I would really like to see blopp,joeri,antchev and hoopman go to the next meeting. I think you kinda have to have been in the PLO games yourself to kinda get a hold of the PLO rake problems and the PLO eco system. The key word here is sustainability longterm.

Good that stars cares about the ratholing problem, not many other sites out there that really cares/try to get an understanding of whats going on, gj.

Nice try, Ivan. First of all let me explain what rotholing is, since 95% of players from the former USSR don't seem to understand the concept.

If a recreational player doubles up and leaves, (and then goes to have a beer or something)this is not ratholing. It only becomes ratholing if he sits down again at another table with his original stack. Even if he does rathole, he does not do it over 24+ tables 8 hours every day as you and your friends from the former USSR do.

I'm sure you can see the difference between a recreational player playing 1-2 tables and maybe ratholing 3-4 times maximum a day and a guy doing it dozens of times over dozens of tables.

Oh and last but not least, I think these changes are great. Is there any time table when they'll be implemented?

This rules with identies are very difficult for understanding. And it wont solve the problem with the ratholing.
If Pokers Stars want to solve "ratholing" problem they should make an EASY rule . For example if you join or start table you can leave only after 3 rounds of 18-27 hands

poker is interesting because of variety of stack sizes and strategies. and you want to make poker too boring.

if fish doubles, leaves the table and goes to the higher limit - its good for poker. but with your measures he cannot sit with the original stack, and he have money to buy-in full.
there will less fish on higher limits and BSS will start moan for another reason)

i will send you my own bear with vodka and balalaika, and he will eat your head for abusing my homeland.

This solution that you all want to make will just make shotrties to play 1-2k hands per day instead their normal distanse (for example 5k hands). I think we all ned to create new idea how to stop ratholing because this solution is anti 40 -70 bb players. If a player want to play any stack between 40-100 he could do it as much as he want. Identies are too difficult for understading and it seems to be an artificial introduction of measures

40bb stack of MSS strategy doesn’t offer any advantage by itself, it is a sick fantasy of lazy people who don’t want to learn to play! I started playing poker with MSS, then I moved to the BSS, because 40bb stack does not give any advantage, on the opposite MSS limits my winrate.
But the MSS is a good opportunity for NEWBIE AND NEWCOMERS to learn poker and build a bankroll for BSS. Because the low limits can be played on the nitty MSS and train postflop skill and win some money when learn to play poker. At the mid-stakes MSS is no easier than BSS, so two good pro-players can play equally well irrespective of their strategy. And those who continue to play the nitty with a stack of 40bb have a winrate 0 or less, so that they do not create problems for good BSS players, exactly the opposite.
Many good MSS players are LAG. Their loose-aggressive style creates a problem for the lazy-nitty-BSS-multitablers, which dream up advantages of 40bb stack, complain and whine, instead of learning to play. MSS advantage is that they have spent time and figured out how to play with a stack 30/40/45/50/55/60/70...100bb. So, lazy BSS-players on their 30 tables continue calling pocket pairs for a set against the MSS 40bb player, that is against the recreational player with a 20bb stack, because they don’t want to look at others stacks and calculate individual counterstrategies.
Then let's ban LAGs!!! If your VPIP over 20, then you can open up to 6 tables per day. LAGs hinder me to play, it's an unfair advantage, I can’t read their hands and understand how they plays! Recreational players needn’t to open more than 6 tables, so ban LAGs. That is complete nonsense, isn’t it? So why trying to ban MSS???
Lazy whiners life doesn’t become easier, MSS-pro-players will continue to beat them, but then they won’t win a stack of 40-60bb, they will win 80-100bb from bad BSS-players. And REMEMBER, our favorite 100bb stack size was chosen randomly as a certain round number on the early days of online poker, to limit the amount of money that you can bring to the table.
And some more memories. When I was fishy I preferred the minimum buy-in to play on a bigger bets and not risking a lot. I played without rebuying to start stack, believed that once I lost I should rise from bottom and recoup. When I played and scored 100bb stack, I was pressured by the amount of money and I left from the table. Sat down at the other with a minimum buy-in.

So then the most important part. Steve, I hope you read at least this part!

If you struggle with a ratholing problem, the solution is obvious. No need to go crazy and limit the stacks/tables/hours and so on. Just replace the button "sit out next bb" with the button “sit out after next round”. This is quite a gentleman - to enable recoup at least another 6-9 hands and then just leave. I can activate that button and through another round of blinds, when I post at least BB and SB and plays at least 6-9 hands, sit out before BB. And then I can sit at any table with any buy-in. Or I can close the table or sit out at any time. If I do this, my tables limit is reduced by one.
Let me give a good example. My table-limit is 24 tables. I play 24 tables on nl2. On the one of the tables my stack become 300bb. I put a “sit out after next round”. After one round of blinds I sit out and close the table. And open a new one, with any buy-in.
If I don’t put “sit out after next round”, and just close the table, then I can’t open new 24th nl2 table with any buy-in, I can play only 23. When I open the 24th table on nl2 I can sit only with a buy-in of at least 300bb, also I’d offering to sit at the table, from which I leave with 300bb. But I could go out for a long time, and at that table already sitting all the other players. So it’s not necessary to seat exactly at the table from which I leave with 300bb. It may be any nl2 table.

This new feature can really and actually helps get rid of ratholing.

Panicddd, +1000

If winning players are a problem, I can suggest that PokerStars will make something with other players. All of you don't understand that all of changes make for decrease winrate winnings players, and slow loosing of fishes. All of changes... Don't be happy so much.

of course he can sit back with his original original stack. He can do that up to 24 times (assuming that's his table limit). How many recreational players rathole more thatn 24 times a day? On the other hand this measure deals nicely with guys like you who play 30 tables and rathole again and again and again.

Panicddd, +1000 ))

+1 billion to this. stars please listen before its too late, plo could make you as much money as holdem did in the longrun if you would only learn how to milk it.

also - is there any chance we could get some thread segregation between the shortstack issue and the rest? or maybe its just best to start a new thread in hsplo/ssplo idk

Lol at all the russians that are frantically opening new two plus two accounts and posting in a vain, panicked attempt to stop this going through. :-D

lol shortdonkers

I like the regular tables new rule that will come...but why do it @ zoom tables?
Leave zoom as it is.

I love how ratholers started crawling out of the woodwork once the measures were announced.

hilarious hypocrisy being displayed by 100bb regs in the reg thread

If you are going to make a new definition of ratholing it needs to apply to both 40bb and 100bb regs. discriminating against regs who want to play 40bb stack and not applying it universally is ridiculous.

^That post disproves some of the dribble LazyAce posted.

Wishing testicular cancer on someone when you yourself are ratholing scum is hilarious. sad sad individual right there.


Unfortunately 40bbrs Stars has already made their decision, but you all should bitch that this needs to apply all regs.

@steve will u do something for the o8 rake too?

Sent from my HUAWEI MediaPad using 2+2 Forums

Hi,
Is it your intention to limit 100bb ratholing as well or only buy-ins less than 100bb ?

If you don' want to limit 100bb, the simplest solution would be to just cap stack identities at 100bb (and always create one no matter what buy-in).
If you want to limit 100bb ratholing as well then again always creating table identity is the way to go.
When buyin in you are allowed to buyin for the lowest amount out of your identities and all your identities start at 0$ and are rest after 20hours (or w/e).

I don't see the point of this "not creating identity when buying in for max" point.

on 17th table you are allowed to buy-in for minimum out of your 16 active stack identities, wtp ? (and then if you leave with more than current minimum, current minimum drops and is replaced by amount you jsut left a table with).
I don't see why you want to protect ability to start 24 tables with minimum. I mean, if ratholing by regulars is bad then we should just care about recreational players. Once you play 17 tables you are not recreational anymore and you have big impact on the games.
Basing amount o stack identities on max tables sounds very arbitrary and unfair to me. Why should some regulars in my games be in privileged position just because they are faster at clicking buttons ? Rules should be the same for everybody, especially those influencing game play in such significant way.

3rd question:
Let's say I have 24 identities and run half of them to 250bb. I take a few hours break and decide to play again. I see normal table with one weak player having 250bb. Am I now allowed to use one of my 250bb identities to buy in ? It sounds unfair to me to allow that. What's the way to prevent those unfair big buy-ins with stack identity system ? (again, capping them at 100bb would solve the problem).

comparing 100bb ratholling with 40bb ratholling is a bit silly.
I don't think you can get so many identities to 200bb to pass the daily limit.
Even if you do, how often are you against 3+ players that have you covered? (unlike SSers who at 40bbs are always the smallest stack at the table)
Because you can be at 200bb but if the others are at 100bb it doesn't matter anyway.
I wouldn't have a problem if they do this for 100bb as I don't think this happens often enough to matter at regular tables(maybe at zoom)

Wishing disease to some ratholler is bad and imo should be banned from 2+2.
And you should hate the game for allowing it not the player itself.

With regards to the cluttering of the lobby argument, I just want to point out that Stars already offers 3 different depths for NLHE. The problem is that the offer is a very shallow game, and two relatively deep games. If you are going to offer 3 different depths, they should be split more logically - something like 20bb cap, 40-60bb, 100bb.

more segregation is exactly what we need.

Panicddd

All right when he said
btw please note on nl200 + 80% amateurs players do not sit with 100bb stacks

and Leave zoom as it is.!

Guys who are supporting these changes and just posting insults to shortstackers or Russians, you are not helping. Stars is not implementing a ratholing solution because shortstackers or Russians are a problem, they are doing it because ratholing is a problem.

Don't do this, that would just make it worse for everyone - 40bbers will have to learn how to play deeper if they want to continue playing on Stars and this will just make it harder. As well this would create more bumhunting as LazyAce stated before.

The problem with 40bb ratholing is that these players continuously exploit a large mathematical edge (yes panicbbb) on the big stacks. This edge is not skill related but purely because of the stacksize. This edge is especially big for PLO because hand equities run way closer, more multiway pots and there is more postflop action. Therefor i think its a problem. Bad sportsmanship is to me personally less of an issue.

I have another simple idea how to combat (semi)professional ss / ratholing. It requires a bit more manual actions (not what stars wanted), but incorporating it in the software just seems too complex to me.
- for every player that played at least 50k hands in the running year, you test what % of hands had been played with less then 50bb. If this % is high (>90%?), you have a ratholing ss'er. Send them an email explaining why this is not wanted. If nothing changes you act (raise min buyin for them? / temp ban? / ?)
Its kind of similar to the stars approach to slow (fast) players. You identify the slow (fast) ones, give a warning and decrease nr of tables.