I'm taking my talents to Full Tilt.

Genuinely excellent post. It won't change anything as it's clear stars have made their minds up, but hopefully they appreciate the concerns. I only started grinding DONs a couple of months ago and was over the moon that I found a game I could consistently crush, my ROI is around 65% in the 5s and 10s. Was really looking forward to this year

Having said that, I definitely understand the issues. Although I think that probably almost as big a problem as actual collusion is the presumably large quantity of accusations of collusion that stars have to deal with. A lot of completely standard (and often correct) play in DON bubbles can look pretty dodgy and I reckon a lot of players think "WTF??", assume collusion and then write to support. This must be a huge pain and effort dealing with that so it's understandable.

Haven't tried the fifty50s yet but will give them a go. To be honest though it sounds like it'll be much more worth my while just playing standard SNGs. The appealing part about the top 50% payout structure of the DONs was the fact that you're getting double your buyin. If the chip counts matter for the final payout to the extent that I'm gunning for top spot, I'm not particularly keen on the prize money being shared around 5 people tbh!

How about we do some actual calculations? I'll take 52.40$ Fifty50s for an example. Assuming you win 50$ on average when you cash (you finish on average with 3000 chips), you will need a 51.2% ITM to break even.

x+y= 100
x*50 - (100-x)*52.4 = 0
x*50 + x*52.4 = 5240
x=51.17
y=48.83

Anyhing above this will make you profit. Now the key things here are:

1. how many chips will you be able to accumulate on average
2. how long will an average Fifty50 last

Since the Fifty50s are much faster, you will be able to play them a lot more per hour (say 60 instead of 40 if an average Fifty50 lasts around 20 mins). This means A LOT more rake for PokerStars (hats off, brilliant), but also more rakeback for you. We'll have to wait and se how much profit (if any) will a good adapted player be able to generate at the higher levels.

Thoughts?

If you ask me the rake is still too damn high!

yeah, more 9-man winner takes all!

superb just what a wanted to hear.... now imgoing to have to abandon my sne chase and leave stars as i dont think the fifty50 will be beatable with its higher rake if all us regs move over to them.... ffs... thanks a lot pokerstars

fyp.

What a joke...

Fifty50 is no substitute for DoN and it's pathetic that PokerStars are trying to make out it is.

The short notice is an extra kick in the nuts! Thanks for crapping on my day PokerStars!

I'm a $104 DON regular. I'm just as frustrated as anyone on here at this decision. Why must stars take away DON to implement fifty50? Let us have a choice to play either/or. Why can't we just have BOTH??!?!?!!!

I think the DON games have cleaned up quite a bit (at least at the $104 level). I see Pokerstars concern for future liabilities of DON, but if they just keep an eye out for it (as they have since the Chinese colluders situation)---- it's a far superior game and worthwhile for them to keep (and for us to play).

I was on a SNE chase... don't know if it's worthwhile now.
Seems like there won't be that much action at the $104.32 fifty50's.

Wish there was more we could do to push for DON to stay.............
Hope more of us can fire up suggestions---- *****like for instance, let's all not play fifty50's from now until Feb 15, to demonstrate we don't want it.*****

I don't like the Fifty50s much either but I haven't played that many. My ROI has been pretty good in them but I also don't play the DoNs as tight as most of the regs. I might play them this month to keep my VIP level up but after that I'm not sure what I'll do.

I might switch back to regular SnGs or become the one thing I hate the most, a multitabling full ring tagfish.

Having all those DoN reg nits moving to the cash games would really make those games a lot less fun for recreational players. At least with DoNs the rec players still had a shot.

I sugguest all the regs find another game / move to another site after Feb 15. This might be the only thing that would make Stars reconsider dropping the Fifty50s rake by at least one third. What they are counting on now is that the regs who are financially dependent on DoNs (lack skills for other game formats) will have no choice but to move to the new format almost regardless of the rake.

+ I'd really like to get some feedback on this, and maybe an in-depth mathematical analysis or two, if anyone has the time and resources.

Someone start a Facebook page to complain and we will show stars how many ppl we have!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/create...etting_started

sign up and show these mofos!

this

I'm going to switch rooms if PS stops offering DoNs!

5 days to change year plans. Great Stars! +1 to jordyun

Now that you got that figured out, how do you open a bank account in that country under that fake name used on your photoshopped ID from that fake address so it matches the contact info the site has?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it does require more than "a lil effort".

nice!

I've been following this thread with interest, not because I play DON's, but because I care about a larger goal that affects all poker: keeping poker a skill based game free from cheating. As a cash game player, I've been advocating to get rid of ratholers by eliminating 50bb max games and we were finally successful in doing that when PokerStars TODAY starts getting rid of 50bb max tables. From the tournament side of things, these Double or Nothings seem eerily similar to the problems we've had in cash game.

In the 50bb max games and 20bb to 100bb games when they existed, at least 10 bots were found to have been playing millions of hands and winning thousands of dollars, mostly through rakeback. Contrast that with the DON Chinese Scandal.

Another similarity is that cash game ratholing strategy is so stripped down and so simple that players can easily play up to 24 tables doing the same thing over and over not having to think much about what actions to take because they play zero or maybe one street. Their goal isn't to 'win', but break-even and profit through rakeback. Contrast that with the DON games where players can apparently play more than 24 tournaments at the same time and turn a "profit". I've even heard several players say they are losers in every other game EXCEPT DON's ... well, that is saying something about DON's and not a very good something.

I think Stars made the right decision in BOTH cases. Offering games where players don't have to think much, bots are difficult to detect, and cheating is difficult to detect is not good for anyone. For THIS thread, if you are a skilled player, these new Fifty50 games look like an opportunity to make more money because you can use your edge more. If you are not a skilled player OR your goal is to play 100 tables at once OR your goal is to cheat or collude, then YES, these new tables are bad for you, and that is the point.

Stars, myself and other players salute you and thank you for this change and the recent cash game changes. Keep our games skill based and free from cheaters. Keep offering us good customer service and a quality product and we'll keep coming back. Most of these players complaining will not leave and many of them (cheaters/colluders) aren't good for the site anyway.

Also, some people are complaining about the timing of the announcement, and while I agree it would be ideal to announce things like this ahead of time, last year, we got the announcement in April that AWFUL cash game changes were being made immediately. Myself and others had to abandon our VIP chases almost mid-year. Everyone here isn't even 2 months into their chase and has more time to react than we did. So, be thankful for that.

I have been a break even (within a few hundred dollars) player on pokerstars for many many years now.
At the beginning of this year, I had just a few dollars left in my account, These DoN's jump started me, right now I am about 1/3 of the way to silver status for the month and well on my way to creating a decent size bankroll for micro/small stake play.
With that said, I am going to give fifty50 a try, I am saddened by the departure of DoN's, I would love to say goodbye in protest, but I must keep it real, I can't say goodbye.
My question is, can someone point me to a good article on fifty50 play and micro/low limits?

-a penny not spent is a penny still in play.

By the way. I don't know about other stakes but at the stakes I play, since the beginning of the year there seems to have been a considerable increase in the number of new faces at these games. Not just new regs but a lot of people that only play a few games for fun.

Being lower variance compared to other games I thought that these would be games that casual players could play that would keep their BR's in tact longer since it's hard for US players to keep depositing.

I don't think it'll just be the regs that are going to be upset by this change.

I just don't buy that it's cheating in these games that are causing a problem. Even though some standard play might be confusing the fraud detection algorithms it shouldn't be too difficult to spot cheaters. I mean, I've helped identify a bunch and the chinese ring was discovered by players you would think that pokerstars would be able to come up with a way to spot them given they have more information.

Right now I'm sitting at a couple of tables with the same pair that I believe to be cheaters. I have less than 100 hands against them but it seems to be obvious already. 2 players with 40+ vpip from the same country that all of a sudden went from losing players to winning players once they started playing in the same games together. These are two players I had less than 100 hands against.

A reasonable amount of resources should have been able to come up with a set of improvements to the fraud detection algorithms that could have been tuned specifically to be effective for DoNs that would reduce the false positives. They should contract this out because their current staff doesn't seem up to the task. Always thought if they could get some of the engineers from Google's adsense clickfraud team good things might happen. I hate to say anything negative about Stars because for the most part they do alright in my book.

Josem's response in the thread with the 3 guys with 6 laptops at borders playing DoNs was one of the things that started souring my opinion.

Another was something that came out in one of the Chinese DoN news stories that Stars shut off the alerts because they were getting so many false positives. The statement was supposedly made by an employee or former employee but even though I think Stars denied it I believe it because of a follow up email exchange I had after I received a response for a collusion report I submitted.

This was a very obvious case where the players always played together even at different stakes. When I questioned how these two were able to get away with winning thousands of dollars (microroller remember) for so long when it was so obvious the response basically said that their systems had flagged them but they usually wait until another player reports it. The claim was that they would have done something eventually. My guess is when the players went to withdraw which would have increased their own chance of loss due to liability if/when they were discovered.

My level of loyalty and respect for stars has been declining and I was hoping they would do something that would change my opinion. Right now this doesn't seem to be it.

I'm really surprised at this move because the games seem to have gotten better recently with fewer suspicious players and less regs per table.

With DoNs I had a chance of making SN this year if I worked hard. Without them it doesn't seem very likely. Without that incentive there isn't as much of a reason not to spread my play more to other sites. That's not meant as a threat. That's just the reality of the situation for me now.

Also a lot of the DoN regs don't look like they'll be able to do well they way they play in other games, not even the Fifty50's. The non-US ones will likely just move to other sites.

Sorry if this post is a bit scatterbrained, busy morning multitasking.

Would still like to know WHY! ps is dumping DONS? its by far the most popular format, its an easy and clear game for fish and regs.
the fiffty50 will never be a superior format to the dons. PokerstarsSteve could you please give us the reasoning on why dons are being removed?

Thanks Casado

im a MorOn! i though it was a good thing for stars to protect its players from bad peeple.....lol. its not always about munney.....lol.

Since you don't play DoNs that's probably why you got so much wrong in your post. These games don't require less skill they just require a different kind of skill. While a lot of players play very tight the more successful ones I've seen don't and good post flop play and hand reading ability can go a long way.

I'm up in other games I play including cash games and MTTs. I liked these games because of the low variance and large volume I could put in. It gave someone like me with a limited bankroll a shot at reaching SN.

After this month I'll probably move most of my play to cash or regular SnGs, not Fifty50's which means I don't have to stick with stars.

These games seemed to also be good for stars in terms of how much rake they collect. I can't see myself generating as much rake in other games.

There's only one reason Stars would get rid of a game as popular as DoNs - they must be losing money on them. Low rake + fixed costs + game security/refunds must be too high to justify keeping them in the long run.

I feel sorry for all the people who invested a lot of time in mastering them, but your energy is best spent learning to beat a new game. The only sites that will continue to offer DoNs are those that don't bother with game security.

why is there no 50s offered today? this mean anything?

side note. Instead of the fifty50's I always wondered if a knockout DoN would be an interesting format. Something like 10% of buy-in goes to bounty.