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and stars i love you f the haters

PS SteveD,

How about having the option of color coding these tables until the 60 minutes is up.

taking the opportunity for self serving change linked to this: making it take longer to bust fish for more rake

MT2R you're wrong. See FTP as a good example. Before the change you could argue the fish liked the 20-100bb games more. Now the short games are all but dead so you can now argue fish obv like 35-100bb games more. It's about what's labeled normal. Right now 20-100bb tables are labeled normal so most people play them. On FTP 35-100bb tables are labeled normal so they're most popular. It's pretty obvious based on other sites that this is the case and that you're pretty much wrong. Also since there were no 40-100bb games and no 20-50bb games not sure how you can talk about how people voted with their wallets...

real key to why the changes suck imo is the 80bb min buy in @ normal tables

this will force most fish to play shallow tables as they cant afford to buy in for that much

i hated the idea of shallow tables (since they took over regular play @ PLO FTP) but regular tables @ 80bb min is just lol

time to switch sites

Any update when changes take effect?

You want PokerStars to add a feature that specifically caters to your systematic abuse of the fine print?

The fact is, poker is not big enough to survive in different forms on such a big level. The game will either gravitate to 20BB games, or 100BB games. We are truly at a crossroad.

1) 20BB games flourish, fish lose money less quickly (although debatable, as fish just play higher stakes with lower buyins). 100BB games will be played with regs vs regs for the most part, and will slowly die out, as people will realize there isn't much profit to be gained.

2)100BB games flourish, the poker economy stays as current situation, ratholers move onto other sites where they can amass, and Pokerstars lose out on this large chunk of their revenue. Some short games would survive, but would not make up a large portion of tables. Other ratholers who enjoy the site would attempt to learn the 100BB game, some successful, many not.

So I guess I can see why Pokerstars is catering to ratholers. It definitely seems like the safer move in the short term, as long term consequences won't be appearing until maybe 1-4 years down the road. I just hope they realize that their current buyin structure, the 20-50BB games will be the largest portion of games, and question as to whether a solved game (for the most part) such as 20BB poker has long term sustainability.

Just for the fact, as we all know, is that fish will flock in huge numbers to 20-50BB tables, and that's where ratholers and former 100BB stackers will have to follow. I guess it's fine if Pokerstars choses to kill 100BB poker, but just hope they realize that is what will happen here, BECAUSE IT WILL HAPPEN.

huh?

showing that fish do not like 20-40 games is not the same as showing that they do not like 20-100 games over other games that allow a 100BB buyin

Today, Stars restricted the choices of its player pool. They will not let the player with >50BBs decide what style they prefer. They took that choice away. That, and adding the really deep ante games, is all that is announced. Players lost options they had in the past.

They could've just labeled the tables.

ummmm the 'normal' tables have a min of 40 bb, 80 bb is just the default

The people complaining are hilarious. "If it's not done EXACTLY the way I think it should be done then it sucks!"

just deal with it already. Stars said they're fine with reevaluating or tweaking as they determine best. I look forward to the losing players whining about how the new structures are keeping them from winning.

People will continue to complain no matter what...the games probably still won't be as great as people are hoping they will be. And people will blame the buy-in changes for being inferior. Here's a hint: You are not entitled to be a winning player and most players aren't completely awful. You better be fairly far above the average in order to beat the rake and be a winning player.

It appears Stars has done a good job of separating out all the different arguments and I am optimistic they won't just make changes based on losing players complaining, "this doesn't work either...we need it to be done THIS way." I'm hopeful that when people continue to complain about this nonsense that Stars will understand that there will ALWAYS be complainers no matter what.

increasing the default buyin is LOLtastic btw.

This +100.

This isn't some small B&M room. There are literally thousands and thousands of players and tables on Stars. How big would it have to be to "survive" with different forms? Would there need to be millions of players online at a time. If there are 100+ tables of each running I think that can safely be described as "surviving."

It's more like .1bb/hand but I'm too lazy to bust out my shortstacking database. Optimal play against a minraise steal requires playing OOP. That means that shortstacks aren't relying entirely on people folding preflop because they often get to play a flop and turn. River play happens too but much less frequently.

I ignored your other points because I didn't take issue with them at the time. Yeah with short stacks people aren't flatting PPs and SCs much. But squeezing hasn't been a big part of any shortstackers game that I've ever seen because they get called so often.

20-50bb games will play mostly the same as the 20-100bb games did except that players will play tighter in early position.

Are there really this many people who don't understand the difference between "default" and "minimum"?

the wild speculation that follows no logic or precedent set by other sites making similar changes is awesome. 5 star comedy.

but, how is this different from when stars added the 50BB min game?

It turned out the 50BB min game sucked. The regular guy playing a deep stack still choose the 20BB min game. PokerStars decided to strip that choice away from its players.
When a site is stripping away choice, it should catch heat.

And, of course, I should continue to complain. The 50BBers got there game. It wasn't good. They continued to complain until they got Stars to force evryone into their preferred structure.

lol there have only been a few.

I mistyped and already acknowledged that. However I will now apologize too.

I think you're wrong here. I really don't think the fish are going to prefer the shallow tables, and it's pretty lol that you pass your guesses off as "fact"

The thing is that shorties leave tables more often than full stackers do - so if a fish is simply going to take the first available seat that will tend to be on a 20-50BB table.

Accordingly I think you might see more fish on the 20-50BB tables than you would expect…and presumably more full stack guys buying in for 50BB’s to take advantage.

I don't get the confusing default buy-ins but most of the rest of it is as expected to be honest.

Stars have positioned themselves so that they are seen to ‘do something’ but are still a better place to shortstack than FTP – you didn’t really expect them to wave goodbye to all that lovely shorty rake did you? They were never going to go further than FTP…

With iPoker going to 30BB's today as well it looks like FTP will be the high water mark for some time...

Yep... this is how I expect to have to change my game. Sad. Poker will get much more boring as I will have to tighten up quite a bit. There just will not be the potential big wins to play lots of speculative hands.

hey guys stop being mean. MT2R is the one guy who has figured out how to play vs full and shortstackers at the same time and is therefore a genius prodigy who ddeserves the games to be tailored to his strengths for all of eternity.

I wish the 20-50 games were 20-40 so the buyins don't overlap. I also would have appreciated a 6x per vpp instead of the 5.5 we got now. Also would have liked a double VPP day every first week of the each month and a reload bonus on the last Thursday of every month.

Damn you pokerstars!

as an aside, I am surprised that the shallow game doesn't start at 10BBs. If a site wanted to keep the shortstack business, why not go with a buyin size that allows players to change tables less often? Sites have had 10BB in the past. IT would be a comparative advantage in attracting players now.