that's pretty much the idea, with one thing added i intentionally omitted:

i found that you can not force players to use a certain stack identity, because there is always a way to get at the identity in the queue with the lowest BBs by hanoiing your stacks around.


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=479
then..
i assume you took 6 identities for the sake of the example. if not, it has to be MaxTables you are given in a certain time period.

Per Nick: FL *Big Bet* size of either 4x or 5x the *Big Blind* size of the NL/PL stake depending on how the specific stakes we offer lined up.

I think my method addresses this 'hanoiing' concept, because you cannot get rid of a saved stack identity that is above 40bb's, unless you replace it with an identity that is higher than that amount, not lower.

For instance, if a players' current identities are A:85, B:80, C:80, D50, E:50, F:40 and they buy-in at 24 tables, (going well over their identity limit), then the first six tables that they buy-in for have 85bb's, 80bb's, 80bb's, 50bb's, 50bb's and 40bb's, but then the next 18 tables are all bought in at 85bb's each as that is the highest amount of all their 6 current identities.

Then when they quit all 24 tables, that player will have 24 new saved identities and any new tables they join after this, the game will force them to start with stack sizes that are the highest in this identity list, and not the lowest. If the player has lowered all his stack identities down to the minimum, then that will only be because he has lost loads of money and turned his 85bb starting stacks into 40bb's, so a player can exploit the system and manipulate the saved stack identities that way but only because he's lost money in the process, so he isn't really gaining anything by doing so.

The reason for the initial 6 identities is to allow each player a certain, small amount of daily ratholing to please the recreational players that like to play short, but to stop the 40bb shortstackers from constantly ratholing.

I don't see how this can be exploited, does this address the issue that you are raising? You seem to be thinking that there is a 'queue' with the stack identities, but there is only a queue for the first 6, (which buys in at the largest first anyhow), and then from the 7th identity onwards, you are forced to buy-in with the first identity amount, (which is the highest of your current six), for every additional table.

I think it is better to set the amount of identities to a specified amount, say 6 or so for every single player, rather than choosing the amount to be equal to however many tables that player 'usually plays', since that is arbitrary and can vary depending on the player, as a regular player might play 10 tables when he is fully focused, and 5 tables when he is reading emails and surfing the internet etc.

your idea is good and is somewhat similar to mine, except you force players to buy-in with the maximum BBs they hold in one of their stacks after using up X slots. nothing wrong with that. but as i (and steve) said, forcing to buy-in with the maximum stack is pretty arbitrary and there is no good answer to the question why max and not average or something else.

this question is answered quite naturally when you always keep track of individual stacks. you chose to split yourself up into more than one player. each (sub)identity is assigned a stack. this individual stack gets tracked throughout the time period.

emphasis is on "no good answer". say a governemt regulator asks you this question, you have to come up with a good answer: why is your site forcing players to put more money on the table than they intended in a way that is automated by your site?

just freeze those 40bb donks accounts and leave everything as it is

Can anybody explain the system described by Steve?

Let's say a rec player starts 2 tabling with 50bb. He doubles up and decides to play three tables with 50bbs (closing the one where he has 100bb ofc) or just to open a new one with 50bb. Can he do that? Are there any limitations (e.g. he can't do it more than 24 times)?

Yes, I think that a player being forced to buy-in with the average of their 6 current identities for all tables opened from the 7th upwards is fine. It can be the average or the maximum identity of their 6, I have no problem with either method as neither can be exploited.

This is irrelevant, because I am already working under the assumption that ratholing is a problem and something needs to be done about it. The fact that it's been discussed at the meeting etc. and that a lot of regs are unhappy with persistant short-stacking regs utilising their stack edge in certain spots are just a few clues as to this being an issue that needs dealing with. Hence I don't think I need to address this when talking about the mechanics of the stack identity method, as I am trying to come up with a method that works, given that ratholing is a problem to start with. Whether ratholing is actually a problem or not, and the morals of forcing a player to buy-in with a certain stack size are separate issues as far as I am concerned.

I was under the impression that on new tables the system forces the player to have the stack size which is the *smallest* of all his saved stack identities. And that's the only way it makes sense to me.

I don't think it was specified, buy I think that if I decide to buy in for x dollars, the stack identity that should be used is the one that's the closest to x$ but smaller or equal to it.

So, for example, say my stack identities were 45bb, 55bb, 65bb, 75bb, 85bb and 95bb and that I have 6 stack identitiy slots. Then when I buy into a table, I can buy in for anything between 45bb and 100bb. If I choose to buy in for 60bb for example, this table will use the 55bb stack identity. If I choose to buy in for 77bb it will use the 75bb stack identity.

mme, can you comment on this? Is there any logic reason to design it any other way? I think that the system forcing you to use the biggest stack identity is unfair, because it means that if you bought in for 40bb at some table and then left an orbit later without winning a hand, this counts as one of your ratholes, even though you didn't take any money off the table


Yes. From my understanding the rec player is allowed to do this up to 22 times or so per 18-hour period.

I cringe when I see this. If someone is 'limited' to 24 times, that is still a tonne of times in my opinion and will make no difference to the current situation. I would be surprised if these ratholing short stackers make 24 buy-ins a day, so something that has a limit near 24 or so, will have no effect.

I'd prefer to see something in the region of 4 to 6, in order to severely limit the reg short stackers volume at 40bb stack sizes, and hopefully force them to play more at a larger stack size. I can't stand it when I am unable to play at a certain table due to too many players having 40bb stacks.

Pokerstars,

To solve an issue, it is important to clearly identify what your objectives are.

Your statement is that you want to remove ratholing. But it looks like you want to remove ratholing AND shortstacking at the same time.

To prevent ratholing the solution is very simple. Let's say a player wants to sit in and play with 40bb only. For every hands he plays at a table, if at the end of a hand this player has a stack higher than 40bb, the software automatically cash the extra money in the bankroll and leave the player with its 40bb stack.

If you want to remove ratholing AND shorstacking the solution becomes way more complicated. Actually in that case, there is not much alternative than forcing players to play with 100bb+ after a given period of time at the tables.


But remember this statement you made on 2+2 (quoted from Pokerstars Steve)

"However, it doesn't make sense to force one set of customers who are used to 40bb stack sizes to adjust to please another set of customers who are used to 100bb stack sizes. There is no justification for playing favorites here."

This statement is fair and compatible with the ratholing problem but not with the shorstacking problem.

Given your latest solutions (earlier in this thread), it looks like they are conflicting with that statement you made. Indeed, in some extend (or after a given time), they oblige a player to play more than their optimal stack size. By doing so you may lose a non negligible number of players.


This being said, here is my proposition to solve both ratholing and shortstacking issues (it's more an idea generator, not a final solution)

You provide only 3 type of table: 20bb, 50bb and 100bb+ (and remove the current table types)

For 50bb type for instance, this amount would be the maximum and minimum at the same time. If a player goes above 50bb after a hand, the extra money is cashed in the bankroll, leaving 50bb to the table. If a player goes under 50bb, money is added at the table up to the 50bb limit (under the condition there is the required amount in the bankroll).

Same rule for 20bb table.

For 100bb+ there would be a minimum but no maximum.

Doesn't being able to buy-in at the minimum stack identity allow you to take advantage of the hanoiing concept on the previous page?

For instance, lets say a player has played for half an hour on six tables, he closes all the tables down and has six saved identities, 95bb's, 92bb's, 80bb's, 74bb's, 62bb's and 53bb's.

He now opens 1 new table, with a stack size of 53bb's. He tries to win money but should he lose a pot, suffer an unavoidable cooler like KK v AA, or be blinded down a bit, he now has 42bb's in his stack.

He immediately quits the table so his 6 identities are 95bb's, 92bb's, 80bb's, 74bb's, 62bb's and 42bb's.

He goes and opens 12 tables with the first 6 being set as his saved identities, (smallest first), and the last 6 tables as the minimum of his saved identities so he can start them all at 42bb's. His 12 tables (in order) are:

42, 62, 74, 80, 92, 95, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42

The player can then just close down the second to sixth tables without playing a hand at them, and just play with seven tables at 42bb's. He's beaten the system, this is not good.

If you force him to buy-in at the max, once all identities are used up, then his 12 tables are:

95, 92, 80, 74, 62, 42, 95, 95, 95, 95, 95, 95

No matter what the player does, he's had his six rathole opportunities already today, when he played with his original 6 fresh stack identities, and now he is deepish on all but one of his 12 tables.

If you force him to buy-in at the average, once all identities are used up, then his 12 tables are:

95, 92, 80, 74, 62, 42, 74, 74, 74, 74, 74, 74

I think the 'average' method looks fairer and seems a lot more effective than the minimum method that you mention, with the maximum method being better than the minimum. I personally prefer the maximum method as I like to have everyone at my table with 80bb's or more ideally, since you can then play more post-flop etc.

The key to the 6 initial fresh stack identities each day, is that we are allowing all players complete freedom over their buy-in choice up to 6 times a day, (addressing the moral reasons that people keep putting forward), but then once it gets more than those 6 times, and they have built up a decent stack at those 6 tables, then their buy-in efforts start to get restricted to prevent too much ratholing, just like a live casino makes efforts to stop ratholing.

I would strongly discourage any meeting participants from even considering this. While I'm sure you had a great time at Isle of Man and are eager to build a more personal relationship with your newfound colleagues consider what Stars has turned into as these meetings have replaced the open and friendly discourse we used to have on these forums. We've replaced these with Steves 120 pages of notes and promises that all will be discussed at the ever distant 'next meeting'. Participate in private forums and you'll be turned into even more of a scape goat.

These meetings, as I know Stars emphasizes even to the participants, in a way turns players against players. We, the effectively ignorant who have not participated in such meetings, don't really appreciate what you've seen and so are bound to end up not really appreciating what you're saying - simply out of a lack of knowledge. Or at least that's the spin Stars has given you. In any case imagine what happens when you add yet another layer of opacity to discussions with this company. It is not a good thing for anybody.

Raising the minimum buy-in and segregating the player pool up even further has already been discussed before, and the common consensus seems to be that keeping the 40bb-100bb tables serves a wide variety of players whilst allowing them to all play against each other.

The point is that Steve said, that the number of "stack identities" would be equal to the player's table cap (which is 24 for all rec players). So this change would affect only masstabling 40bb players, that's what I am trying to say. No surprise, though, it's kinda hard to imagine a system that allows rec players to rathole, but not 40bb regs, who play 5-6 tables (for whatever reasons).

Just to clarify: I do NOT play 40bb nor 100bb.

But what I am saying is that with a limit as high as 24 tables, this will barely effect any of the masstabling 40bb players either, since there are probably very few that play that many tables and are able to rathole away 24 double-ups each day. Ok, there will be a few really high volume players that it might occasionally affect, but most of the 6 to 16 tabling shortstacking regs will never be affected by this.

Do you see my point now? Choosing the stack identity concept to go hand-in-hand with a players table limit is bad, as everyone has a 24 table limit by default and this is too high to affect ratholers.

If a mass tabling ratholer wins at 2bb/100. 24 full ratholes is 24 x 40bb's = 960bb's.

To win 960bb's with a 2bb/100 win rate would take 480 lots of 100 hands, or 48,000 hands. I'm not sure too many players are playing 48,000 hands in a day...

I do accept that the 48,000 hands is an overestimate, because it doesn't count when the player loses a 40bb stack, he rebuys and then doubles up. He is not up any money, but he has used up a rathole when he squirrels that 80bb's away, but still, it will take thousands of hands in a day for a 24 tabler to be affected and no one plays that many hands.

Even the six stack identities is generous, the more I think about it, I think there should be four fresh stack identities to be used each day.

Oh, didn't know about that, sorry. Thats cool!

Just so that i understand this.
A fullstacker with equal skill should have a higher winrate than a shortstacker if there is a fish at the table, right?
If the table is full of regs and there is a shortstacker, the shortstacker will have the biggest edge/winrate, right?

Don't know the situation at NL but personally I'd be happy if the shortstacker will only take 40bbs from a fish instead of busting him.
Or are there so many regbattles at NL?
We can't have those @PLO because everyone loses to rake, so I really don't know

Pokie, what you say is patently false. I think you're doing the math totally wrong, and so are drawing wrong conclusions. Happily, I already did the math earlier in the thread, here. An identity limit of 24 is pretty reasonable, although I think 1bout 12 would be even better, and will essentially eliminate pro shortstacking.

For the record, I'm not a shortstacker and I hate them.

I'm sorry, I think we're having communication problems. The example I gave, with 6 table identities, is so that I don't have to write a list of 24 numbers. Each player has 24 table identities, and I think that forcing a player to buy in for the minimum among those identities is the right approach. There are *always* 24 identities, some of which are just set to the bare minimum, i.e. 40bb. So if a player only used 6 identities so far, with stack sizes of between 45bb and 95bb, then he can open 18 more tables at 40bb if he so wishes. Once all his 24 identities get above 45bb, say, then he can only open a new table at 45bb. And so on.

I understand that you don't want to play against shortstackers. Neither do I. But Steve has explained in the past why they still want to allow non-full buyins, and I accept their reasoning. If we need to find a fair way to lkmit ratholing, than I think forcing a player to buy-in for the minimum among his 24 table identities is the only fair way. Forcing the average makes no sense IMO, and neither does forcing the maximum.

I don't agree with this. I'm not entirely sure of it, but I believe that having player rep meetings should not hurt discussion on 2p2, and that the player rep institution helps the reg community in the long run. I'm not saying I'm 100% sure you're wrong, but you'd have to give much better arguments to convince me.

I'm well aware that 48,000 hands is far too much, it's really the amount of hands it takes for a shortstacker to get all-in and win 24 times, even if they lose say 18 times in that period. I just think it will take a lot of hands for a shortie to get all-in and win that many buy-ins. If it took them less than 10,000 hands I would be surprised, and most people do well to play even 7,000 hands in a day.

From your link, I don't understand where you get that it takes them 50 hands to double up from, since they have to get all-in and someone needs to call them, and then the 40bb player needs to actually win the pot as well. Most short stackers will try to get it in with say AKo, AKs and JJ+ unless it's late position vs the blinds etc where they will get it in wider where their all-in pre-flop equity will be a lot lower causing them to lose a fair chunk of the time.

Now AKo, AKs and JJ+ is only 3% of hands, but of course probably 75% of the time that the short stacker raises one of these hands in EP or MP, they don't get any action, or they might get someone calling them and folding the flop to their cbet etc, but most of the time they are not getting all-in when they are dealt this 3% range.

In late position they get it in wider, but they aren't able to steal/resteal every time if someone in EP or MP opened, and even when the shortie gets it all-in, he will do well to have a 60:40 edge against the hands his opponent is getting it in with.

So one double up every 50 hands is way too low in my opinion. There is no way a shortie wins 24 all-ins in 24 x 50 hands = 1,200 hands. It's probably more like 24 x 250 hands = 6,000 hands, and most players don't play this volume in a day.

If a short stacker has 24 identities to use per day, that is not really limiting him in any way at all. This does not address ratholing, because if the shortstacker is playing 6 tables, has doubled up on each, before he closes them down he opens his 7th to 12th tables at 40bb's, then he closes tables 1 to 6 down and squirrels away that money.

He plays until 7 to 12 have doubled up, he then opens up his 13th to 18th identities and if he still has time left in the day he may have to make use of his 19th to 24th identities.

He then goes to sleep and wakes up the next day and at no point is he forced to play with more than 40bb's.

The vast majority of players will not blow through all 24 identities in a day, I am sure of it, hence I don't see it making much of a difference.

I understand the reasons too for letting players have a choice of buy-in, so that it caters for the recreational players etc, but we are trying to deal with regulars that are ratholing too many times and putting in a high volume 40bb strategy, are we not?

I don't think there's much of any argument against the fact that Stars' relationship with players has gone massively downhill since the introduction of these meetings.

Back 'in the day' Stars used to do exactly what they purport to be doing with these meetings in a completely open fashion with players. If players had a problem and enough people were concerned by it, you could rest assured it would be resolved and typically in a reasonably quick fashion. Sure Stars had some major failures like trying to solve ratholing by setting the max buyin at normal tables to 50bb (?!?!) that were pretty absurd and there was never any rationale given, but those tended to be the exception rather than the rule. Now a days any complaints are met more or less directly with "That's great. We really care. Now just wait however long and we'll discuss it at the next player meeting." after the meeting we're given a page of text that says nothing from Steve and little more than promises of future meetings - see what's happening with PLO rake?

1. Meeting
2. Nothing happens
3. Promises of future meetings.
4. Goto 1

These meetings have not only massively worsened the timeline for action from the site, but they've also added a fairly massive layer of opacity to what used to be a reasonably transparent system. They come up with absurd ideas like effectively removing table selection and then deflect any player complaints by arguing that they did discuss it with player the "representatives". Adding a further layer of opacity is a terrible idea and only going to further aggravate the current problems.

From what I've seen of these meetings so far, I agree with this 100%.

Nothing much has actually happened, it's all been a load of air up till now.

have any of the player reps posted trip reports anywhere yet? If not, why not?

+1

It's one thing to hear from Stars POV but I think the community prefers to have the full report of the meetings from their reps.

Ok, fair enough. The truth is that I play PLO and it's been about two years since I played NLH at any capacity, so I might be out of touch with the situation in NLH. In PLO 50 hands is probably an over-estimate. I don't like the way you do the calculation (I think it's very unrealistic), so I'll re-do my computation with a higher estimate for the number of hands it takes for the shortstacker to double up. If I re-do the math with 200 hands per double-up, I get that a shortstacker wins 96bb per day, say about half of which are due to the inherent advantage of shortstacking. That is, indeed, too much, and probably wouldn't stop pro shortstackers.

How shall we solve the problem? I am very much opposed to implementing the same solution that Steve suggested but with forcing the player to buy in for the average of maximum of his identities. I think this is a terrible solution, and will end up being canceled.

I would be interested to hear other suggestions, but I think the best way is to just double or triple the expiration time on the table identities. So you just leave each player with 24 identities, but have them expire after 72 hours rather than 18 hours. This shouldn't harm recs at all, and will disallow pro shortstacking/ratholing, which is exactly the purpose. In fact, the good thing is that stars can start by rolling out the solution with a 24 or 48 hour expiration period for identities, and just increase it to 72 if the shortstacking problem persists (or do it the other way around: start at 72 hours, and relax to 48 if they think it's needed).

Steve, if you're reading this, would you guys be up for changing the expiration of the identities at 72 hours? What was the purpose of setting is to 18 hours to begin with? Do you think recs will find themselves ratholing 8 times per day?

Yeah, basically we just need a system that limits ratholing to about 6 to 8 times maximum per day. Recreational players will never reach these limits realistically, and even if one of them ever did, that individual won't care because it will mean that they have won quite a few stacks that particular day and are loving this game of poker, even though unbeknownst to them they are losing players.

I think this is best acheived with 6 identities. I am not sure how many stack identities stars are thinking of giving each player, has anyone seen that 18 page document?