They want us to be stuck. Also they probably see common cents thing as a promotion for micros while the only thing it represented was a waY for 0.5 spin n go donkeys to waste their winnings.

Actually wrote a lengthy post but deleted the most.. no point in discussing anything as some people are just too stubborn.

What data is the above based on? There were discussions of this in the Omaha and other games thread that were inconclusive on whether 6-max was the way to go for the Omanias.

I think the fact that PLO is more popular in cash games as a 6-max format doesn't necessarily translate to PLO8 and NLO8 tournaments. The $8.80 Omania and $27 Omania, both which are 9-max are fine the way they are imo. If you were to change the format, the most I'd make them is an 8-max.

A few 2016 wish list items for Non-Holdem games:

1) More NLO8 MTT hypers - lots of room in the schedule for Stars to add to. Need more micros ($2.20-$5.50), a HS ($109-$215) and PKO (only one is the $82 that is extremely popular). See this thread for a detailed schedule.

2) Updating structures of $530 Omahas (been an outstanding issue for a while and players continue to pay the full $30 in rake)

3) Adding a NLO8 high stakes ($320 to $530) weekday tournament.

4) Incorporating something similar to Full Tilt's Game of the Week that highlights a different game every week/month. Lots of potential for Pokerstars as a lot of your competitors do not have the capability to offer some of the Stud and Draw games.

5) Updating turbo night schedule to match current games (i.e. more NLO8 hypers).

6) Being more receptive to changing the status quo. Two specific examples:

a) There's a $5.50 PLO8 rebuy at 13:35 with a $1,500 guarantee that is priced too low, despite hitting it's guarantee daily. If it was changed to $11, most of the players are price insensitive and would still play it and the prize pool would double.
b) There's a $7.50 NLO8 hyper 1R1A at 19:05 with a $1k guarantee that consistently exceeds the guarantee. If it was changed to a regular rebuy, the prizepool would at least double because players are often in positions where they bust both bullets before the addon.

These are just two examples where the members of the tournament team do not choose to incorporate changes (these have been suggested several times) because the status quo appears to be "fine". Don't be afraid to be bold and take a chance. We are the ones playing in these games after all.

Really frustrating that you won't give us the minis. Everybody screaming for them. They will work! Give us the minis!

Obv change all rebuys to this one latest structure is obv

Reducing the Abi of the schedule would require you to cut out high stakes mtts as you obviously won't be adding small buyin majors and def won't be adding small buyin bowls. That seems like a terrible terrible terrible idea and if you do it's a shot in your own leg

Dodging all the important question isn't really the way to go Luke, all of us would be much happier with an honest shtty reply than what you have been doing.

Just woke up so forgot a number of points I wanted to rant about but I ok be back

It should be a nobrainer to add minis if not weekly then at least once a month.

I think it would be nice if you make the last weekend of every month bigger. Add minis and couple 1k-2k HS vanilla MTTs. For example...

11$ Mini Kick-Off, 109$ Kickoff, 1k$ 6-max Highroller Kickoff
22$ Mini Warm-up, 215$ Warm-Up, 700$ Highroller Warm-Up
22$ Minimillion, 215$ Sunday Million and 2k$ Highroller Million

Those don't have to run when you have a COOP in progress. Make good satellite offerings with 4x turbos etc. starting monday that week. Call it Monthly Challenge or something and and watch when guarantees get crushed. Ez game!

Also, move daily NLSD one hour later. I think it would do better if it starts a bit later. Huge +1 to 6-max Omania's.

I'm not sure what exact promotional support did the Mini's have?

As far as I can remember, my friend, genuine recreational player have hit me on the phone that Sunday, literally screaming, "dude, have you seen, have you already jumped in, they introduce lovely mini's etc etc. He did not even realise that these tournaments award tickets. He just saw beautiful red label, deep starting stack, juicy prize pool and hoped in instead of spend another Sunday supporting his beloved reds from Liverpool FC which should lose anyways.

We have not had any annoucement in the lobby before the day of its start, and they literally smashed their guarantees by far. I have not heard even a word about it before the moment I opened the client and saw surpassed guarantee still whilst in Mini Kickoff late reg.

I doubt it was due Christmas fever, which you basically trying to imply. In reality it's not that crazy guys, which open the client everyday on December to get some All-in tickets for winnig a hand with 7-2 off, who fill the mini's up to their brows and more.

It was just everyone who were thirsty for good MTTs during the whole year.

I feel it's a huge misconception to treat recreationals as one-celled amoeba who should navigate its way to any kind of soap bubble type of promo you gonna offer, and in the same time, to make statements like "we cant turn the traffic wherever we wish". It is delusion of the same kind of nature as "we could have done more" type of communication. Sure, you could!

I mean, you may invent and offer another FIVE BILLION SUPER-DUPER AWARD first time in the history of online poker — for those who will win let's say 5 Sunday Millions in a month.
And you might throw us Mini's as an opposite — and it's your call to make.

Be aware, my aforementioned friend, well-established IT-developer, who is willing to play for heaps couple of times a week, has treated the "play 25 zoom hands and win shootou ticket" part of Cristmas Calendar promo as a joke and did not log-in into the client because of that.

This is like Christmas Eve — we are waiting for that moment not because we believe we will meet real Santa and he gets us to Narnia where we will **** Pamela Anderson or whoever, but beacause we need just a tiny opportunity to create a real holiday to ourselves by ourselves.

And Mini's were indeed that holiday. They were perfectly designed for the smart well-educated recreational player who is just willing to play god damn poker and nothing else like hunting for tickets or spinning wheels of fortune or whatever. And obv for regs. They were succeed not because of the fairy-tale type of promos all around, but because it's what the whole MTT community need.

Yup. Amen

the minis would absolutely do very well.

A) BECAUSE THEY WILL BE RED.

B) BECAUSE OF THEIR STRUCTURE MIMICKING THE MAJORS.

C) BECAUSE LOW/MIDSTAKES IS DYING FOR REJUVENATION!

D) BECAUSE I WILL SKIP A ****TY 55$ FO ON OTHER SITES TO PLAY 21.50 WARMUP OR MILLION OR WHATEVER.

agree with all of your points but especially this.

+infinite

Minis/Broken record/Rant
There's prob a lot of things people don't like about the way you run the mtt schedule, but I'm sure for most/all of those you have some good reasoning behind your decisions that perhaps we don't all fully understand.
But when it comes to the minis you are just wrong. We shouldn't have to plead over and over for you to give us back one of the most exciting/successful things you did in 2015.
Youre a business that is blatantly refusing to cater to customers demands for something that was sooooo successful. It's insanity. Tournaments aren't some kind of special edition sneaker that you sell in limited amounts and then refuse to sell to those that missed the one and only shipment.
People don't give a **** if it's on for a promotion or not, we just want to play nice tournaments. Too much to ask?
I remember waking up that day being so excited when I saw those (I like many others had no idea until logging in that day, lol promotion effect) and getting messages from the few Rec friends I have saying "OMGGG MINIS!!!" They were followed by messages a week later: "wtf is wrong with them? Where'd they go?"

I think your just truly out of touch with what today's players want, this is shown when guys like jdpc make huge posts that get left to die time and time again. How many +1's is this going to take until it sinks in? all you focus on is data and sustainability and liquidity and other annoying words that only serve as a way to brush us aside and keep the thread rolling in a way that just builds resentment towards stars from its most loyal customers. Not enough things get done and when they do they're super obvious decisions that take too long. Am I the only one that laughed at how long the "2015 summary" was? do you read that and feel like a solid years work was done?

We're literally at the point where we have asked so many times that people are starting to compromise and beg for them to be "atleast monthly". Again, we should not have to plead like this to be able to give you rake. Think of the sneakers. People want to wear them every weekend. Make some more of them. **** the promotion or the limited edition aspect.

If you think we're all wrong put the minis back weekly without a guarantee. What do you have to lose? Literally. Put them back with a guarentee of zero. Prove us wrong, shut us up and then go ahead with making them yearly or whatever you want do zzz. I feel like such a bloody whinger itt sometimes but you bring it out of me Luke.

Battle Royale Tickets
What do we think about removing the battle Royale tickets for mid-high bounty builders.
I feel like they're a bit pointless. Is there anyone on earth that plays the mid-high builders that is then like "nah I'm only gonna play the Royale if I satty in"..?
The filtering issue and the annoyance of the prize pool display is just not worth it for these tickets. The ticket gimick has nothing to do with their success (atleast not at the higher stakes), it's the good structure, red label and psko aspect that draw people in. Keep the tickets for the smaller stakes builders only imo.
Wouldn't mind getting rid of the tix altogether tbh but I can see them being a good thing at the smaller levels for sure.

etc.
- Daily 215 pacific rim. Do whatever guarentee you want, just put it in there. Asia pacific players need more love instead of their sessions becoming dead the second they bust the nightlies.
- lower turbo rake. I really wish we would all just strike on them until they do it but I worry people don't have the patience. It's the only way it will ever get done though.

Another point about the Bounty Builders awarding $109 tickets that I didn't mention, and I haven't seen mentioned by anyone else, is that it's kind of unfair to the lower-stakes winners to force them to spend a decent % of their winnings on a high-stakes MTT they'd otherwise not play. They've won their money fair and square, so they should be allowed to spend it however they want.

The guy who ships the 55c Bounty Builder will win $980 and a $109 ticket; just give the poor man $1100 ffs. If the tickets were an added bonus then sure, it'd be a nice extra. But you're taking the $109 out of the prize pool.

Strays post nails every single point it mentions.

I disagree with ostrich tho. Those types of mtts are super successful on both big French sites for a reason.

agree with this, think abandoning the ticket system completely is wrong tho. it works very well on .fr with stuff like 500€/1k€ main or whatever and ppl on 2+2 have been asking for this for a while now.

Yeah just wanna post again about the Mini Majors. Little tilting that people are posting saying "lets have them monthly" they were not heavily promoted, before the start of that sunday nobody knew they were coming. Sure lots of people were logging in to see the Christmas calender but thats it.

Reasons why you should add Minis (some of these are repeats);

1# They went hugee, you could leave the same guarantee/buyin (10% of the equivalent) don't have to have satties, dont have to promote them at alll and they will crush that guarantee everytime, every single week.

2# Not all of your recreational player base, want to play spins or deposit $25 to get a chance in an all in shootout with 2 million other players. Quite a few of them I would think, actually like well structured poker tournaments. Bit of a crazy idea I know. I have had many recreational players complain to me about how there is very little to play on a sunday for their bankroll. 99% of recreational players cant afford 215$ for the other majors. Even a few retired regs I know popped up on that sunday because of those tournaments.

3# You just said you want to lower the ABI of the schedule this year, I assume you realise that taking away Mill/kickoff/warm up/rebuy/ST/Thrill is a bad idea for everyone (people need to see that they could get better and one day play these games). I can't think of a better way to lower the ABI of the schedule than to permanently keep the most exciting low/micro MTTs I have ever seen on pokerstars.

4# Small/Micro stakes players have long been neglecting on sundays/series because we either get super tiny buyin MicroMillions (seems like this is also gone) or we get the Storm which is obviously a bit of a crapshot with a bad structure.

5# I currently play 3-4 sites on a sunday, I dont want to do that, I feel like I have to. I used to just play Pokerstars. Adding these extra tournaments brings a huge amount of extra rake/players from other sites to your site (they might even play a spin & go or get an all in shootout ticket).

6# Have you ever added a red tournament that didn't absolutely smash its guarantee? It doesn't happen. The demand is their, especially at these stakes.

7# It doesnt take away from any other games, anyone that can afford to play the million will still play it, because they want to win 200k not 20k. I would argue it would benefit the rest of the schedule/site these tournaments are not short and you will lock recs and regs into longer sessions. I often stop registering around the million because low stakes their is very little to keep me playing, add this and I never unreg early on a sunday again.

Not a very coherant rant and mostly just repeating other ideas, but the more posts the better imo. Good luck lads.

Luke, I want to emphasize that you are wrong about the liquidity being a valid reason to not bring back the minis. If you brought them back, I would still play the other tourneys PLUS the minis. It's not a case of either/or. I've gone from playing ~6 to 12 MTTs a day at Stars to playing ~3 to 6. There are less and less tournaments that interest me.

Bounty builders are great but there are very few in my price range. I won't play the $215 or the $109 unless I satty in but I would play any that were in the $11-$33 range, but there aren't any! I see $215, $44 and then you go full ****** and they are $1.10, $0.55...then there is the $109 which is too expensive. So for a few hours there are no bounty builders that I will play. Don't you want people like me playing MTTs on your site? Even the $7.50 and the $5.50 are a bit too cheap. I would play any bounty builder from $11 to $33 but i don't see any!?

I consider your promotions a personal insult. I will not deposit money to have a chance at winning a $0.50 spin ticket or a seat to a 20,000 player donkament with a pitiful prize pool. I am a rec. player but I am not ******ed. You are treating us like we are ******ed. What the **** are you guys thinking?

I'm scrolling through the tournaments today and I'm trying to decide which ones I want to play. There is very little that interests me. 6 months ago I would scroll through and I would have a hard time choosing which to play because there were so many with good gtd and structure etc. You guys are killing your own games. What the **** are you thinking?!

If your plan was to chase away the regs and to cater to the rec. players, well let me tell you, you are chasing away the recs too. Rec. players want to play poker too ffs.

How do I know how many VPPs I need to earn in order to complete a step? Do I have to estimate it?!

There is a table available somewhere on the PS VIP site. I don't have a link to it atm, but it's been posted in many places throughout 2+2.

https://www.pokerstars.com/assets/pd...coin-table.pdf

Bronzestar - 5
Chromestar - 20
Silverstar - 100
Goldstar - 250
Platinum - 500 till step 20, 1000 after that
SN - 1000

I seriously hope Stars staff is not so naive as to believe the mini success was down to the fact that they awarded a few damn tickets.

People didn't reg the Mini Million cause they wanted a chance to play the big Million (if that were the case they would just play satellites). No, they regged it cause it was an awesome low-mid vanilla red tournament with good structure and big prize pool. That's what everyone wants, regs and recs alike.

It's really mind blowing that Stars staff doesn't understand this.

Ah I see thanks guys

+1 on minis!!

lol nh