The common practice of ratholing at 20-50bb also gives these tables a much higher turnover and more empty seats.

Also, the Plr/Flop statistic for these tables is hugely inflated because it's counting short preflop all-ins. People universally associate that number with postflop action, but when it comes to shallow tables that number is just a lie.

So even the casual players who want postflop action are basically lied to and told they'll get more of it at shallow tables.

I talked about that last point here but nobody cared. I think it was TLDR or I used the word algorithm too many times or something.

Stars: if you are reading this - do keep the 20-50b tables.

It would be a financial nightmare if you dropped them.

*******

You sound like an angry young man.

Anyone notice how most of the posts by shortstackers have no arguments but always have insults.

the questions stars, their players, or anyone with a sense of reality should ask is simple;

what is the future of poker if all games were 'regular' or 'deep' games?
what is the future of poker if all games were 'shortstack' games?

---

additional guideline questions for the problematic of thought;

what if the "The Pokerstars Big Game" was a 100$/200$ game with 4k$ stacks?

what if "High Stakes Poker" was a sick 500$/1000$ 9handed table with staddles and double straddles, ~20k-~50k stacks? maybe durr and Phil Ivey buy in for a sensasional 70k$?

what does a fish think when he sees a fold,f,f,raise,f,f,call,shove/f,f,f,f,f,s,f,f/f,f,f,f,r,f,f,s as 90% of the hands played on those shows? does he want to go online and pull off some of those awesome moves?

perhaps at times someone will squeeze bluff with a sick A2o or K6s?

moneymaker pulls off a "best bluff ever" on farha when owning him and making him fold his 61% equity pre?

what does congress (for Americans) or any other law source think when they see the same show? what explanation could possibly lead to poker being legal?

the most currently available question, how hard is it to write a bot to survive a 20bb game, and how long before there's a semi-takeover? (as a programmer, I can tell you it's beyond easy. a month of work for a single programmer at the absolute MOST.)

you can come up with more questions as you see fit to help you put things perspective.

like anything in life there are those who keep the games alive and those who leech off others' efforts, so far shortstackers are killing poker slower than fullstackers are fueling it (by attracting fish).

I guess it can go on a couple more years unless someone in a major site wakes up and thinks more than 1 quarterly report forward.
every time I imagine a corporation descion anymore all I see is 'The Wire' and some dull headed boss asking for the numbers.

Why? Clearly the future of poker involves a variety of games being offered, so trying to look at it from a perspective of "what if we only had this game offered?" is nonsense. Would it be good for poker if the only game offered was Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo Split? Definitely not, the entry level into such a game is huge. That doesn't mean stars should stop spreading the game.

To address the rest of your post:

No one is saying 20bb poker makes for good TV. That's why (wait for it...) it's not on TV.

TV poker and online poker are not the same.

Are you advocating for all games to be 250bb minimum buyin? That seems to be the case, given that you're comparing shortstacking to TV poker.


You (like most anti-20bb players, it seems) assume that a fish is too stupid to realize what the buy in structure is, and once they log on, they'll not know what they're getting into, fall into one of the 20-50bb tables, get smashed, and then, confused like an injured woodland animal, wander off never to return.

Give me a break. Anyone who has been playing online longer than an hour can tell the difference when they sit down with 20bb vs. sitting down with 100.

thread is tl;dr, but id like to point out that myself and a lot of other cash grinders show significantly higher wr's at euro tables, which are 35-100. it might attract a slightly different player pool, but i don't think that would fully account for the approx 1.5 pt difference i see in these tables (exclusively 35-100 vs 20-50, 40-100, deep)

No they can't that's the point. When I started I had no idea that your stack size can determine your strategy. I played the same whether I had 10BB or 100BB. This is not something that comes to you with out thinking. And once you start learning and thinking about the game you stop being a fish.

PLO8 does not affect NL to the magnitude of how online 20bb affects online 100bb.
however, the point of asking "if we had only one" is not to put ourselves in the situation we have to pick one, but to make us understand what is the singular effect of each of the games.
when they are played together they hang on with some give-and-take, so it may seem a little hard to verify which is really doing what.

then, we divide and conquer to realize that 100bb+ is the poker attraction, the one that keeps your games alive, while 20bb is a virus that will slowly but surely kill your so well protected living.

but of course, in order to escape that realization you make some irrelevant comparison and basically just trying to dumb down an argument to make it look incorrect, but unfortunately that is reserved to work on dumb people.

it's you who's making assumptions here, not me.
I am willing to bet any amount that I know more random day-to-day fish than you, and most people on this forum. how I know them or what relevance this all has is nonsense to the argument, but it's out there.

fish don't prefer the type of game you offer them, however you succeed in giving them the illusion it is in fact what they want ("risk less and make a score").
however when they get there they slowly realize this is not the 'make it big' game, its the 'die slowly' game.

fish are not stupid people, but in poker context, yes they are. that's exactly what they are, that's the reason the word 'fish' is used to describe them.
a 'fish' in life is a 'sucker'.

you're just amping the hypocrite vibe and telling me "hey man, don't call the suckers stupid, that's not cool".

and as for 20bb not making good TV, that's because 20bb does not make for a good game in general. I'd rather watch checkers than 20bb poker as would anyone else ever.
almost ANY game is broadcasted nowadays, and I'm talking about ANYTHING.

if 20bb is one of the few exceptions, ask yourself why.

Some quotes for Pokerstars Steve on the 20-50bb issue, taken from this thread.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...uy-ins-758670/


I don't see why these things wouldn't still ring true today, so I'll be expecting that players are still afforded the choice of playing a game that's undeniably popular amongst a large portion of the player pool.

Stars won't get rid of the parasites because almost all of them are BE/losing.

BE/losing players rely on bonuses.

BE/losing players must play a lot larger volume to make the same $ in bonuses that a winning player would.

Millions of hands of BE poker is EXACTLY what Stars wants from a VIP.

There is no such thing as a full time pro who breaks even and plays low volume, but there are many full time pros who are decent/big winners that play low volume.

Shorties are hurting themselves, and they don't even realize it.

I switched to PLO instead.

they r actually good at poker

they r not nut peddling crying nits like u

if u think bein good at poker means nut peddling and bum hunting and playing low volume then u r the biggest leech for poker sites and both shortstacks and fullstacks and pokerstars hate u

rofl ya ur the smartest guy in the world

keep dreamin son

Who the **** are you?

You have no idea what I play, or if I am good.

And FYI, I am not high volume, but I do win a fair amount.

P.S. Maybe you should pay attention to your 10th grade consumer math teacher instead of texting on 2p2 from your phone.

True. Just like Stars keeps its dealt rake method for 2011 in the recent announcement.


I for one would like to see contributed rake so extreme nitty play does not get same VPP as everyone else at the table. But Stars know what's best for business.


20-50 bb tables are popular, generate lots of rake.


Stars gain nitty grinders from FTP when FTP went to contributed rake. Now Stars gain all the Russian, Eastern European shortstackers as well.


Most shorties at my tables are Russians, Eastern Euros as only one Chinese player is allowed at one cash table these days.

i srsly dont see why these fullstack leeches think they r any good for poker when they

play low volume
only wanna play vs clueless fish
think they r entitled to all da fish
sits out immediately vs ne1 whose ne decent
wanna remove poker variants dat they cant beat

man, you're one awkward kid.

nou

no1 wanan read a long ass post on how smart u claim to be

Stars just picked super-shortie needbeer (WizardofAhhs) for its online team according to him.


Just about settled the issue.

I have to admit that I find it ridiculous when someone asks this question because they are playing so deep. If at any point you don't feel comfortable shipping in KK PF, maybe its time to pick up your chips and sit at a different table.

yeah, because the second nuts is always the nuts.

I don't know wtf you're babbling about, but a 200 word post is enough to make you give up?

no wonder you're a shortie, kid.

I think many people would appreciate it if you knocked it off with posts that consist entirely of All-Caps, text-speak, and insults.

lol wif dat kind of thought process and u still wonder why fish dont wanna play with u

nits r so funny

man u srsly dont know wat if feels to be a shortstacker. for years all these bum hunting fullstack nits telling shortstackers to die in a grease fire. we been called scumbags or leeches for no reason. those fullstack scums are the true leeches and they blame every 1 of their misfortunes on us shortstacks

as u can see, the only place i post are where the stacksize flame wars are

i do not take this war in other places unlike all these fullstack leeching scums do. they even start these unworthy threads in the beautiful nvg!! wtf! srsly.