Most of this has been stated already, but here goes:

- Early blind structures are indeed slower. The jump from 25/50 to 50/100 was overdue a revamp. But beyond the 100/200/25 stage the steep jumps with short time intervals are just a recipe for destroying the endgame of MTSNGs. Add some more levels post-antes please, perhaps lose some of the early levels (hint: nobody would miss the 10/20 level!).

- While there have been lots of demands for some standardisation of the buyins and % rake contributions, NOBODY wanted an increase in rake! Telling a $16 18-man grinder who's now reduced to playing $10.85 or $21.90 that the rake has dropped for some higher levels so the net effect is actually a reduction, is disingenuous at best and insulting at worst.

- I know it's the first day of the changes but for the love of God, get someone to have a serious look at the SNG lobbies and tidy things up a bit. It's an unholy mess right now and the recreational players must be wondering wtf is going on. Simple is good.

It is pathetic you rake the $1 sngs 20% (and no I don't play those personally)
I understand rake lowers as one moves up in stakes, but would it kill you to set it at 15% for the poorest players on the site?

edit: adding hyper turbos is cool though.

+10000000000

and please add more tables at one limit, because if u dont want play hu with man who seated on hu sng u can often forget register when table are free.. sorry for my english

+1 Removing the antes from Fifty50s while keeping the rake will mean less edge and thus games where its breakeven at best 30$+.

how could stars lower the rake, there a business, less rake less profit, more rake more profit, simple. but stars is to greedy they are running a computer game just like EA, but charging casino style rake. you should be able to buy pokerstars just like any other game for 50 dollar and play with no rake.

^^^ Post pretty much nails everything (except for losing the 10/20 level )

omfg

In FL HU

NL HUsngs beautiful changes today (I would kill to be able to play on stars again). That being said these changes clearly f***ed a majority of players (micro-lowstakes sng grinders) and many of these games will probably verge on unbeatable. It also sounds like the FL HUsngs got killed (fellony and dfmb both hating on changes and they're the most notable regs really).

I'm surprised stars would be so disingenuous about these changes for such an extremely large percentage of the playerbase.

This is all very noteworthy. Very strange line to take considering Americans are no longer a part of the market and very, very competitive rakeback programs are available almost across the board at smaller .eu sites, where the games stand to be softer as well.

I, too, assumed the new rake structures would look very similar to what Anssi has mentioned above.

lol so true, ongame has similiar rake now, 50+4 , 20+2 =~~ 20+1.70, and i get 62.5% rakeback since day one (no need to pay 180k in rake like for SNE), if you do good at rakeraces or smth u can get 80%+

the only thing that keeps me at stars is software, but not going to play a single sng (except hypers if rake is max 2.5%) on pokerstars since today.

Pokerstars countdown to busto: 9, 8...

Next step: Rake 10% on cash games, capped on $15!

Yay!

lol at thinking it's this simple.

I haven't played yet, so no comment on the blind structure, but one thing I am HATING is that in 6max SNGs, there are now multiple lobbies spawning instead of just one at each level. I HATE THIS. For one thing, I am positive that fish notice "hey there are 3 guys sitting in 20 lobbies each, hmm, they must be good maybe I won't play".

Also though, just now there were two $100+7s sitting there for almost 5 minutes not running, because one genius was sitting in one by himself, and the other one was missing one person to start. This is slowing down games filling, please put it back how it was, the wait for games to start has been annoying enough since Black Friday without this extra impediment.

Sir, as you can see nobody likes the new level structures + the 45s timebank, at least change these things if you are keeping the same rake.

lol I would gladly pay one thousand up front now if it meant never paying any rake again and i think I am not the only one here who would say that.

but the thing is pokerstars has there running costs there staff to pay and there game security etc. You can't buy world of war craft and just never pay again you have to pay a monthly fee. I do feel that the higher charges in tournament fee for sit and goes though puts me off playing on pokerstars. pokerstars has the best game availability and software which makes it attractive but they also have the toughest competition anywhere. Assuming we can find the same game availability else where with worse players we will head there.

Why do players stay loyal to poker stars then. My reason was that on other sites you couldn't get the same game availability. Cannot get 20 tables running at a time. plus there tournament fees were very competitive 40c on a $10 double or nothing was huge news. Thats why pokerstars maintained there edge. If the site now offer something which is the same as all the other sites rather then better than why stay with stars where everything else is equal but the games are harder.

If poker stars wants to keep its competitive edge in the current climate they have to offer significantly better rates otherwise it's in no ones interest to stay.

[QUOTE=LostOstrich;26461518]Most of this has been stated already, but here goes:

- While there have been lots of demands for some standardisation of the buyins and % rake contributions, NOBODY wanted an increase in rake! Telling a $16 18-man grinder who's now reduced to playing $10.85 or $21.90 that the rake has dropped for some higher levels so the net effect is actually a reduction, is disingenuous at best and insulting at worst.


+1 i couldn't have put it better myself. it's just absurd to lower the rake in sit n goes nobody plays and raise the rake in sit n goes everyone plays.

if you don't want to lower it that's fine just don't raise it because as a lot of people have said there's a lot of competition... right now even multitablers should search for another site in case changes stay like this (10 + tables), people that play less than 10 tables should definitely search something else. sites are offering BIG promotions/bonuses/deals because of black friday and you raise the rake?...

... 7, 6, 5 ...

Should be hard to be a star rep on 2+2. I've seen so much over expectation from every word they write here that is funny. This time people was even guessing about 50% reduction on rake. Delusional at minimal...

About this "nano" limits rake, you should look around and you will see that, they are now, not worse than in a lot of other rooms. I've seen 2c rake on 5c flips...

But I think the new rake will just kill micro limits... Seems to be unnoticed by a lot of 2+2s that micro players improved too. And while its not hard to have edge against most of them, an edge above 15% (to beat rake)is just too much to expect from amateur players...

The rake was competitive on micros as it was, but casual micro players get very little value from the VIP program, prob the worse on market even considering the lower rake... If this new rake is permanent, would be nice to see a change on the VIP program at least.

About the blinds structure, I didn't played this new one, but the one on fifty was just perfect IMHO, and I was expecting this would be the model when the changes were made.

just my $0.02...

Play some micro turbo's 45 (decide that this is fastest way to get "after black friday" bonus - they filled fast and not need much thinking in them). New blinds structure ok for this (i play $0.5 and $1) - actually i like it more than old, but 15-18% rake too big for turbo. Before this changes i saw peoples who build small bankroll playing this microturbo's, now i beleive its not the best way to do it(probably better play on other sites when u have less rake and big rakeback ). There not huge ROI even in micro in this turbo's, so 5-8% rake increase looks pretty thoughtless and unfair.

P.S. Sorry for broken english

P.P.S. 45s timebank in turbo - epic fail.

blind structure for non-turbo sng $5.5/180 & $3.38/180 & $11/180 & $22/180 is awful.
look at the old $4.4/180 and make similar blind structure.

yeah, way to ruin turbo FTs.

ps just hit multiple nails to the coffin today with increased rake%, slower structures... etc

Just calculated some numbers: To make it easy lets say u r playing a 6max sng, 1 Hand/minute

With the old structure (up to blinds 25/50 or 30/60 now, same amount of hands of course) you would have paid t225$ for the blinds, with the new one u pay t300$. That doesnt seem like a huge differnce...BUT:

Pots getting bigger early on, which means u have not that much room to maneuver as u had before --> less skill involved imo

I guess regs wont like that, and fish wont care about it anyway

Umm, Hi there, and hello.
I dont post here often, or ever for that fact. And I am sure, there are other examples of first time posters today, such as Fellony. I am just here to thank Stars for their changes. Me personally.. I only play HU games, and think the changes have been great thus far. For all of you complaining, I do feel bad on some level, but here is the thing OKKKKKK : Pokerstars does not really care, nor should they about the mid stake grinders who happen to be on 2+2. Do you really think their business model is sustained by the people who come on here once a day? The fact is, this is a multi million dollar company, who would not make said changes unless they knew profit was on the way. Fact is, most people who help Stars with their rake are just fish who comes and go and dont care about changes and just want to play. End of Story.

Pokerstars no longer is paying huge sums for US deposits so you have NO reason to increase rake since your overheads have decreased. The margins on SNGs are tiny as it is for players.

I hope people learn from the french and strike for a few days in protest if stars do the right thing.