Two things about this site are forcing tables to break and killing the games:

1) Being forced to leave the table when you have a stack of certain size.
Usually there is no bigger game, and many people just aren't going to rebuy back in the lower game for 25 (they may not even know they can and they are capped at 4 entries).

Solution: Ideally let players play with any stack size over the minimum buy in.
Short of that...don't force them to leave immediately, but after they choose to leave then restrict them from buying back in to the lower limit.
HOWEVER, absolutely educate people about this. When they leave the table have a pop up tell them they can't come back to the limit since they have too many chips but inform them they can come back starting at 25 again.

2) Being forced to leave the table when you bust out at the lowest level.
Again, not everyone realizes they can just come right back for 25 so they may just leave, and even if you know it, it's frustrating to have to do it for no real reason.

Solution: When someone busts at the lowest level, ask them if they want to watch an ad immediately for 25 chips.

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These two solutions will go a long way to keeping the games going, at least at the lowest level.

I can not stress enough that you should be educating people with pop-ups with clear language at the right times to encourage them to get back in the games.

This is not normal poker, and most new players will not be used to it. Once they are forced from a table they will be confused/frustrated.

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I'm curious why you don't just allow people to buy in to any level as long as they have more than the minimum buy in? That would help a lot to keep games going.


Hope this helps...

Dallas

i agree with this second point completely. i see problems with the first point. but don't want to discuss them here.

We've talked a lot about how to address this problem internally. We agree that it's a bummer to have a good game broken up just because a player has grown their stack too far. On the other hand poker doesn't quite work when one player has a massive stack and others don't. We honestly believe this issue solves itself when the site has a critical mass of players and we're focusing our efforts on growing the player base. Still, we will continue to work on how we can address this issue.

The biggest problem with this is that in Level 1 you can play with a stack between 500-1000 but you cannot sit down at the table with a stack between 500-1000. That doesn't make sense.

If I get up from the table >500 I can't sit back down but if I stay seated I can play up until 1000.