I would very much prefer live 6 max tables instead of antes. 6max allows/forces people to play way more hands(because they only need to beat 5 players instead of 8 or 9) and ultimately that's what rec's want; that's what we all want, to play.

Ante's require people to play more hands too but not nearly as much as 6 max, I think.

Also, one of the biggest mistakes in live games has always been excessive preflop looseness based on how much money is in the pot. Ante's will emsmallen this mistake and we're not sure if their post flop mistakes will make up for it.

It wouldn't be difficult for a room to experiment with these idea's.

If you want to cater to recreationals then stop talking about forcing people to play with deeper stacks and posting antes. There's a reason why Stars have chosen to go with faster formats with less of a starting stack and games with more luck involved. The only issue with these formats is that the sites don't adjust their rake & while caring about the enjoyment of the recreationals they don't care about the profitability of the pros.

What we need is a cash game format with 40-50BB's, 3-4 handed, no timebank, reduced rake & fast fold software.

unfortunately this dumb ass point of view is shared by many regs/crappy pros who love ruining their own games.

Casinos would be okay with that so long as they get to rake the same amount per hand as a full table (or if the total time collection from six players at a 6max table is the same as from nine players at a full table).

Live short-handed tables will appeal to loose-aggressive fish. It will turn off loose-passive fish. I tend to target the latter.

You know what I have fun playing as an action game? Live, short-handed limit hold em. It's been speculated that the poker boom resulted in poker becoming more of a sausage fest because it was concentrated on NLHE and women seem to like LHE more. Imagine if there was a live poker mini-boom fueled by something sparking more women playing poker and a lot of that going into women playing limit games. I think that would make poker more fun and the only people who would be sad would be the nitty no limit specialists who refused to follow the fun players into PLO because they hate the variance and who won't follow the action into LHE if that's where it goes.

If I could make near the same hourly I would definitely play 4 handed LHE because it would be more fun.

I have another more fanciful idea which is to establish live multi-tabling with new-type electronic tables. There will still be "dealers" to run things but no cards or chips(random # generator required); instead screens, and a slot for your casino card at each seat and a computer controlling the whole thing.

eg. 20 people playing at a total of 3 tables, say they start at 2 tables, the first 10 to fold will get seated at the 3rd table, they get up and move, computer tells them where to go and moves their virtual chips and keeps track of blinds and position to keep things even, like in Zoom/Rush, and so on.

edit: actually I would like to keep the chips real and let folks play out of a rack, but cards virtual and screen covered by a shroud.

To be honest the funnest cash games as far as online nl is playing the 50 bb max games. It's more of a gamble game like plo than the normal 100 bb games that are full of optimal plays.

I even get into more of a higher variance style.

I remember back in the day when party only had 50bb buy in's. It was so easy to play mechanically and mostly just wait for pf monsters. One couldn't get away with this now.

someone needs to go back in time and stop john nash from being born, then cash games will be great again

nash has more relevance to sit and go's and late stage mtts, not cash

Winning should be fun. So I'd say start by winning. Then any games would be fun.

Pretty simplistic views here, there are many types of recreational players. For example I know one person that stopped playing cash games because there aren't fullring games anymore where I play, and also doesn't like much the zoom format where at least it's more easy to always have full tables. Now he just plays some mtt's from time to time; also plays lowstakes live mtt's when he has some opportunity.

I have seen massive improvements in online cash game economy recently.

- Reduce number of max tables
- Reduce rakeback % and spend that money on advertising and fun promos
- Reduce the highest stakes offered
- Ban HUDs and seating scripts

Sites like Unibet have done this really well. If you want a more fun game play there.

If what you mean is why can't I bumhunt NL200 and 16 table with my HUD and fish in every game without a lot of tough competition then yeah not going to happen.

Reducing the highest stakes offered isn't an improvement.

Stars did have a choice of standard 50-100bb games, and 100-250bb games with antes. Nobody played the latter, despite the prevailing attitude at the time being to kill anyone playing less that 100bb with fire. It would be the game of choice now if the "reg" population weren't all bumhunters and weren't scared to open a game without at least one mark to prey on, it was offered but because fish weren't interested nobody was

How about No Phone or IPAD tables in a casino?

Not everyone would want this obviously, but if a room has 3 or more tables at the same stake on a regular basis, why not try it out, and let the people who came to have a good time or are willing to engage play on one table and the rest ignore each other and slow the game down elsewhere.

Has this ever been tried?