It's irrelevant anyway because if one site removes the lowest stakes players will go elsewhere.

Most of you believe the "fishes" does not care about losing, and they are having so much fun playing online poker and losing money. Let me tell you that's just a dream. Nobody wants to lose money. Even the recreational players think it would be fun to play some poker, and make a couple extra dollar with it. I used to be that "recreational" player in the 2000's, who 1 tabled everything from 5 to 50nl, and lost way more than I could afford, while tilting constantly. And not just me, I know many other guys, my brother, my old housemates, they all lost every time, and they were all very pi$$ed about it. Two of them seriously thought some players have cheating software and they can see their opponents cards. Eventually I became a winning player, but thanks to tilt I lost everything at 600nl and 5/10 limit, then gave up poker.
Even the 2nl players read poker news and strategies these days, and they are not entirely clueless. There are countless of 2nl blogs on my local poker site, all those players actually playing for the money, and trying to improve. And believe or not, as I mentioned in an earlier post, most 2nl players can't afford to deposit $200 and play higher stakes. I know because I live in one of those countries where people earn $5-600 a month, and they are happy if they have $50 left after life expenses.
Forcing a 2nl player to play 25nl... now that would be a real nitty game. Everyone would be scared to play big pots or call a 3bet pre.

Thousands (think this number is inflated some, although i can only see usa sites) play because they're available.

I think a lot currently do move up to 50nl or higher after losing a few buy ins. 50nl+ is certainly not just a bunch of regs. There's plenty of fish. And this was just one example people may use to move up stakes. Hard to prove both our points without seeing data from the sites.

Taking away something cheap certainly does create demand for something more expensive relatively speaking. Just because you take away 2nl - 10nl doesn't mean they just up and quit. Yeah right.

I think you're mistaken about the people who are playing the different stakes. Go all the way up the stakes and there's fish playing with short stacks. Been that way forever.

Also, the argument saying that "oh well if we take away 2nl they'll find other entertainment for the same price" is silly. I too can choose to do something else with my money for entertainment but i dont. Some people just want to play poker. They like the challenge. Go to a casino, there's plenty of cheaper options, right there, and many still choose to play poker and we're talking live which typically starts at 200nl/300nl.

And raising the wager for sports betting is different. I dont bet on sports, but that's just one bet and you're done. Poker you potentially get many rounds of betting for whatever amount you decide to chose to buy in for. And we're talking a very small blind difference that won't matter to a fish.

not going to read the whole thread I do not know if this point has been made yet but people can only afford to lose so much money. If you eliminated the micros then people would not just move up and play as much. few cases maybe but most losing players do not have a compulsive gambling problem. If it is a hobby they probably they know they can afford to lose X amount of money per week. say for example they can afford to deposit $100 a month $2nl tournaments and buyins for cash allows them to get quite a bit of play for that. They could keep coming back. People need to pay for stuff like credit card debt rent/morgtage food to eat etc.

I personally built a four figure bank roll from the micros to move up because I cant deposit several hundred on min wage. If the min buyin was $25 I just would not have started right now It would not affect me much.

also I have worked it out before it is in theory possible for a western person to make min wage playing $3-4 games although not exactly a huge wage.

also in regards to comments about people choosing to do other stuff with there entertainment money etc, it depends how far your money goes. If I am a losing player I can allocate only so much to lose if that buys me 20 hours of entertainment I may be happy if all that money is gone in an hour I may not be.

I have payed £50 about $80 on computer games when I was younger with the mentality this game would give me 100+ hours of entertainment if it would have only given me 2-4 hours I would not have bought.

Eventually something right...
Now lock it..

i think morons should be banned from wanting to ban things

this is what i usually see when i play nl2. yellow tag are 24+ tabling nits. sometimes it can be much worst, up to a full table of 24 tabling nits. i play without hud so i miss a ton of nits. surely there's more than avg 3-4 nits on these pictures



metallist, bruxo dj, Roma_t77t and taakaa play nl2 for years!! few of them play nl5 but its rare i see them at nl10. i think they play without hud and play for living 8h/day or more. most of them come from ****ty countries like Ukraine but some live in UK or Germany.

lol YouFaiil

I would cut the nanos off from western players and limit heavy multitabling to zoom with reduced rake. There really are so many poor eastern players that they can afford only nanos.

I estimate it is approximately as likely as any thread title on any message board ever followed by the word "Thoughts?" being worthy of discussion.

I would still blow 350% of my SNG profits drunk-playing 25PLO had it remained legal.

Ya that's stars for ya dude, was that way pre BF too. Pstars has grinders out the ass and why lots of grinders play elsewhere.

I'm dead against "closing down" all nanostakes, but I'd be really interested to see what would happen if 2NL and 5NL were merged into a new 4NL level. (Likewise with 16NL and 25NL being merged into 20NL).
I think that larger pools might somehow help promote liquidity/shot-taking etc, due to a wider range of skill levels and more variety in winrates. I haven't checked to see how much smaller the 5NL pool is in comparison to 2NL or seen the rake revenues, so it might be totally counter-productive, but Stars will have the numbers of how many people play each limit, or how many try to move up and find it's too difficult. (5NL requires more than twice the bankroll of 2NL, so many 'low winrate' players are effectively trapped on the bottom run of the ladder. I wonder if "encouraging" half-stacking at 4NL would actually be in Stars' interest, or if too many people would just quit and go to a network that still has 2NL.)

so if i live in a western country i shouldn't be allowed to play nano stakes cause you don't want me to?

DO YOU ******ED MONKEYS WANT TO PLAY POKER WITH U.S. PLAYERS? DO YOU WANT POKER LEGALIZED WITH A GLOBAL PLAYER POOL, REASONABLE RAKE AND TAXES?

at the same time you dumb ****s want to ban all sort of things like nano stakes, multiple tables etc. etc., basically you want the whole universe modified so that your income and enjoyment is maximized

do you not see that you are the same as the ******ed politicians and whatever state officials that killed online poker in the US?

and all this just so there would be a few more players at the stakes you play, holy ****

you dumb scumbags YOU DONT HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMOVE A STAKE, if me and another dude want to play 2nl that's none of your ****ing business you don't get to decide if it should be removed or not

edit: FREEDOOOOOOOM

^^lol, you take some mindless posts way too serious. Nobody is going to take 2nl away soon, because its a terrible idea for all the reasons already stated.

i know but still people expect someone to make online poker legal and at the same time they think they are entitled to have whatever they feel like banned

Yes, maybe u should stay at nanos.

I agree they should get rid of everything below NL 25 and PLO 25. The nano games are absurd rake traps.

Do people get upset when they take a beat at 2NL? Or do they just go find change in their couch and are like " Oh well, broke even for the day".

regs can have a 16 buy-in downsing at nl2. all people cant afford a 80$ downswing at nl5.

If online poker sites are that worried about profits,what they should do is raise the lowest stakes to 25nl to 50nl and increase the rake to 4 or 5% with a $7 cap.that would boost profits and still keep the rake below sane casino levels.i mean serious for Christ sake have u heard of any casino or gambling establishment in the world trying to attract the broke penny muthafarkers instead of the high rollers and rich middle class?look at Australia for christsake its now a Chinese colony ex British criminal colony.seriously we don't give a fark about some broke ass penny fish going broke.a Chinese millionaire can donate more than 1000 polish Ukrainian Russian fish.remember trickle down economics,it don't work in USA but it might work on poker.

Like one player said there's tens of thousands first world dwelling micro stakes playing playing the grinding the pennies not because we can't afford it but we don't have the ability to beat higher.we have 5 or 6 figure networths in investments real estate and what not but we are stuck playing pennies because of u broke ass eastern European muthafarkers.

I'm Chinese and the Asian gaming industry here is making record blowing billion dollar profits making money hand over fist.go to the casino u see Chinese gamblers throwing away $25 $50 on a single hand of blackjack bacarrat.while us ******s are niggling it up for pennies online.to a Chinese $2000 is a meaningless sum of money to be dispensed casually and quickly at the nearest casino,gambling hall,horse track or bookmaker.not to entertain some Russian Ukrainian trying to make rent on his moscow government sponsored public assistance **** flat.will u broke ass eastern European mofos keep ur broke ass away and go play some rpuble denominated poker site or casino somewhere.with the amount of Russian grinder ****s online u guys can win ww2 all over again at Stalingrad.

im sure they get more upset about getting outplayed/sucked out on than losing a few bucks. poker is a pretty competitive game and no one likes to lose, especially at the lowest stakes available. i can imagine how bad it feels to lose 5 buy ins at 2nl and then lose all hope in your poker game.

Of course they do. And from my recollection of playing Zynga a few years ago, some people go crazy about losing at playmoney.

They don't need to go, they just need to lower the rake to 2/bb cap up until you pass 1/2 where you stop it at a flat $4max from there on out. That would fix the online poker world.

Except you're forgeting that less profits for the company = less advertising = less fish. Stars also have a responsibility to their shareholders & greatly reducing it's profitability overnight for practically no reason would be the dumbest move they ever could do, that c.e.o would be fired on the spot.

Again i say, if you take away nano stakes i don't see how those recreationals suddendly jump up to 25nl+, some of these fish sit with 40-50bb at 2nl(0.80-$1), what makes u think they magically going to join a 200nl game?.

Casinos don't run small games basically because it's expensive to run poker, even to pay random dealer it takes thousands in a 1st wordl country hence of course small stakes like 25nl wouldn't run. They cater to small $ players in pit games pretty much as it's a stand alone machine without any human labour involved among other factors.

Oh & i'll also so lol@ anybody claiming mass tablers are the biggest problem, you same guys crying about this are the same ones playing 4-12 or so tables and bum hunting to only play the whales, atleast the mass tablers don't table select as hard n play each other alot more hence the bum hunters and scripters are way worse for the poker economy.

Go open up 25-100nl n see loads of bad tables where the break even mass tablers are grinding with pretty much not one fish on it, these people aren't as bad for the games as you think when they are playing pretty much everybody on every kinda table.