They would be even more dangerous, as people generally would play worse with that kind of effective stack.

I kind of understand where Raise4fun is coming from though. If Stars makes the new buyins 20-40, 35-100, lots of shorties/fish will be buying in for 35bb. I consider <50bb a short stack still. A good 20bb ratholer can probably still make life somewhat difficult at 35bb. A FR table with 7 regs, 1 fish with 35bb, and an open seat isnt really worth sitting at imo. Change that to 50bb, and it becomes better.

The change should be 20-40(50), and 50-100.

No one stops them from buying in with 35BB right now, Why don't they do that if they are more dangerous with 35BB as opposed to 20BB???

Bad shortstackers don't know how to play with 35 big blinds. Good ones already play sometimes with "midstacks" when it's more profitable, or when they have no other choice, like at FTP. Increasing the minimum buyin will kill just the worst shortstackers.

that's kind of the idea is to kill off the shortstacks that leech money off of the game exploit of ppl playing with 100bb stacks vs. each other. the good ones will either adapt to playing full stacked, will buy in for 35bb and play a somewhat different strategy, or will play the 20-40bb shallow tables. in either case it will allow Pokerstars to put the skill back into the game instead of letting an army of shortstackers breed and leech off of the VIP system and game exploit.

I understand that as SS'er I am not going to convince you that what you are doing is bad, but it simply is true. No one can honestly believe that a casual poker player decides to load money onto PokerStars and is looking forward to calling 20bb preflop and running the board. Then, if they lose watch as the player leaves the table.

Maybe you and other SS'ers can't see it, but if the current trend continues 20bb push/fold bot type players will overrun the standard tables and kill the action for everyone. The SS strategy is just too simple. The quantity of folks implementing this strategy to grind out an income is growing at an exponential rate.

Personally, I already moved all my action to Tilt. I still would prefer to play on Stars. If they make the change as other major sites already have, I will be happy to move back over this spring.

At FTP the few remaining pro rat holers are far from decent for the most part. They mostly just seem to be the few who have absolutely no clue how to do anything besides play pushbot poker and refuse to try to learn anything else.

On the other hand, I've seen a ton of former rat holers trying to play full stack. Most of them are still absolutely awful, particularly with regards to hand reading/relative hand strength/bet sizing, but you can see them improving every day. It makes the games much more enjoyable for everybody. Obviously this is just anecdotal but I've also noticed tons more fish running up some really huge stacks. I imagine they enjoy playing alot more when they're not constantly getting hit and run, and this again is good for everybody.

I expect when Stars increases the min buyin that the vast majority of former rat holers will also end up just trying to learn to full stack and I think in the end many of them will look back and end up thanking Stars and FTP.

i love hearing that the shortstack SNE chasers think its unfair that they would make this change "mid year" (lol february). In it's inception, the VIP program was designed to be a reward for high volume players since traditional rakeback is non-existent on stars. The VIP program was never designed as a salary for breakeven shortstackers. Nothing at all is changing in regards to the VIP program.

lol at players being so happy about Partypoker's proposed changes. If Stars did the same thing but the 20-100 tables as "20BB min" there would still be a lot of complaining.

I started out playing Internet poker, and never played live until I had been playing online for several years. When I first sat down in a 1-2 NL game in Reno, I was shocked to learn that I could just get dealt cards in middle position without having to either post or wait for the BB.

Imagine an online poker site, naively adopting the standard rules for live play, had NL tables where you could get dealt in without having to post. A whole new breed of players emerges--we'll call them "blind skippers"--who wait for an open seat, play anywhere from 1-7 hands for free, shove AA and fold everything else, and turn a tidy profit by playing 24 tables at once.

Facing intense pressure from customers who insisted that blind skippers were exploiting a flaw in the game, the site created special "have to post" tables, clearly labeled in the lobby, while leaving the other games marked "standard."

Many were still unsatisfied by this solution and wanted further changes. "What's the problem?" asked the blind skippers. "If you don't want blind skippers at your table, play at the have-to-post tables. If all the fish still play at the standard tables, well, tough. You don't have any exclusive right to the fish--they can play at whatever table they want, and they've chosen the standard tables."

With whom do you side?

I'm assuming everyone was happy when they read it cause they assumed labeling tables "short" equated to the tables being like a 20-40bb min/max game. I know i misread it the first time.

hey pokerstars listen:
Just make all tables 50bb min buy in for all players.
Its good for the future of the game.
If you want an argument for the legalization of the game and why poker is a skill game you have to look at the stacksize and every poker pro can say to you: deepstack poker is skillpoker.
As deeper your stacksize is as more skills apply to the game.

And somethings special: add some tables to the lobby with min buy in 200bb and max buy in 500bb...

the dream come true....

I like this one! Much better than 'why don't you go kill yourself' (seriously, how does that not get an 'infraction', or whatever it is mods do).

'Blind skippers' would be way more problematic than SSers, of course. Cause the game can't run if somebody doesn't pay the blinds, whereas the game can definitely run with a table full of SSers (and there are screen shots in the other thread to prove it).

But still, I like it, gave me something to think about. Solid effort.

this is an excellent analogy

If stars does not follow party poker, full tilt, everest etc. they will be making a business decision pure and simple and it will be a short sited one for many reasons:

1. Many fullstackers will leave if PS doesn't make a change. They haven't left yet b/c people are optimistic that pokerstars will do the right thing and make a change. PS has always been a leader in "doing the right thing" in the industry. I'm frankly surprised FT beat them to the punch. PS should be embarrassed.

2. Making the change shouldn't really hurt their bottom line. The shorties really have no where to go now, and shorties tighten up the game. They just do. Just look at the flop percentage difference at PS and at FT/Cereus -- it isn't even close. Less flops equal less rake.

3. More importantly, the future is bright for some sort of legislation expanding online poker. Allowing exploitation of the game to make it seem less skillful hurts the argument that poker is a skill game. No reasonable person thinks that SSing is more skillful than fullstacking.

4. What I call the "Grandma test" . . . try explaining to your Grandma that your practice is always instantly leave after taking someone else money. She'll think it is wrong b/c it is. Also do this in a casino and see how popular you are. The folks at Stars know what the right policy is . . . that is why they don't have a 10bb minimum and don't allow table specific ratholing.

The reason they can do this live is because players can't take advantage of this. Do you think a player could sit, play the free hands, get up join another table and repeat? Other players would notice, complain and the offender would be told to stop or leave. He would be barred. That is how it works. Why do you think rathole shortstackers aren't prevelent at live games? You think the regulars who play at the casinos would stand for that kind of thing? They would noticfy the poker room and the problem would be taken care of.

EDIT- Nevermind, I thought the above hypothetical was being made to explain why changes shouldn't be made.

lol your edit made me delete my post zrap

QFT. labelling is not a fix. if stars do the same thing as party, they actually will be doing nothing worth mentioning for the quality of their games.

doesn't that, by definition, make short stacking the more popular form of poker ?

exactly.. high volume players, irrespective of watever style of poker they play.!!

WordWhiz, nice analogy.

It's pretty clear that any arguments on the side of the short-stackers have been destroyed at this point.

Since I came from the STT world I know several of the "pioneering" short-stackers and don't particularly like to see blackize, curtains, etc. getting hurt by this. But they will adjust.

Meanwhile the chart-wielding SSS MFers from eastern europe can *****.

The only real items up for debate at this point are:

1.) What exact buyin levels should stars use?
2.) How should the tables be labelled, if at all?

Glad to hear Stars officially weigh in on this and set a date. Looking forward to an official resolution either way. I'm currently straddling FT and PS trying to figure out what sort of volume to put in either place while the PS games continue to erode on a daily basis.

Will be good to get a resolution either way.

To the random average SS'ers, if I were you I'd buy a few poker books and get to reading, maybe join a few training sites too, I know many of you think you know how to play the game but sadly you're mistaken, you're gonna need all the time you can to get as good as possible before a change even though you're still going to have to drop a few levels in stakes. I'm sure the very best SS'ers will be able to adapt and might already be capable of playing fullstack profitably as well.

Can't wait for April to arrive!

PS: where's Luna, didn't see a post in here, maybe I missed it?

but your style isn't poker

This would be fun, watching bunch righteous Anti-SSer calling each other short stack parasite when they don't see eye to eye....lol.

He's still in the process of typing up his 24 paragraph post that fails to make a point throughout the entire thing.

It's not a form of poker. It is a tactic to exploit the minimum buyin, multi-tabling, and rathole ability of online poker.