only time i ever play HU is vs friends for fun. guess we cant do that anymore?

Ha.

Nice heads up there (pun intended) Amaya, ****ing removing it on FRIDAY. Interested to know how much of their traffic/rake has been from HU CG in site lifetime.

Excellent move. HU is a blight on the poker economy in its current form.

Knew it wouldn't take long

No, it's not!

There have been changes to a KOTH only system a couple of months ago, which got rid of a lot of bumhunter problems.

FINALLY F.... Bump Hunters will be forced to play...

At one time I was thinking that zoom might make heads up more popular, at the time more or less heads up was already dead, and with the many late changes things have just got worse. How many hands one plays per player in bigger pools makes some difference but when not playing just one man heads up, it is a different game, but I suppose it is better than nothing.

yeah, except that the switch to koth were done so quickly and quietly that non of the "poker economy experts" in nvg has no idea it even happend

You could play casino for fun.

This doesn't affect the reasoning, which is that the reg:fish ratio for games to run consistently is still 1:1 - much lower than any other form of poker. Sure, sometimes you get regwars, but especially at higher stakes, what you'll get before long is lobby stratification.

Furthermore, I'm not sure that regwars are even important. What matters is how many regs a fish sustains when they play. In normal HU, it's one.

This decision will basically put all MSNL players from 2/4-5/10 out of business, since the 500z+ pools are held by HS players.

predatory behaviour
predatory behaviour
predatory behaviour
predatory behaviour
predatory behaviour
Are we allowed to pot bet all streets? Or that can be perceived as predatory behaviour and accounts can be banned?

Hopefully there is like a 16 entry cap per zoom pool or something like that. Would just be madness otherwise.

They also didn't try reducing the number of tables in KOTH lobbies. The result is that better players maintain tables and beat the fish even quicker than before. Extra rake generation was minimal anyway as regs quickly established their place in the pecking order and sat out people 'better' than them and took tables from people unwilling to play.

This is about stopping players winning at very high rates. Along with it HU essentially dies as a format. Hu zoom is not the same as regular hu. My biggest game last year was 200 hu zoom, so we'll see what happens, but I certainly don't imagine it will ever be great.

I'd bet my left bollock that hu rake is doubled within the next year.

This change is part of our commitment to reducing predatory behaviour and improving the recreational player experience.

What about seat scripts lol? And they did change MS to koth not so long ago and clearly didnt give it enough time to see if the changes worked or not.

its not - you'll usually play more hands battling for the table than playing with fish, making the ratio >1:2

that being sad, the koth clearly wasnt working out, the pecking order was established very quickly, and with no new tables it was impossible to battle on more than one table, which probably decreased the amount of hands played. And im not just saying that because i couldnt get one myself, it usually takes me 3-5 mins to get a table, just the mere observation of the lobby.

Correct. Adding 1.5/3 and 2/4 along with 2/5 may be interesting. Although how many 2/4-5/10 players do you know who play only on stars? It's more incentive for us to at least try to jump ship, but finding a non major site where huplo rake at the 200 and 400 level isn't already ****ing insane and has some action is not easy.

This is also a slap in the face to regs who have put effort into table defending and establishing lobby position over the last few months. But, hey, I'm actually somewhat impressed that we got a full 3 days notice.

The full tilt "Add a table" function would clearly have increased the hands overall played for the koth system, many times I settled a 2 table match because it was a hassle getting 3-4 tbls + ppl blocking the tbls.

Your tears taste sweet.

As a hs Hu player I think they should cap entries by person from 4 to 2.

I've never played HU consistently so would a 2/4+ HUNL reg please inform: I'd imagine that far moreso than other forms of poker, HU requires an observation / adaptation to game flow, tendencies, & results from that session. Zoom will essentially destroy that, since you'll be seated with a different opponent each hand...is that enough of a disincentive in your opinion(s) to spell the end of HU cash on Stars as we know it? Or will it continue to run consistently, albeit in this new, altered form?
Cliff's: this seems - to someone who's never played much HU - like a really big deal...is it?

Good idea.

Yes, it's a big deal and your observation is correct. Currently the zoom pools are quite small, so we still get a lot of hands vs the same people, so you can obviously build player specific strategies and reads. For the reasons you stated it is a different game though.

It will continue to run, I can't really say how it will play out though.