No it's that 50bb to 40bb is an 80% reduction and not insignificant.

Couldn't care less. I have only just joined here on this forum because these changes have been thrust upon me. My question to Steve, and point to yourself, was why not ask the actual customers, thereby warning them beforehand, about the changes that they were going to implement on us. Rather than rely on a panel, apparently which you were involved in.

From reading all of the posts, which I did to try to work out why this had happened, what I was going to do with my money, and what strategies should I employ moving forward, I think a common theme has been that there should be no overlap.

You cannot disagree with that, surely? You polled for the same.

So, rather than be playing on Stars right now, I am here debating with the rest of you. Great. Well done.

Don't defend what is a controversial and obviously misinformed move by Pstars just because you were one of the apparent misinformers.

Let's not ignore the elephant in the room, fellas. We play to make money playing, not to donate. The information is available out there to everyone to make them better players, and to know and recognise those players that aren't as informed as those that have gone and sought out and learnt from that information. And yes, it takes time and effort to go and learn that information, effort that one hopes is going to be rewarded.

All of us play to be playing against people who aren't as knowledgeable, regardless at what level. It is why this forum exists, afterall.

With this current change, those new, less knowledgeable players are being concentrated into a format that just happens to suit the short stackers, and therefore a format that limits all of the skills that may have been studied by someone trying to better themselves at this game.

With all of the debate for and against above, one just has to look at the information gathering resources that clearly show that the juice is predominantly being concentrated right now into the 20-50BB tables with the current format. And, as I have put a lot of time into trying to better myself at this game and position myself into a +EV environment, only to see it counterfeited by this new format, I have to look elsewhere to best apply my study so far.

I can't see how this is a point of argument, or debate. People are saying wait and see. Well.....no. I would rather spend this time not waiting, or seeing, or debating, but earning. So, enough.

Sorry Stars, been nice. You can have my tourney rake, but someone should be fired for the way this has been implemented to the cash games.

Thanks again.

It's weird that you bring up the word unethical-I can actually relate to your feelings, but it's not what you might think.

I felt unethical when playing deep, no blind increase HUSNGs. It was like watching paint dry. At one point I was making $60/hr, but I got sick of it, just felt like angleshooting waiting for the nuts for 3 hours.

Shortstacking requires constant tweaking and microadjustments to remain profitable. Most shortstackers are way too tight. Myself included, probably. I'm running at 18/18 for 6-max, but I've seen guys who were 10/10 at 6-max too. As far as ranges, you could use Wiz to get some pretty good ideas.

just an aside jglsd1:

your poker allin ev will always run negative
there is a bias in the way that it is calculated which makes it seem like shortstackers are having terrible luck. My guess is your luck is still off a bit, but not nearly as much as you think it is.

Total idiocy with 30bb the good short stacks in the higher limits just get a bigger winrate.
With 30bb they can 3-bet looser and don’t have to push, they can call for setvalue and they have a bigger postflop edge.
Some no thinking short stack leave but that the one we wanted them to stay.

I think allowing fish to buyin for 40 bb is just fine, they won't go broke that fast, what's more, they probably have a better chance of doubling up on a bigger stack table with FS reg's than vs the piranha school's of SS'ers, finally, I think it's really hard to argue that they will have a more enjoyable time on a FS table vs a SS infest table. You really think they're more annoyed by isolations from a FS than a pre-flop shove for 20bb?

I think that you think that I think mimimi is an insult.

I also think that you can't think what I think that you think what I think. Can you guess why?

I have noticed it was off in multiway pots where I was all-in but there was still some postflop action. Say I had AA, 2 callers, a guy bluffs the flop and somehow sucks out on me-my EV will go up 3SS buyins instead of 1.5 or whatever it should have been. I concede that. I don't see it happen much though.

raising the min buyin to 30BB eliminates all but the best of SSers from being winners. I think it's fair to say that the very best of SSers have some poker skill.

Trust me, I've worked through the ranges and calculations. I would get up from the table at 28BBs unless there was a complete aggrotard to my right.

Really?????

So buying in for 30bb would increase their winrate but they just chose not to do it. You do realize there is nothing stopping a person from buying in for 30bb today, right?

it's not the level that the fish buys in for that is the most important factor. It's the level that the decent SSer buys in for that dictates the game's strategy.

And, yes, the average guy hates the reg infested iso-bet, 3-bet happy games more than the games where a third of players were shortstacks. I hated to admit that myself. It's the reason I had to leave behind playing most 50BB min games and go to 20BB min games over the last year.

So you can play 27bb and below profitably.

What happens when a 30bb guy opens and then folds to a reraise is that he has 27bb.

That's why I'm not convinced that 30bb is the ideal spot for the standard game.

pwned

The bottom line, is the bottom line. It's true for them, it's true for me.
[ ] will spend more money at Stars
[x] will spend no money at Stars
[x] will spend more money at FTP

In all these commercials I see on TV, I never saw one that says "come and play shortstack" - it usually references poker, but hey, I'm not their demographic who cares

and my claim is the edge they get being that low will not overcome the -3BBs they start off at

I'm not saying they lose 3bb intentionally!

I'm just suggesting that they can play standard nit poker at 30bb, and if they lose a little bit, hey they're back at that 3bet shove sweet spot.

They might actually even be able to make money at 30bb against the fish.

I think 35bb would be more ideal.

I didn't ask anything about full stack regs, I asked what answer a rec player would give if you asked him in chat about how he felt about someone doubling through him then insta leaving.

I don't think this is, for the most part, due to the difference between 40 to 50bbs. It is, imo, due to the preponderance of shortstackers already on the pokerstars site (due to the rewards system), their superior liquidity overall, and the fact that the shortstackers generally have no place else to go. You also have a labeling bias on fulltilt.

I obviously can't prove it, but I really don't think that if pstars had gone with 20-40, 40-100 that the landscape would look much different. It would make some difference, however, as a narrower buyin spread will always have some negative incremental impact on the number of players that play that particular game. That is part of the balancing act that the sites are trying to manage--how do we keep the spread wide enough to attract the most players, but not open the game up to a relatively easy shortstacking exploit.

I think the focus going forward for the integrity of the games should be on further increases in the ratholing timer and a switch to contributed rake.

I'm also pretty confident that the 40-100bb games will outrun the 20-50bb games in the long run at the majority of stakes, as they are now competing for the recreational player's attention on equal footing (same min/max buyin ratio, no labeling bias). But we'll see.

Yup, pretty much this.

And I really really love the deep ante tables.

unless i missunderstood your post, you think 50bb strategy plays the same as 20bb strategy?

If i read that wrong then sorry, If i didn't then your above statement to me is lol.

Tough to argue with this, although it is hard to blame them. Stars is becoming more of an entertainment site that includes some traditional poker games. Shortstacking NLHE is not poker, no matter how much one tries to justify the purported "skill" involved. Similarly, hyper-turbos aren't poker either, even though they have some basic poker elements to them. Stars is understandably trying to increase its player pool and unfortunately many people aren't skilled enough to play NLHE consistently without resorting to shortstacking. It will be interesting to see if the increased ss'er market outweighs the loss of fullstack players who move to other sites for better games.

You're being so dishonest in this post and you know it.

Ironic too that you're acting like you give a **** about ethics.

well er yeh...

there are basically only 4 player types

shortstack casual/shortstack reg

fullstack casual/fullstack reg

I guess there will also be some casual players who will just sit down at the first available seat and buy-in at the default or whatever (which as previously discussed is more likely to be at the short tables).

So the only 2 you will tend to see on the deeper tables now are the fullstack casual and fullstack regs.

The casual players in FR play say 1-4 tables (let's say an average of 2) - almost all the fullstack regs play 12+ (up to 24) (let's say 16 average).

What ratio are you expecting to see?

If the actual player numbers were exactly 50% regs/50% casual the ratio at the tables will be 8 regs to 1 casual player.

That's just the natural tightening you get from mass multitabling..oh also the fish will bust faster now there are no shorties to protect them so you can expect the ratio to get worse over time...still at least the shorties aren't getting in your way eh?

It is the 20bb short stack why is make no sense atm to BI 30bb, the have a edge v a midstack. That why we play short stack, get it ?

1)Fullstackers didn't like playing with shorties, they complained and Stars fixed this problem by adding shallow tables.

2)

3)Fullstackers are complaining about shallow tables.

Can anyone clue me in as to what happened at 2) ?

You're welcome.