PokerStars will no longer offer Double or Nothing Sit & Go’s, Effective February 28th, 2011
02-09-2011
, 11:33 PM
02-09-2011
, 11:39 PM
02-09-2011
, 11:41 PM
Quote:
Hi Steve and other Pokerstars staff,
This is “jordyun” on Pokerstars, a regular in 20.8 DONs for like 1.5 years. I play only part-time but I did recorded ~30000 games of DONs during this period and had pretty good winnings. I also experienced the cheating scandal from Chinese DON players. Hence I think I have more knowledge about DONs than you guys do. Please let me share my two cents with you.
I do understand the structure of DONs along with other satellite-based tourneys is a bit distorted in nature. And hence it induces some unorthodox plays in which people fold AA preflop, soft-play against chip leaders and/or regulars, cooperation play to eliminate short stacks, or ultimately, the most infamous stuff: cheating with chip-dumping. I totally agree that Fifty50 has a better structure. I would start grinding in F50s if you do decide to remove DONs, but I need to convey the message that from a player’s perspective, DONs are still more attractive because of:
1) Rake. This is the hugest problem. F50 is faster than DON but it charges higher rake. It reduces your ROI significantly. You have to know that in DON, 5% ROI is considered huge and there are a lot of regulars with only 2%. You almost increase the rake by 20%, but players don’t get 20% more time to play. And that increase in rake is 1% decrease in ROI.
2) Time. As partly explained in 1), both blind structure and time per game is shorter in F50. It means less skill and more luck…It will depend on what cards you get in late stages rather than when you know your push won’t be called. More luck factors involved means the decrease of ROI too.
3) Simplicity. F50 requires more thinking and calculating ICM odd vs pot odd. It will attract less people (or fish). It’ll be harder for fish to win and less likely they will play this game in the long run.
4) Multi-table playability. Fewer people means fewer tables. Also the complexity makes it impossible to play as many tables (at the same time) as in DONs. Result? Less profitable (hourly rate) for players.
5) Folding Equity: DON is the only thing I play as turbo format. I generally hate turbo tourneys/SNGs just because there is less time to manuever. It will become a crap-shoot when everyone is short. But why do I play DONs? Because it’s a game even when blind is large, you can’t just gamble since your over-call is always –EV based on ICMs. This fact also maximize your FE (folding equity) if you play with some knowledgeable players. Your edge would then be, when and how to utilize your FE. It is the chip-position which is important, not the cards you have. In F50s, chips are as important as surviving, so I expect the FE to be reduced. This is generally fine as long as you adjust your strategy, but remember, if it’s still TURBO, then it becomes crap-shoot as well since you have no FE.
6) Cheating. Cheating will still be present. It may be less profitable to cheat, but it will be HARDER to arrest the players, since the chips are now important. For example, in DON late stage, if I’m the chip leader with 6000 chips and posted a blind of 300, and someone is shoving a total of 1000 chips, I can call with any two cards. Losing this hand almost doesn’t change my equity at all. But right now, I may fold in F50 since 700 chips means 0.25 buy in. And cheaters will be able to explain just based on this point.
And you do think it’s good for Pokerstars as well? Not really. As I said above, you will have an even harder time to identify the cheaters. Also, if it attracks fewer players, your rake decreases. I know so many new players starting with DONs, just because it’s easy to learn, and easy to break even after say 100 games. I don’t see those characteristics in F50, and I doubted that F50 will have wider audience than DONs.
To conclude, I’m not saying F50 is bad. It will require its own strategy to become a winner. However, DON has to exist at the same time. People should have the right to choose what to play (especially when F50s have higher rake). In another thread
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...38/index4.html
Steve does mention “Fifty50s and DoNs are two different game formats. It's expected that if you play one tournament form as if it were another, you will not be as successful. ” I totally agree with this but then it doesn’t make sense if you wanna completely replace DONs with F50s. The market itself will tell which format is better. Indeed there are problems in DONs, but other than cheaters, it’s still a fair game. You can increase your security/game analysis by hiring some experts or experienced ones like myself, to identify cheaters. (I’m not advertising myself…I got a very well-paid job
But it will make more sense for someone who has played more than 10000 DONs to decide whether a certain play is illegal.) Also if people don’t like DONs for any reason, they can play F50s at their will. I really think of no reason that you have to remove DONs completely.
Last but not least, the time is too short for players to adjust. What about people who play DONs for a living? You just give the regulars one-week notice that he’s “fired” from his job. So brutal, isn’t it?
Thanks and regards,
Bernie “jordyun”
This is “jordyun” on Pokerstars, a regular in 20.8 DONs for like 1.5 years. I play only part-time but I did recorded ~30000 games of DONs during this period and had pretty good winnings. I also experienced the cheating scandal from Chinese DON players. Hence I think I have more knowledge about DONs than you guys do. Please let me share my two cents with you.
I do understand the structure of DONs along with other satellite-based tourneys is a bit distorted in nature. And hence it induces some unorthodox plays in which people fold AA preflop, soft-play against chip leaders and/or regulars, cooperation play to eliminate short stacks, or ultimately, the most infamous stuff: cheating with chip-dumping. I totally agree that Fifty50 has a better structure. I would start grinding in F50s if you do decide to remove DONs, but I need to convey the message that from a player’s perspective, DONs are still more attractive because of:
1) Rake. This is the hugest problem. F50 is faster than DON but it charges higher rake. It reduces your ROI significantly. You have to know that in DON, 5% ROI is considered huge and there are a lot of regulars with only 2%. You almost increase the rake by 20%, but players don’t get 20% more time to play. And that increase in rake is 1% decrease in ROI.
2) Time. As partly explained in 1), both blind structure and time per game is shorter in F50. It means less skill and more luck…It will depend on what cards you get in late stages rather than when you know your push won’t be called. More luck factors involved means the decrease of ROI too.
3) Simplicity. F50 requires more thinking and calculating ICM odd vs pot odd. It will attract less people (or fish). It’ll be harder for fish to win and less likely they will play this game in the long run.
4) Multi-table playability. Fewer people means fewer tables. Also the complexity makes it impossible to play as many tables (at the same time) as in DONs. Result? Less profitable (hourly rate) for players.
5) Folding Equity: DON is the only thing I play as turbo format. I generally hate turbo tourneys/SNGs just because there is less time to manuever. It will become a crap-shoot when everyone is short. But why do I play DONs? Because it’s a game even when blind is large, you can’t just gamble since your over-call is always –EV based on ICMs. This fact also maximize your FE (folding equity) if you play with some knowledgeable players. Your edge would then be, when and how to utilize your FE. It is the chip-position which is important, not the cards you have. In F50s, chips are as important as surviving, so I expect the FE to be reduced. This is generally fine as long as you adjust your strategy, but remember, if it’s still TURBO, then it becomes crap-shoot as well since you have no FE.
6) Cheating. Cheating will still be present. It may be less profitable to cheat, but it will be HARDER to arrest the players, since the chips are now important. For example, in DON late stage, if I’m the chip leader with 6000 chips and posted a blind of 300, and someone is shoving a total of 1000 chips, I can call with any two cards. Losing this hand almost doesn’t change my equity at all. But right now, I may fold in F50 since 700 chips means 0.25 buy in. And cheaters will be able to explain just based on this point.
And you do think it’s good for Pokerstars as well? Not really. As I said above, you will have an even harder time to identify the cheaters. Also, if it attracks fewer players, your rake decreases. I know so many new players starting with DONs, just because it’s easy to learn, and easy to break even after say 100 games. I don’t see those characteristics in F50, and I doubted that F50 will have wider audience than DONs.
To conclude, I’m not saying F50 is bad. It will require its own strategy to become a winner. However, DON has to exist at the same time. People should have the right to choose what to play (especially when F50s have higher rake). In another thread
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...38/index4.html
Steve does mention “Fifty50s and DoNs are two different game formats. It's expected that if you play one tournament form as if it were another, you will not be as successful. ” I totally agree with this but then it doesn’t make sense if you wanna completely replace DONs with F50s. The market itself will tell which format is better. Indeed there are problems in DONs, but other than cheaters, it’s still a fair game. You can increase your security/game analysis by hiring some experts or experienced ones like myself, to identify cheaters. (I’m not advertising myself…I got a very well-paid job
But it will make more sense for someone who has played more than 10000 DONs to decide whether a certain play is illegal.) Also if people don’t like DONs for any reason, they can play F50s at their will. I really think of no reason that you have to remove DONs completely.Last but not least, the time is too short for players to adjust. What about people who play DONs for a living? You just give the regulars one-week notice that he’s “fired” from his job. So brutal, isn’t it?
Thanks and regards,
Bernie “jordyun”
02-09-2011
, 11:51 PM
02-10-2011
, 01:26 AM
02-10-2011
, 01:43 AM
Non US DoN grinders (don't know about US guys), you could play on other sites, 5%+ roi is achievable up to the highest stakes everywhere where the rake is reasonable e.g. partypoker. You could try mixing sites to get volume and try playing for profits + smaller rakeback instead of just rakeback 
02-10-2011
, 02:33 AM
I've never played a single DoN in my life but I can imagine the collusion potential so maybe there is something stars can do to save these games rather then destroy them completely?
Why is it not possible to have 1 single DoN registration at each level (e.g 2.20, 4.40, w.e it is I don't even know the entry fees) while having 10+ "phantom" tourney's and a randomization tool which allocates each player to a random tourney in said entry fee. If stars could implement some sort of RNG software which takes into account players who have already sat at the same table this session or are already sitting at the same tables it could prevent the colluders from a tleast playing every single DoN at the same time, this will minimize their edge as they really don't know if they'll be in the same one and if they are, they won't be again for 5+ (random estimate here) DoN's.
They should make the tourneys start 10-15 minutes apart but you are still able to register to as many as you like this way it gives stars the opportunity to change up the player pools and gives players the ability to play as many as they would have anyway, maybe a little less but this could be the compromise stars and the regulars complaining in this thread make.
If these fill up as fast as you guys say, it will provide a greater challenge to colluding players to play in the same DoN as each other.
This is just a thought, I haven't really thought it through too much but maybe you guys could help stars come up with something that implements what I said as I feel like theres likely a flaw somewhere but as I said I haven't thought about it much since I don't really care whether these exist or not.
Complaining in this thread will not get you what you guys want. I'm sure stars has considered the cost-benefit analysis of this scenario and obviously the players they lose from this will not reduce their profits significantly enough or will provide them with less work to do in terms of security measures, etc. Seriously, if you do this for a living either figure out a way to fix it or figure out a new game because threatening a multi-billion dollar organization with your business will not get you what you want no matter the rake you provide them.
Also - stars know you have nowhere else to go
Why is it not possible to have 1 single DoN registration at each level (e.g 2.20, 4.40, w.e it is I don't even know the entry fees) while having 10+ "phantom" tourney's and a randomization tool which allocates each player to a random tourney in said entry fee. If stars could implement some sort of RNG software which takes into account players who have already sat at the same table this session or are already sitting at the same tables it could prevent the colluders from a tleast playing every single DoN at the same time, this will minimize their edge as they really don't know if they'll be in the same one and if they are, they won't be again for 5+ (random estimate here) DoN's.
They should make the tourneys start 10-15 minutes apart but you are still able to register to as many as you like this way it gives stars the opportunity to change up the player pools and gives players the ability to play as many as they would have anyway, maybe a little less but this could be the compromise stars and the regulars complaining in this thread make.
If these fill up as fast as you guys say, it will provide a greater challenge to colluding players to play in the same DoN as each other.
This is just a thought, I haven't really thought it through too much but maybe you guys could help stars come up with something that implements what I said as I feel like theres likely a flaw somewhere but as I said I haven't thought about it much since I don't really care whether these exist or not.
Complaining in this thread will not get you what you guys want. I'm sure stars has considered the cost-benefit analysis of this scenario and obviously the players they lose from this will not reduce their profits significantly enough or will provide them with less work to do in terms of security measures, etc. Seriously, if you do this for a living either figure out a way to fix it or figure out a new game because threatening a multi-billion dollar organization with your business will not get you what you want no matter the rake you provide them.
Also - stars know you have nowhere else to go
Last edited by curlyface; 02-10-2011 at 02:43 AM.
02-10-2011
, 03:01 AM
