s run nowadays? They are pretty dead iirc. Are they in the MTT lobby?

Does anyone know how or if the traffic for the 180s were affected by the payout structure change?

The players that are interested in making +ev decisions.

Why would you continually do this just because you can't comprehend what I am saying? You can't understand me so then I should get banned? Its just looks so bad on you when I'm blatantly correct and all you can say about it is I am a dumb dumb head.

No, nobody here knows, and they haven't attempted the math so they haven't realized yet that the only one who knows is stars. This is how we know as soon as someone makes a suggestion, they don't having a ****ing clue what they are talking about (other than players like Awice obv). It's why players are getting so pissy when someone points out their obvious mistakes.

How about enough with the ******ed random suggestions, enough with the adyo you're a dumb dumb poo poo, and how about we start to use our brains.

I understand perfectly what you're saying. You disagree with the premise of this thread, and believe that by offering players a platform to make suggestions Stars are able to cherry-pick the ideas that best suit their business, often to the detriment of the players, whilst proclaiming that they're responding to feedback. And as I've said more than once, you're kind of right.

But the fact is, your utopian wonderland where all suggested improvements are first approved by a select panel of expert players to ensure they're actually beneficial is A: not going to happen and B: flawed anyway as this magical panel's own vested interests would never align perfectly with the interests of the players they're supposedly representing. You can cry all you want about how democracy is inherently wrong because it gives equal weight to the opinions of the geniuses and the ******s, but the cold truth is this is the system we have and you're not going to change it by alienating everyone with your toolish attitude, nor by trolling every single suggestion with demands for research and numbers.

The 30's run a few a day and a handful on Sundays, but the 60s were running fine up until stars removed them. There is no incentive for players to study the game when the ceiling is capped at such stakes. I register the 30 27 man everyday and prob. only get 1 game a week. What about a ft only paid large feild sng, maybe in the $6 range. I think regular and rec players like to see large first place prizes on sngs. The 20 reg speed 180 was so sweet w/ 1080 for first.

This is such a better response then calling me a troll. What people don't seem to realize is posts that call people trolls, especially when they are being sincere, are actually literally troll posts. So then what is it when someone is being a troll, by trying to paint someone as a troll?

Ya see, now I realize you think I have some history that I dont' have because every player wants to come in an throw tomatoes at the one guy that actually wants real beneficial change. But really I've spent like 2 years calmly (it seems less calm now but its been 2 years of presenting obvious correct info) explaining the obvious, only to have mediocre minds face it with aggression and lack luster thinking. You understand me, I am not confusing, I am not cryptic, I'm not being cocky, I'm just waiting for our egos to settle and for the players to move together. Once they move together even one small step, then the momentum will have shifted dramatically. Why would you ever, EVER put yourself in the way of such progress...I know why....do you understand why you might do this?

No it IS going to happen. This is something else I want to calmly explain. It is inevitable. I point out what I do not only because it is correct, but once you understand the correctness, you can understand its ramification, once you see both of these you can know exactly why it is inevitable. This is why I don't waver in my presentation, its coming change, we all should understand, and in the future most of these players are going to look like idiots (am I offending people that are calling me down?).
Its not flawed, you just don't understand, nor have you attempted to (you're just trying to get me banned and shut up). An intelligent player has a vested interest in creating a profitable fair game for the players. What you don't realize is unintelligent players, or un-knowledgeable players do not have this interest nor could they produce such results if they did. So you are arguing against yourself by letting players that don't understand these things have a vote. YOU, ME, and EVERYONE who likes money, should be interested in a hierarchical type discussion, where everyone gets to put in a say, but the better (more mathematically knowledgeable) players filter through the ideas. It's not flawed, its new, and you don't yet understand, that doesn't mean at all its flawed.

We all know democracy is a rigged system, if you don't then you live in a fantasy world. And its really easy to understand that the stupid majority out votes the intelligent minority. We have the problem of who is smart irl. Do we have this problem in poker? Are we all running around and no one knows who is good? This is the real issue, we have come to an understanding sir. You want to tell me, and others want to tell me, that none of us know who is intelligent and good at this game. And I've been quite clear, I'm quite happy to play the "I'm too stupid to know better" game on the tables, but to extend this ignorance into decisions that effect us all (including me) in a -ev way, is getting a little ignorant for my tastes.

You already agree with me, having a separate thread for this discussion would be a +ev change, we would all gain. Not doing it is ignorance, it happens because there are not enough knowledgeable players to carry out the change.

Discussing how we might set up the hierarchy is another problem with another solution to be discussed. Its not really correct to do it here for the same reason its not correct to discuss structure changes we want. And although I haven't explained how to run such a thread, I've clearly shown it would be superior, and perhaps you might trust we have a perfect solution ready for such a change.

It's just so far I've been dodging poo slinging from the monkeys so we haven't gotten to it. Why would I talk about step two, when you are trying to ban me for suggesting step one?

I'm just giving you a real life example, because you and others seem to claim I talk in puzzles. A player comes in and ignores the discussion and spouts out a random idea. We ask them to please bring the calculations along with the idea. If they can't then its not known to be a favorable decision or line for the players. I'm not trolling, I'm expecting you to start acting the same way. I'm expecting you will realize such suggestions are -ev, and then you too will calmly politely ask players to adhere to this new standard. And once you do (we will obviously inevitabely start this over time as the average player gets smarter, or to say it different THE GAME IS GETTING HARDER) its going to look weird that the whole time you all made fun of me and tried to get me banned, but we ended up doing it anyways (cause we know we will, since players are getting smarter and smarter players realize its a +ev change)

"Look, we can rebut arguments all day but the bottom line is, the players know what structures are boring and what structures are lively. Both regulars that speak out in these threads, and recreational players who choose to play the better structures. The no ante til level 7 structure is boring, and its clumsy. It was designed in 2005 back when no knowledge existed about the game. Now, we know what makes for objectively a more popular and fun game." - Alex Wice

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2157

The post is from the STT version of this thread, yes, but he made a similar suggestion earlier in this thread iirc. Do you guys think a potential change would increase the popularity of the format? People seem to enjoy a more MTT-esque level structure overall.

Don't consider this post a proposal; I'm just interesting in general thoughts regarding this.

On another note: Separate leaderboards for MTTSNGS? Has been mentioned earlier in the thread as well fwiw.

I'm not going to read all the navel gazing of the past few pages. I assume the debate is whether earlier antes is +ev for regs?

The answer should be yes. Weaker players don't adjust their calling ranges correctly. Take any hand and run it in twice HRC, have one iteration include 10% antes. You'll see your bb/100 from every position should go up (especially the later positions will skyrocket).

The calling ranges for full ring 10-12bb no ante play are so tight that even weak players should generally be calling very close to optimal. The really big mistakes of the average mediocre player are made after antes.

$60 45s would not really run imo.... Any chance maybe to drop $30 45s (and all of them maybeee) into the MTT list like 180s to see if there's any volume increase in them, then if yes, introduce 60s again?

Oh yeah, about 45s. These need a structure change the most. They are so ICM intensive around the bubble and the blinds go up so steep that most of the time you're playing a 5-8bb stack.

If adding more blind levels around the FT would increase the duration too much, I suggest changing blinds to 3 minutes, but adding more of them. So we end up with the same average play time, but less aggressive blind jumps.

Don't have much comment on the above argument, as apparently I must brush up on my political philosophy. I would love to see 15-25$ regspeed 180s or a higher buyin 3r setup.

I actually don't see what Adyo said wrong tbh .. he's making perfect sense even though his way of communication may seem a little harsh though.

He's totally right about not making requests or suggestions before we even know if it's +ev or not... I mean no one proved that their suggestion is an improvement .. imo that's the only thing he's saying .. he's not saying he knows everything better. He's saying we should not ask a change in structure if we don't know what it does and that's like the most logical thing in the world isn't it ?


Many of the explanations why ante's should appear faster and why there should be extra levels are not making sense...

I saw somebody say (I don't know who, it's really nothing personal either) that ante's gives you bigger +ev spots ? Well imo that's not really an argument as opening several hands will be more +ev for everybody. Being profitable hasn't only got to do with the chips you win .. being profitable has to do with making less mistakes than your oponnents and I'm not sure if it's going to do that.

Also don't forget you can open wider because you are losing more chips every hand because of the ante .. don't understand me wrong though. I love the ante play and I'd love to see that someone could prove that it's +ev ... but afaik more ante's -> faster mttsng/less hands -> less edge -> less ROI + also bigger swings as broader ranges probably mean more variance ?

I don't really see how that can be something we want ... the thing opposed to this is that recreational players may like the faster structure and the broader ranges but I'm not sure if that effect will compensate the negative effects ...

As for the more blind levels .. I really like that idea but I can't prove it's better .. I'm just thinking like --> more hands , more edge, more ROI .. but is the hourly also higher ?

If the combination of the blind levels + ante's would lead to only the positive effects (more rec players + more ROI ) than that would be fantastic .. But who can make these calculations ?
_______________________________
Imo that's all adyo was saying .. he felt misunderstood and became a little angry .. wich is normal as people are suggestioning changes when they can't even tell why it's +ev or not .. don't forget it's this guys income we are just guessing about .. I would get angry too I guess ..

___________________

So to make this constructive .. is there someone who can give me like help with the calculations ? I'm willing to try some calculations but I don't have a clue how I should start.. I do have some idea's though (I'm thinking about calculating what the changes would do with the # amounts of hands and what ante's would mean for limpers/weaker players in contrast with the EV for a reg)

Calculations and science make good changes .. random thoughts that seem really logical at first don't always make good changes.

I'm hoping to get some constructive answers as I think most of us want the same. (There's no merit in being angry with eachother)

Can we have an extra level like 700/1400 75 ante plz

Hello,

After getting some vacations out of the way, I am ready to clear out the backlog from this thread:

I certainly see where you are coming from here, and I am not going to deny that it is very difficult to climb the TLB if you focus exclusively on MTT SNGs. From our side, It is not easy to give all groups of players equal value all the time, but it is not necessarily our goal to do so either. However, we do feel that overall, our promotions, regardless of which group of players you belong to, compare favorably to anything that our competitors have to offer.

Personally I enjoy tournaments with longer levels, but the reality is that our player in general is moving towards ever faster games. For that reason, I'm afraid that a 180 man tournament with a 3K starting stack is not going to attract enough players to run very often.

For the same reason, adding a regular speed tournament for every stake we also offer a Turbo tournament is unlikely to be very successful. It may even have a detrimental effect on the current offering.

Thank you for the interesting insight you provide in this post. I will try to address your points one at a time.

I don't think your statement that the recreational players are not playing the tournaments anymore is correct. Having recently looked at the numbers, I can say that there were significantly more 180s running in the first three months of 2014 as compared to the same period of 2013.

I do think there is a good chance that you are right when you say that the ROI is marginally lower for the average reg after we started paying out 27 players instead of 18. However, I would argue that the increased number of tournaments running could also partially be due to the new payout structures. Recreational players' money lasts longer, thus they can play more tournaments. For regulars, more tournaments is obviously beneficial because it increases their hourly rate, a number that is far more significant than the ROI. I think it is very important to give the recreational players a good experience when playing our tournaments, and I believe that cashing more often contributes in a positive way to the enjoyment this group get out of playing. In general, I think that paying 27 players is the best way to preserve a good playing experience for everyone, so we will not revert on this for the time being.

As for changes to the blind structure, I wouldn't mind having a look at those sometime in the not too distant future. However, I think we first need to agree what we want to achieve by changing the blind structures. As I mention higher up in today’s post, players are generally moving towards faster games, so I think that anything which makes the tournaments run longer is a tough sell. Having said that, it is quite possible that we can jointly come up with an alternative which makes the games more fun for everyone involved.

I cannot promise that this is something I will be able to prioritize in the immediate future, but if you want to discuss concrete examples of new blind structures, I will certainly read them with great interest and take part in the discussion at a later stage. In addition to the running time of the tournament, I would prefer not to change the length of the levels. Although there are exceptions, there is a standard in place across the different types of MTTs that we try to follow.

We would like to focus the attention on a wide range of Sit&Gos, but unfortunately we do not have unlimited space in the Tourney/All lobby. Any addition we make there will be to the detriment of other tournaments. For the time being, we will not expand the number of Sit&Gos on display in that particular lobby.

I think this is a reasonable request. If I see no good arguments to the contrary over the next few days, we will implement this sometime in the near future.

The $5K 69-Max was specifically requested by a group of high stakes players, and because the liquidity concerns with a 6 Max tournament are very few, we were able to accommodate the request. However, the same is not true for a 45 player tournament since it, well, needs 45 players to start. In addition, adding this tournament could very well have the result that the $30s wouldn't fire off as often as before. Overall, it doesn't seem to me that the need for the suggested tournament is so great that we should take the risk of disrupting the rest of the deployment to implement it.

Thanks,
Baard

I do not really agree.

You can't multitable unlimited games as a reg .. thus the benefit isn't really as you described... btw the more you multitable the lower your ROI gets.

You can look at this in 2 ways:
- Less ROI for regs + less loss for recreationals = more games running as you already stated --> more games is more effective rake wich is more money going to pokerstars and less to players in the long run (especially because regs win less $/game and pay more %rake if you compare it to $winnings). Thus the effective rake has increased due to the change.

As 180 players are paying more rake, stars is still not listenning to giving our own leaderboard or something that would be an interesting promotion to get a part of the rake back (as I stated, we are paying more since the structure changed).

- I do however thinks it's good that recs don't loose their money as quickly as before wich gives benefits for them .. as it also gives benefits for stars. But the benefit for regs is a mystery to me.

Btw .. 180s are increasing in popularity due to stables and stuff. That said, as winnings are lower maybe regs need to play more games for the same winnings .. this could also result in more games wich are even more regfilled ..

With my comment above + this comment I think we can conclude there's a really decent chance that 180 regs don't have an advantage. If the roi % gets too marginal regs will search other games and 180s will die. It will be a lot harder to revive the games than trying to save them now.

Yeah atm the winnings seem to be still pretty good .. but how can we know for sure ? 180s are so variance heavy we cannot be sure that we only win a little less because we cannot see shortterm effect .. on the $15s some of the (pbb) winnings reg have 5-8k downswings wixh i absolutely ridiculous obv ...

Imo there should be a compensation for 45+ regs as those games are dying slowly if no action is taken. This could be in the form of lower rake (this won't hurt pokerstars as more games are running and regs AND recs will be more motivated to play so pbb even more 180s start running + it's good for longterm) OR this could be in the form of a rakeback system like a 45-180s leaderboard (wich would be in the advantage of the better regs) or something else .. I'm just suggesting some stuff.

My point is that we should think about this ... not only for the regs but also for the recs and even pokerstars longterm.

Well yes of course your promotions are ahead of your competitors as you are the only site that has MTT SNGs that run. Obviously now you have a monopoloy you dont give a ****, this thread is so pointless. The actual issues like lower rake on turbo's, decent SNG structures are probably never going to happen, but please keep pretending your listening to players.

Where are the 90 man progressive kos u said that would be finalized by Easter in your previous post?, Also if you are taking a vacation would u mind letting people know so that we wont have to be checking the thread every other day to see if u have replied...

Now you can start looking in the lobby. We have just deployed a $5 Progressive KO Turbo tournament.

It will replace the $7 Regular Speed KO tournament.

Thanks,
Baard

Maybe throw the game into the tourney tab for awhile so it gets a bit of popularity and noticed along with the $3r, $8 180 $35 180 etc?