I'm not sure if the number 24 is not set a little bit too high.

24 ratholes a day are still a lot, 12 is by far enough. 12 won't effect any recreational player, but will be very effective vs pro-ratholers.


NL FR gets killed by ratholing MSS!

Link or it didn't happen. I'm confident the structural unfair advantage of short stacks persists at almost any stack size. For that matter, a 100BB stack has an unfair advantage in a table full of 250BB stacks. The reason is simple: the deeper the stacks, the more nutted you want your hand to be. But then you end up having to fold non-nutted hands vs the other deep stacks because of reverse implied odds (or they have to fold their non-nutted hands vs you), while the short stack picks up the dead money you left behind.



Also, I have a question for the community: Steve says they "don't want to affect mass multitablers who buy in for 40bb but don't rathole". Does anyone understand what that means? How can a mass multitabler consistently buy in for 40BB without ratholing?

I mean, presumably a mass multitabler might wake up in the morning, sit down on 24 tables with a 40BB stack, and then keep playing all these tables as they are (rebuying to 40BB whenever he gets felted) even when he gets really deep. Ok. At the end of the day he sits out on all these tables, and tomorrow morning he does it all over again. My questions are:
1. do such people actually exist?
2. should this be allowed?

I mean, a player like this profits from having a short stack just like a short stacker who ratholes 24 times a day and sits out after he doubles up. So he's still exploiting the games for around 5000 hands per day, but then he plays some more full-stacked poker. Why is stars fine with this? I understand why a recreational could choose to buy in short (since he's more comfortable buying in deep or whatever; his aim is not to exploit the inherent advantage of the short stack), but recs don't play 24 tables simultaneously every day. Any player who opens up 24 tables of 40BB every day is by definition a shortstacking pro. So why should they be allowed to do this? And if so, what is the behavior that stars wants to curb? Just the behavior of ratholing more than 24 times per day? This seems not only like drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, but drawing it at a point which is not only arbitrary, but wouldn't necessarily do much good for the games.

I personally play PLO and in PLO shortstacking will become nonviable as a profit-making strategy because of this solution (since 24 ratholes per day only buy you 1200 hands per day or so), but I agree with others ITT that with the current suggestion as outlined by Steve, the problem of pro shortstackers exploiting the field will probably not get solved.

ROFLMAO. I think he may well be

man i wouldnt even try to argue about that, it was discussed too much, i would just say that there is no poker rule that says you need to leave those dead money when you see shortstack behind you in first place, unless you are posting blinds and 50bb is enough to not get commited preflop by those blinds, poker is about adjusting, learn to adjust.

I never quite understood this one.

Say if I'm on 10 tables, I want to finish my session so I click on 'sit out next big blind' on all of them. I get to the BB on one table and the software sits me out, are you then thinking that I should be sat out on all 10 tables immediately before the big blind comes round on those other tables?

Or do you just mean that I am forced to sit out on the other tables once the big blind comes round on each, and I can't change this option until I am sat out on all the tables?

If it's the latter, what if I just want to change 2 of my 10 tables (in order to rathole or because the opponents are all decent), but I want to continue playing seamlessly on the other 8? I will need to click 'sit out next big blind' on 2 tables only, without the other tables being affected right, since what I am wanting to do is legitimate.

This idea of sitting out on one table meaning you have to sit out on all tables, will never fly in my opinion.

good solution to ratholing stars thank you


woud like to see the # of ratholes per day dropped to even 12-16 if possible!

good work guys +1

I mean only having the option to sit out on all tables next big blind or sit out on all tables next hand. Of course it doesn't make any sense to automatically sit you out everywhere as soon as you're sit out on a single table

Why dont stars make "sit out after next blind" instead of "sit out on next blind" , so ppl will have to play full ring before they sit out.

24 slot is about 2 hours of play on 24 tables, it is little and not too much

sad I lost my supernova status already since this ratholing dealy-o might make me return, let's see it in action

Yeah, this is what I thought but you still haven't addressed how I finish up on 2 out of my 10 tables at the big blind, without being forced to sit out on the other 8 when it gets to the big blind on those tables 5 seconds later say? Until you do, this issue is a non-starter, because this would be unacceptable for most of the player pool.

^This is a good example of the type of irreversible damage that prolonged exposure to rat-holing can have on the mind and body. Please kids, don't do it.

Here are three of Russia's Supernova Elite rat-holers, before and after their quest for SNE status:




Even their poker bots are not immune from the effects:

24 slots on 24 table would not allow any ratholling. All 24 slots would be used when you start up the 24 tables.

no common sense at all, just flaming and trolling, you would get ban on most of serious forums. well done Pokerstars, that user should present poker community, listen to him. bss player , who's falling down and dreams that removing all mss players will return him to the money.

serious forums understand sarcasm unlike you.
And before that he explained the situation in detail so that any moron could understand.

lol @ r2d2 pokerbot ^^

Great anti rat solution, gj stars.

+ I would limit identities to standard 24.

Firstly, the pokerstrategy Яed Army have used the argument that full-stackers, and myself in particular, can no longer beat the game as our reason for wanting to see the death of rat-holing. This "propaganda" has motivated people such as yourself into believing that we have no legitimate reason for this to happen. In order to dispel your myth, you can check my SSFR progress in this link: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=151

Secondly, I have posted many, many serious posts on the subject with what I feel to be valid arguments, and have been an active contributor on and off the forums over this issue.

Finally, when someone such as yourself posts ridiculous comments (and they are really quite silly with no substance and very little thought) they are unworthy of a serious response, and it's also difficult to know where to start. E.g. If someone was to claim the moon was made of cheese, would you feel an urge to construct detail reasoning as to why their belief was incorrect? It would be a lot easy- and more fun- to just take the piss.

meh shouldn't even bother replying to these gimmick accounts with not even 10 posts on the forum. Although this was pretty good: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=205

This clip is exactly how SSers feel right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvHE0pEeQQg

I do believe she's Russian

Here is possible refinement to not give 40+ identities for mass tablers but still allow them to start every table with 40-50bb if they wish (and in fact play that many tables):

-Everybody gets 24 identities (or w/e that will be)
-Once you open 25th table you get new identity, same goes for 26, 27 etc.
-If you do some shuffling, sitting out, leaving, joining then the following rule apply:
if you join your n'th table you are allowed to use your n'th identity out of sorted list of identities;

This means that if you join 25th table you are allowed to only use your 25th identity (counting from the biggest stack to the lowest) even if you created 50 of them before. If you then join 26th table you can use next one and so on. This way you can join unlimited amount of tables with 50bb but you still can't "rathole" on smaller amount of tables.

This "you can only use n'th identity out of sorted order" rule could be accompanied with "but you can always use at least X'th" where X defaults to 24 and could be changed in the future by Stars if they feel 24 is too much/low.

Well done Stars. The system seems solid, although I can see limiting the instances a player is allowed to rathole from 24 to 16 or so as I'm sure rec players won't be affected.
Someone also suggested something like 50 ratholes per week. I think that kind of concept warrants some investigation

if your limit is 40 tables you get 40 identities. now, if you limit the set of base identites to say 24, you will not have a 25th identity for table #25 if a player played until he hit 24, and now intends to open another table. no matter what, you will have to guess what stack this new identity relates to. if i understand it right, you would opt to use the 24th, but this is just as arbitrary as smallest / biggest / average stack.