Re MT2R posts.

I think there are 4 central points he makes - that might get lost in the nit-picking apart of his post - hopefully I can make them more explicitly.

(a) If PS or the poker community believed the best for the game of poker was to give recreational players what they want...
(i) They would observe what they did as well as what they say in answer to a survey.
If that is true - its likely that neither 20-50bb nor 40-100bb would be the standard offering....but somewhere in between.
(b) MT2R - believes in part PS using the survey is disingenous given if that were truly interested in asking recreational players about their preference they would include a survey on HUDs and mass multitabling. They havent because its not in their self-interest and we should discount PS claims about what the recreational players want via their survey.
(c)MT2R - makes the point that - if players believe that the best interest of the game is to showcase skill advantage - then stack depth would be alot greater than the arbitrary 100bb structure in place. And that PF 3/bet/4bet math/game strategy is similiar to SSer insofar as its exploiting mistakes using stack leverage and that most of these exploitation strategies would differ alot if we were playing with greater effective stacksizes.
(d)MT2R - highlights the most effective way to increase game quality - which is capping the maximum number of tables. Part of the reason early Partypoker games were so good is that not only was everyone was alot worse but the proportion of winners to losers was alot better with a Max 4 tables per player.


So I do not think it is fair to judge his posts based upon an argument - well he would say that thats his self-interest - because clearly he has offered many different reasons why the existing structure is not optimal for anyone but the sites themselves.

No, there is a 'person' itt...
you don't have to sugar coat it ya ****in' douche bag..

i gave him the link that my conclusion was based on. >
which was based on PokerSteve's interview. >
which was based on statistics from a survey.

his response was basically 'nuh-uh'.
and was completely undeserving of a proper reply..
as it was baseless and had already been addressed in previous threads (if not this one).

btw if you would have read all the threads (which i'm sure you haven't) you would've seen all my tl;dr posts..



hatersgonnahate.jpg

rice owning as usual

Rice - you do not seem to be acknowledging the wider point by MT2R
You can ask a set of questions and expect a certain type of response.

And most of us have read and completed that survey.

The fundamental problem was this -

on the one hand the survey apparently said
"recreational players do not like ratholing or SSers"

then we had the fact that of the tables prior to the change - a good % of which were 20-50bb tables with the accompanying complaint that 20-50bb had too many fish.

Now either the fish were ignoring their preference to avoid ratholers
or
They were indiscriminate in their table choice.

Which is what he was saying - their declared preference (i.e. what they say they want) was different to revealed preference ( i.e. what they actually do).

So...why did Stars choose declared preference over revealed preference? We do not know.

But declared preference is a tricky thing - that most sociologists will tell you.
There is a science to survey construction.


It is far too simplistic to just say : well PSSteve says this is what fish want - and expect anyone with any understanding of surveys, economics and markets to just accept what he says at face value.

ZOMG AWESOME!!!!

So say for example within a Survey PokerStars said.

Online professional poker players use database and tracking software displays to improve their play. Is it fair that some players have more information than others?
(a) Strongly agree
(b) Agree
(c) neutral
(d) disagree
(e) Strongly disagree

What do you think recreational players would say to that question?

Or say Pokerstars framed a question about its VIP program.
Pokerstars has rewarded upwards of $X million to a range of its players as well as alot of discounted high quality merchandise.
Do you support PokerStars giving lots of rewards to its players?
(a) Strongly agree
(b) Agree
(c) neutral
(d) disagree
(e) Strongly disagree

then instead they asked.

Many of Pokerstars regulars play 24 tables and reap upwards of $100k a year via its VIP programme. 350+ players received rewards above $100k a year and more than 8000 more than $10,000 a year.
Do you believe that rakeback should be equal to all players?
(a) Strongly agree
(b) Agree
(c) neutral
(d) disagree
(e) Strongly disagree


You can construct a question to bias the survey response and even if you have a well-balanced question it is not even certain that you are getting accurate information.

Not sure what nonsensical posts or house image your referring to, but most images i've seen were just meant to be funny, whether they succeeded in your mind is a different story.

The thing about MT2R, is that his posts are consistently riddled with flawed logic, which have been pointed out to him in detail many times over these threads. Yet, he continues to post the same exact flawed logic (like it's some scientific fact backed by Nasa) over and over and over. And his only retort to the flaws in his logic, will be him saying no your wrong, and then him arrogantly pointing to his infallable data, research, facts, etc. (also known as his 'biased opinion').

If he was a reasonable thinker, you'd think that he'd accept the obvious flaws when they were pointed out to him, and re-evaluate some of his premises, which might lead to a 'new' (and hopefully more logical) conclusion. MT2R just shrugs off anything that doesn't fall in line with his 'personal facts' just like he did with the Pokerstars survey... wasn't he the one calling for Pokerstars to do their own independent survey that was supposed to say fish loved ssers, and had no issue with them hit n running?

Don't get me wrong, he has some good 'initial thoughts'... like talking about fish and deposits, the overall poker economy wrt multitabling, etc. But, once he takes the next step and adds his flawed premises, and erroneous cause and effect relationships it just leads to far off conclusions. Maybe he knows all this, and actually started with the conclusion (that he wants 30-60 games, as it just so 'happens' to be the range he buys in for and wants to play), and worked backwards, and did the best he could to make the premises fit his 30-60bb 'conclusion'.

The fundamental problem is ratholers were allowed to misbehave for too long and they are now having difficulty accepting their loophole has been closed and are coming up with the most ridiculous, desperate, illogical theories on how to get it back. Everyone LOVES the new cash game structure including some ratholers ... the only ones who don't like it are some ratholers.

Unlike full stackers, ratholers will fizzle away. It will take some time, but they will learn to be CAP players on CAP tables or NLHE players on NLHE tables or tournament players or quit poker or whatever. This is the difficult part just like the first few days without cigarettes. But trust me, eventually this will ALL be over and we will have all moved on. It's over. Just let it go.

Actually I have read all the threads. It's a sickness.

Anyway, sorry if that was offside. It was just jokes. Obviously I know it's possible to make a point by posting images, and even if I didn't know that it wouldn't make any difference cause I'm not king of anything, never mind this thread. So have at 'er.

My point was just that I think MT2R makes pretty reasonable posts, regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions or not, and that it's odd to me that people go after him, accuse him of being a 'gimmick' etc, when there's so much way weaker material in these threads. Sorry for singling out your House thing, it's just what came to mind.

This is why. Casual players want in on the action NOW. They don't want to wait / join waitlists. 20-50bb tables were plentiful (due to ratholers creating tons of them) and they had available seats. Once a casual player is seated, he is going nowhere. He has some jerk he wants to beat, he has some "hot chick" he's chatting with, he has his lucky chair, he has his 2 cards, he has his $43.67 in play, GAME OVER. Result = omg 20-50bb tables are so popular!, which leads to people reaching the false conclusion that the recreational players must prefer those tables. It's just not true.

i have acknowledged his point..

but i would say that fish could not enjoy playing with sser's and getting ratholed - and yet still not have a preference when finding a table.. much like how a fish improvises on his hand.. they know they wanna hit their flush.. but they don't know how they got into the situation of having the majority of their stack invested on the river with nothing.

and with that option whichever tables are running more often will have, in general, more fish.

Also, regs follow fish.

the ratholing sser army (creating new tables every min)
+preference-less fish (whatever table pops up first)
+regs following fish (who would prefer to play fish deeper)
= the illusion of 'the most popular game'.

couple all of that with the 'mathematical edge' the sser's have and this really shouldn't be a discussion anymore.

they had to go... and good riddance.

**and that same formula goes for why the 20-100bb games were more popular than the 50-100 games.

(which i've also mentioned in previous threads)

i don't have any animosity towards MT2R - that was intended toward SNe - as it wasn't the first time he has referenced my posts in a negative light.

in regard to survey construction - of course you can curtail the survey toward your desired result... do i think that is what happened.. idk i never got one :/

overall just tryin' to have a laugh in these threads...

Thanks for the response. I've been frustrated by these threads (and sometimes get frustrated by the jokes/images/hate etc) because I feel people had their minds made up long before they ever posted here and were not interested in learning, truly exchanging ideas etc. Which is what I was interested in.

The way you describe MT2Rs approach is actually what the thread at large seems like to me, and he seems an exception. Again, not saying that he is right, but he seems to be open to discussing things. In fact, over the long history of these threads, I'm fairly certain his opinion has changed significantly.

But anyway, there's no way to get into this without really getting into this, and I don't think that's a good idea

Then why believe what they say in a survey.

You cannot maintain both they are indiscriminate in their choice of table and at the same time they prefer one over the other.

Either they make a choice or they don't.

The only alternative is that do want to make a choice but cant tell the difference - well in that case Pokerstars should have taken up my suggestion that if that is the case colour-code the different table tables.

wat? where have "they" said "they" dont want 250bb+ min buy-ins? it is just never going to happen by the sites to make this sort of table the standard one

and lol at your "solution" to get rid of huds/tracking softwares

Either they didn't do a Wednesday server reset or it takes place in a non-US timezone in the future

I actually do maintain that. I know a bunch of degen gambler types 100% willing to sacrifice their slight preference in preferred table choice in order to immediately play w/o wait listing or searching through tables. Ask them what type of tables they prefer, and they will tell you as deep as possible cause the play NL like a boss. I expect about the same from recreational/casual players on average.

rice: i wanted to hate the mcdonalds pictures i really did, but then i read the second one... and i lolled. nh sir, nh.

2:17:15 ... It is a small risk, I suppose, but in the end you just have to listen to your customers and I think this is what the players want and this is what the players are going to get and these are structures that Pokerstars believes are viable for the long run.

I think we do know. Revealed preference was an illusion & going by it would not stop the complaints/customers leaving. Going by declared preference silenced the loud call for buy-in changes, while simultaneously assuring all players have a place to play whether short/mid/full/deep stacking.

What is your point? I heard the interview.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion if they are a customer imo. Pokerstars can judge what they wanna do.

Dont really see why logic is that important, playing some silly card game for hours and hours per day seems illogical to a lot of people.

In this week's 2+2 pokercast around the 139:30 mark, there is a brief follow-up on the cash game changes. Below are select paraphrased quotes of what was said:

"Lobby seems clean"
"People seem pleased"
"New tables are quite popular"
"Haven't seen a lot of complaints quite frankly"
"CAP tables maintaining player base"

So, still no server reset? No one knows why or when the most likely day and time it will be done?

WTF are you talking about? ratholers would leave the table because they wanted to remain at 20bb as their game strat is based around that stack size.
This notion of you have of Short Stackers are criminals, cheats, scum of the earth, low life's etc.. is completely false. They are just people who prefer 20bb. Ratholing is a pain in the ass to actually pull off, the effort of constantly sitting out, and rejoining different tables is more work then simply loading 24 tables and staying put.

I don't think a single short stacker who used to play 20-50bb tables is unhappy now. Get it through your head, Short Stack players LOVE cap tables as they can remain there without jumping from table to table. Many of them are getting an extra 500-600 hands per hour.

People who used to rathole are happy they no longer have to in order to remain at 20bb. As I said above, it is a lot of work to 24-table and implement ratholing in your game, as opposed to just playing 24 tables.

LOL. You apparently haven't been paying too close attention to this thread.