As you said u consider every players feedback I just wanted to chime in that the whole experience at EPT Barcelona was v UNenjoyable and probably my least favourite EPT of all times (attended like 15x in the last 4-5years). It might also be my last EPT if u dont reconsider (including "global championships" or w/e its called next yr)

the new payouts are a joke pretty much, even the recs are against it, I could understand if u pay 20% (not 23%!) in main events only w lots of satty qualifiers etc, but make the mincash bigger for sure (getting 1100 for grinding 1.5days in a 1100 is v frustrating). Sideevents (esp "highrollers" of any sort) were always a nice shot to get unstuck, not anymore. Tbh i didnt even bother anymore w these payouts and the turbo-heavyness of the whole sched. It was one of 2x EPTs where I went home earlier coz simply it wasnt fun anymore and there was nothing (reasonable) to play anymore...

Its also funny how you justify the new payouts w reducing the stalling around the bubble, yet when i read pokerstarsblog it reports extensively about stalling which apparently now is even worse as u created 2x bubbles basically (the 2nd payjump after beeing itm beeing pretty big)

10 am starts, plz get rid of them, I know you have limited capacity etc but poker just shouldnt get played at 10am, everyone is grumpy, no one is enjoying it. Worst part is u dont have time to appreciate the city or the nightlife as u need to be in bed by midnight. (I was in Barcelona 7 or 8days, had only time to go out once for drinking and once for sightseeing, I played maybe 6x tournaments and got up 9am like 4x, I felt literaly like a working person which should be the opposite of what you want to create w these tours)

Anyways just my 2cents, skipping Malta for sure and I spoke w many players who think along the same lines, I rly hope the "numbers" prove your recent changes wrong.

Always thought of the EPT as a big family, where I meet all my friends and have a blast ~3 times a year, sad to see that not beeing the case anymore and its getting turned into a greedy AMAYA money making machine, but im just gonna vote w my feet, hope others do the same...

oh yeah and changing the structure of the main w/o notice wasnt nice too! (no 1/200 no ante)

Martin

I've never attended an EPT, but sure as hell hope to in the future regardless of how it's branded. I think the 20% payout for any main with a field of over 1500 is fine if you make tweaks to the percentages. It's possible that the final table percentages may have to be lower than it is to accomplish this.
It's still big payday for those that go that deep.
The min cash for sure needs to be tweaked. I saw that a min cash was €5,630, then it jumped to €8,660.
As for your high rollers, just ask the players what they want. It is their prize pool. My guess is most want to stick with 10%.

Good luck.

I just wanted to echo the sentiments of the post 2 above mine.

I've played about half a dozen EPTs and prior to this one they were all relatively close in quality. I wouldn't have ranked any lower than about an 8 on a scale of 1-10.

I'd give Barcelona about a 2. Before I go any further I'd like to clear up that it's not about winning/losing or my results. I won medium here, won medium in Dublin and completely bricked Prague for heaps. Prague and Dublin were both immensely fun to play. Barcelona was not.

The payout changes are a big deal, but perhaps even a bigger deal is the way they were communicated. ("Could of done more"- yet again) While I don't think anyone is happy with the changes, if you'd at least told us ahead of time instead of waiting until we all found out when the payouts were announced for the first 10k High roller at least we could have factored that in to our decisions. If you'd told me for example, I'd have been unhappy, but I'd still have come and played and as much as I wouldn't have liked the payout changes, I can see how they act in PokerStars interest and there are some benefits to the changes. I don't think they outweigh the drawbacks but fine, at least we get to act with complete information. Instead we show up and all find out we've been duped by this new Amaya run Pokerstars again. First you failed to communicate the SNE changes, now you've forgotten to communicate EPT changes... as a player it makes it hard to trust a company that I need to have faith in. Now I'm wondering what's next? Why bother flying to Malta or Prague just to find out something else has changed. Will the rake increase be announced 30 minutes before the start of the first event? If you'd asked me that 6 months ago I'd have thought it impossible. Now I wouldn't be remotely surprised (after all, re-branding to pokerstars championship is expensive and someone has to pay that cost right?)

There were also other implications due to these payout changes beyond the obvious stuff that was all over twitter (from pros and recs alike). For me personally, I busted the 1k estrellas main fairly early (like around 12 after a 10 am start) and knew that the next tournament that I'd be playing was the 50k super high roller. There wasn't much of a line and I wasn't sure what the line would be like right before it started so I registered that day. Within 30 minutes of registering (I was still at the casino) the payouts for the first 10k were announced. It was also made clear at this time that the same payout structure would be used in the 50k. Given these changes I was unsure whether or not I was still going to play and decided to unregister -after all, it's much easier to not be registered and register again beforehand or late register by 30 minutes than it is to realize last minute you don't want to play and have to sprint to the casino in time to get your 50k back.

The morning of the 50k it's announced on twitter that the payouts for the 25k and 50k have been changed back. I head to the casino and try to register and am informed that I am unable to play the tournament at all, having already registered and unregistered. Only after messaging some friends and discovering this is not normal do I end up protesting to a supervisor. I end up explaining that it's unreasonable to expect us to put up 50k and just roll with the punches as you guys change whatever you want. Eventually he ends up overruling the original decision and allowing me to play. I then arrive at the 50k and am informed by another player who has spoken to the tournament director that the payouts have been changed back to the 20% structure announced a few days prior however they are having us each fill out a survey asking us what % of the field we'd like to have paid. The justification behind this was that they had run a satellite the night before with the payouts set at 20% for the 50k so they would be unable to change it unless there was overwhelming support for alternative structures.

While I appreciate the fact that in the end they decided to listen to the players feedback I'd just like to point out that having people who are registered for a 50k decide on the tournament structure after they've already paid is an absolute joke. If I'm a notorious cash grinder that is less experience with the short stack/ICM nuances of the tournament then I should vote for the flatter 20% structure. If I'm a hyper turbo/satty grinder (or at least used to be, before the SNE changes) then it's in my best interest to vote for the top heavy 10% structure to gain EV. Had you actually made the payout structure changes known well in advance the negative feedback from high rollers could have allowed us to take this poll well in advance of the tournament starting. While everyone would still have reason to vote for the structure that favors them the most at least we'd all know what we were getting ourselves into at the point in time that we signed up. To play a 50k euro buyin tournament where the attitude towards the payout structure is essentially, "Once you've all paid and started playing we can see what people want to do" is an absolute joke.

I also have a problem with the tweets that went out the morning of the 50k informing us the structure had been changed back when in fact, they weren't at that time (they were only changed after the player survey). I suspect these were tweeted with the full knowledge that changes would be impossible due to the completion of the satellite the night before and simply used as a means of ensuring some people chose not to play in light of the recent payout changes. Either that, or they were made hastily without realizing it wasn't feasible. Either way that's unacceptable in a tournament of such magnitude.


In sum, I think even if I tried to spin this in the most positive light I'd have to call it a very poorly run series, bordering on gross negligence, and if I was being completely honest I suspect that you were being purposely deceptive to the players that support your tour on multiple occasions. (The lack of communication of the payout changes and the tweets informing players that the payouts for HRs were changed back, when in fact they hadn't been).

I paid 3400 euro in tournament rake across a span of two weeks. When paying that kind of money I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that things not only run smoothly but that things like payout structures are made ultra clear well in advance.

There is a 0% chance I attend either Prague or Malta and will likely not attend any Pokerstars Championship Events until the payout structures are reversed at least for all non main events.


Chris

+3 to the three above

My 2 cents as a truly recreational player (having qualified twice for pca and Barca this year):

payout structure: Even though I always qualified for less than the buyin, I would prefer to have the old payout structures back, I would at least want to win 7,500 for a 5,000 tournament as a mincash. I think the first bubble is even more advantageous for the pros since they can abuse it more relentlessly, they don't care about winning their buyin back...

10 am starts: I felt that I had a small edge since I am used to go to work but... hey, we are on vacation...

Bjoern

+1

- i was one defending 20% payouts at forums, but once i see how you are doing it it was really really terrible... i dont understand how come in 2200 estrella hi roler min cash was 2200->2270 and 298k for first out of 2,4 mil prize pool... 2150kno min cash ~1100 (50% buy in, i understand that probbaly when we get itm 99% of players has at least 1 kno... but still, such a joke) its just absurd... i can just take the rake 200eur and play black jack and i will have more fun and probably make more $$$/hour...

- also agree that 20% in main events where there are a lot of sats qualifiers is ok but min cash must be min 1,5x buy in and spread payout in the middle dont take much $$$ out of top, just pay more people in the early-miidle ITM phase same amount of $$$

IMO all ept main events (now pokerstars championship) should have same standard payouts for first 80% ITM, and i think with this kind of payout everybody will be happy

smth like this

20% of field get ITM

- first 20% itm get 7500eur
- second 20% itm (20%-40%) get 8295 eur (15% of buy in increasment= 795eur)
- third 20% itm (40%-60%) gets 9090 eur (15% of buy in increasment= 795eur)
- then next 10% ITM (60%-70%) get 9885 eur (same 15% of buy in increasment= 795eur)
- then next 10% ITM (70%-80%) get 10680 eur ( same 15% of buy in increasment= 795eur from previos payout and now you have players that get in top 70%+ ITM get minimum 2x their buy in

from there on depending on prize pool you set up the further payouts(next pay jump should be min 50% of buy in = 2650 eur)

with this payouts 70-80% field ITM get ~25%-30% from whole prize pool, and the rest 70% from prize money gets in top 20% of players ITM with ~30% of whole prize pool gets in top 3 places

for EX. in 1000 runners, 5,000,000 prize money, 20%=200 players ITM

200-160 = 7,500 eur = 300,000
159-120 = 8,295 eur = 331,800
119- 80 = 9,090 eur = 363,600
79- 60 = 9,885 eur = 197,700
59- 40 = 10,680 eur = 213,600
__________________________________

160 players =1,406,700eur ~28% of whole prize pool
~3,6 mil (~72% from whole prize pool) left to spread out in top 20% players that get ITM

Nice post from Mo3rtelmu and North Squad.

The 50k story is insane. Why could you not re-register?

Never experienced such negative vibes at an EPT. Almost no-one liked the new changes and it showed.

Over the last few years, I have more or less based my life around attending these stops and am always looking forward to the next one. Now I do not plan to even attend Malta at all. So many people are angry and are not planning to go either since the changes that have been made.

The only good thing left are the dealers and the floor. Hope Pokerstars doesn't start treating them badly as they do to the players, or they will have to leave also.

Also have payouts/structures/rake etc changed for all pokerstars live events, or only EPT?

i havent been to an EPT in 5 years, went to this one and it solidified my absence and wont be doing another one anytime soon.

i planned on playing way more events than i did, (only the 1k estrellas, main, and high roller) but skipped them mainly cuz i was oi supporting stars recent EPT choices.

the payouts are absolutely horrible, 10 am starts suck (and i was jetlagged waking up at 8am everyday so i didnt even mind it, but its still awful)

overall just wasnt a great poker festival experience

No idea why I couldn't get in. They didn't give me a reason and when I asked they just said I wasn't allowed. I didn't press it because clearly the people operating the machines printing the tickets weren't the ones making the decisions so I just sort of wandered off trying to decide what to do next. As I mentioned, no one I spoke to had ever heard of this rule so no one had any idea why it was the case.

Obviously I ended up getting in eventually but it was certainly a disaster.

Wouldn't the rule be in place to stop someone from buying in, going to their table and seeing how tough it is, unreg, then re-reg to get a new seat?

The first time I registered was ~2 days prior to start of tourney.
The time I unregistered was only 30 mins-1 hour after that.
When I tried to re-register it was a full hour prior to the start of the tournament at the very least.

It seems unlikely that's the reasoning though I can't be sure. Also, the 50ks are seating by TD only, you aren't assigned a seat on the ticket.

Hello, dear poker community and lovers of the game around the world.

After the recent changes in the distribution of the prize pools, tournament structures and whole EPT festival schedule occurred, I have decided that the way the organizers (Amaya/PokerStars) are trying to push the whole game and industry is pretty forbidding, sneaky and dark.
In my opinion the sports and competition sides of the game, its individuality and attractiveness are slowly effaced. The offered variations of poker are much more approaching some kind of casino game or a lottery in which the player has chances close to zero winning in the long run.
Important thing to consider is that these methods and policies might have been borrowed from other companies as well.
That’s why with the help of little common sense, mathematics, psychology and business practices I will try to present my point of view regarding what Amaya is doing to the industry with the new changes and policies. How and why they might affect negative, not only to professional poker players, but to everybody enjoying the game and the industry in general. Hopefully after I expose more facts and examples everybody will have a moment with him/herself and strengthened his/her negative first impression about how abominable and nasty the changes are.
I believe the recent events and announcements have been a breaking point and we as a community have to take care of the game we love and keep its authenticity, originality and beauty!

I will jump straight into the explanations and examples, so I can clear, brighten and explain to more people why these policies are not good in general for the game.
What were the key changes made before the start of the last EPT Season 13?
- The prize pools pay not as usual 15%, but 20 to 23%. The prize for the places between 15% and 20 to 23% is around 1.1 the original buy-in!
- Early levels of the tournament structures were removed and the antes were increased.
- A policy which actually entered season 12 of EPT, but have been boosted for every single new stop is that the ratio of Turbo, Hyper Turbo and Super Hyper Turbo to Normal NL events it’s something like 3 to 1.

Let’s take for example this and last year payouts from Barcelona.

2015 2016
1694p - Total prize pool - 8,215,900 1785p – Total prize pool - 8,657,250

FT – 4,189,080 FT – 4,063,150
1-3. 2,774,500 1-3. 2,576,150
4. 405,000 4. 535,100
7. 194,100 7. 230,000
9. 104,000 9. 123,450
10. 87,750 10. 98,350
15. 70,050 15. 69,170
20. 53,000 20. 49,000
25. 37,000 25. 33,000
35. 27,000 35. 21,300
70. 18,300 70. 15,400
247. 8,800 247. 8,600
247-360. 0 247-360. 5,600

If we make a dissection of the prize pool from this year and compare it to the old one we can see few things.
- Top three prizes have been reduced
- All places after 15th are getting smaller prize with larger field.
- All these places are getting with around a buy-in less.
- Around 7% from the whole prize pool are needed for the additional prizes.

From a psychological and marketing perspective the top three places are still huge and are giving hopes to all the players visiting the festival and give them a reason to play. Everybody wants to become a millionaire. Basically everybody else who makes it into the money will get a prize that is much smaller that it’s supposed to be. For example 35th place in 2015 is paying 27,000 and 2016 – 21,300 and that’s with 100 more players larger field!
This way people will receive a prize which will be not big enough to give them some kind of satisfaction and make them happy, but makes them feel sorry how they went so close to the million, but received just 2-3 times more what they paid to participate. I believe, that this group of people will be much more vulnerable, after they take their payouts and realize they are actually break even for the whole trip or have won just enough to cover their travel, accommodation and food expenses. They might decide to leave the location right away, but if they stay there are tournaments to be played and the money is there.
Almost nobody cares about the prize distribution from 10th place to the last payout place, nobody is watching these prizes, if you finish 25th from 1,800 participants, you are not being interviewed and nobody cares if you took 3, 4, 5, 6 or 10 times the buy-in. So they can manipulate with these prizes as much as they want.
What about the players that just took their money back? Every kind of gambling is giving you at least 1.5x your bet. I mean sports betting, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, all variations of coin flips. One of the main reasons for this is that no matter if you win or lose your levels of dopamine, serotonin, cortisol and all the hormones responsible for your adrenaline and addiction levels will raise and you will want to play more or stop. Well, if you bet and receive your money back after it, you will perceive that nothing happened and simply repeat the bet, but with poker things work a bit differently.
When you go to a festival like EPT you hope to have pleasant time, have fun and then you know you can win some, lose some, maybe win big, maybe lose everything you came with?!

Why the larger field tournaments started at 10a.m.? No, the idea wasn’t because they want you to go bed earlier and not play until midnight. The idea is to simply have more time for more tournaments. That’s why they have a tournament starting anytime of the day 10:00, 12:00, 16:00, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00. They want you to be at the casino all day, go sleep and come back. Whenever you bust into the money of a tournament and received back the buy-in, so you can register something else right away.
But what does the schedule of the festival offers you?

From 64 events in 14 days you have around 30 Turbos and Hyper Turbos, 10 Satellites with normal structure which are pretty turbo anyways, 10 non Holdem events, 4-5 High rollers and Super High rollers, event for women, event for seniors, some PLO events and around 7-8 normal No Limit Holdem events which are actually the most liked and played form of tournament poker by the whole population - recreational/gamblers/pros/fans of the game and so on. So whenever you bust from a tournament in the money the chances to jump into the hyper turbo that stars after dinner are pretty big. Simply not much else to play and you’re there anyways – you came to play. The problem is that all these Turbos, Hyper Turbos, Super Hyper Turbos, Turbo Satellites are having the same rake as a regular tournament.
Well not exactly the same, if the tournament has buy-in higher than 2000, they reduce the rake from 10% to 7.5%. As higher the buy-in is, as lower the rake is. But it’s like that anyways. Regarding 1000 tournaments, it doesn’t matter if they have normal, turbo or hyper turbo structure, they always have 100 fee and 3% for staff. And these are the most played tournaments.

Why the ante was increased from 10% of the BB to 18% of BB and why 100/200 with no ante was removed? Well, reason here is pretty simple – people will bust quicker as the game becomes much more aggressive and short. I have a perfect example for it and here it is:

2015 - Day 2 of the 2015 European Poker Tour €5,300 Main Event is done and dusted. After just about 1,000 players returned for action the field was steadily cut down to 343. Finishing atop the survivors was a familiar face as Nick Petrangelo bagged up 570,000.

2016 - Day 2 of the record-breaking 2016 PokerStars.es EPT Season 13 Barcelona €5,300 Main Event saw more than 900 players return to tables at the Casino Barcelona and another 28 hopefuls opted to buy-in with a fresh stack of 30 big blinds.

Another issue with the 20%+ payouts is actually the bubble play and stalling. What happened on the Estrella High Roller was more than revealing. With 1,100 players starting the event and 240 in the money people started stalling from 350 left. Well, the tournament directors were hearing complaints from the whole room and decided to put the hand-for-hand play with 246 players left. The whole bubble process continued for an hour and 20 minutes and during that time we made no more than 12-14 hands. I told to the main tournament director that this is a joke and when they have such a huge fields and bubbles, they should pause the clock every 2-3 minutes for a hand. He told me that the average hand is 5 minutes. After that sentence, I received a quick flashback about the Hyper Turbo and Turbo tournaments, which gives you the opportunity to play 2 or 3 average hands per level, since they have 10 and 15 minute levels. Anyways we started the bubble with level of 1500/3000 and average stack of 40bbs, when we finished, it was 2500/5000 with average of 24bbs and just 5-6 players were out. Well that’s an issue for me.

A lot of you might say “the money back prize actually should save time on bubble, because nobody is really concern about the small prize”, but I don’t think that this is exactly accurate. Truth is nobody wants to lose. So when it comes to prizes, everybody wants to get in. That’s just another unconsidered side effect of 20%+ payouts.

Well, if you collect all of the upper changes and how they effect to the game, it’s pretty clear to me that the future policies of Amaya regarding poker are:
- To approach the form on No Limit Tournament poker experience as much as possible to a game with a lottery character.
- Raking more the whole money turnover of a single festival by offering us to play push or fold poker.
- Pretending they do a lot for the industry by bringing more players from spin’n’goes, freerolls and so on, but actually not giving bigger prizes to anybody, expect 5-6 spots at the final table.
- Not investing in better overall poker experience, but trying to make profit from side activities: 11 euro hot-dogs, crappy chairs, huge waiting lines for everything, same old small rooms with more and more tables.

Scary thing here is that Pokerstars has always been and still is the most innovating, business analytic, investing in different forms of human know-how, acquiring software companies, spending huge budgets on various forms of marketing company in the industry.
Unfortunately their competitors can easily see which business methods are gathering more profit and apply some of them into their new policies. For example EPT are offering Bounty and Turbo tournaments for at least 4-5 seasons and WSOP put their first Turbo and Bounty event in 2015. I’m not saying WSOP will go the same way, I’m sure they will not, because the game of poker is like a religion in the USA and has a strong community backgrounds. Unfortunately people are greedy and more money is always good - this is how to world works at the moment and anything is possible.

I just realized I almost missed something really important, which supports my point of view a lot
The 50k€ Super High Roller , would have been canceled, because all the high rollers announced via Twitter they will be not participating with 20-23% payout structure. Well , the Super High Rollers are really important from marketing considerations and growing the business. These are the tournaments with highest pressure, most drama, millions and millions of dollars or euros. They need a ton of cash and big balls to play. These are the tournaments where you can see all the best players around the world playing.
Well, Super High Roller players are 150-200 from around the world and most of them know each other, even are good friends. These people ain’t stupid guys. Just the opposite most of them are pretty smart and sharp people and that’s why they can afford to play a SHR.
All of them knew that this structure is not only bad for them, but it’s pretty bad for the industry. That’s why they have spoken their voices out loud. If there is no SHR this means Amaya really messed up everything. So Neil and others decided to put back the old 15% payout structure and the SHR began.
This is a classical example of how corporations and governments doesn’t care about the masses and take more and more from them, because they can. But whenever somebody important and valuable is speaking, they take care of him.

I don’t know about you people, but when and if I go to the next Pokerstars live event stop again, I would feel the same way like: taking a fast loan, buying cheddar cheese which there is no nutrition substances, going the long way with a taxi, being robbed at the main street of a big city, watching ads about losing weight supplements and so on.
I would feel cheated, I would feel robbed.
I believe that we as a community should make something to keep the authenticity, beauty and fun in the game, resist to the business models which are trying to kill the game and turn it into a casino game.
The first thing that comes to my mind is to completely boycott EPT Malta.
I’m pretty sure most of Bulgarian recreational and professional players will not go. The thing is that Bulgaria is a small country and wouldn’t affect as much as the bigger countries. I would be really thankful if somebody can translate these words in Italian and share it with the Italian community. I’m pretty sure if most of Italians have the facts in front of them they will definitely not like it and skip Malta. I said Italy, because usually this is the country with most participants in Malta.
Oh, well that’s pretty much everything from me.
Thank you for your attention and I apologize for my bad English grammar!
P.S. I know Pokerstars has done tremendous things in positive aspect for the industry and have leading role for the game being so popular nowadays. Unfortunately Amaya is not Pokerstars anymore.

+1000 all above
guys plssss lets all skip malta

Agree with most of the above. For EPT Barcino I thought playing 5-6 levels and usually finishing before 10pm was pretty nice, but then again the city starts being alive around midnight. You'd think EPT people are smart people, obv some stops like Barca should have noon starts, other more boring cities I see no problem at all with a 10am start because these cities are dead after midnight anyways.

Adjust.

Everyone hates 20%+ payouts, you guys want to go higher than 15%. Make 20% the ceiling for mains only, keep rest at 15%. Make the mincash something decent, 7k out of a 5k buyin is meh but it is fine, at least it's not a mockery. These all seem like pretty easy adjustments and most people would accept and compromise. Why is there so much confusion?; Amaya sure seems like a mess after losing its true leader a few yrs ago - wake up.

aaaand rake increase

200+30
300+40
500+60
3000+300

way to get people on side with the rebranding

wow every day more ******ed and more ******ed decisions way to ruin money printing machine lol #incompetence

Payouts reasonable for the main is somewhat reasonable but it really blows for the sides especially with multiple bubbles. Also 10handed in some of these tourneys is really just insane and just makes us feel like sheep who are nothing but numbers. Seriously a 2k estrellas HR being 10h sucks so hard, by definition HR is supposed to be a tougher challenge not some nit fest. Yea the numbers of the tourney are large, but that means there is also more rake. The structure isn't even bad, but when it's 10 handed it's awful. In the mid stages tonnes of ppl have a short stack and that's for sure because of 10h. For comparison I played a couple bigger satellite in wsop and first night was 10h, second night was 8h same structure (they listened to player feedback) and was way better structure and ofc more enjoyable (more space).
People very often (recreational and pros) complain how uncomfortable it is to be 10h physically too, with barely enough space. If you ran a poll or survey there's no chance you'll get more than a couple ppl who prefer 10h. Pleaseeeee avoid 10h in general (understand for like 1k estrellas/eureka etc) especially for higher buy ins or events like the 2k HRs..

Also the payout thing only makes sense in events with many satellite qualifiers or perhaps lower buy-ins. In the higher buy-in side events all but perhaps a few gamblers are playing comfortably for the stakes and would much rather pay less places and pay more for those who cash, incl first or min cash. If you ran a survey it would overwhelmingly show favour of the old pay outs. You should at minimum do this for HR events, including 10k, but honestly events like 2k turbo, 5k turbo, 5k hyper, 10k turbo etc should be the same. There is almost no one who prefers the new structure - and unlike some changes its not about being opposed to change. People want to cash for more, people aren't excited at all to min cash for their buy-in back etc. Sooooo many people complain on twoplustwo, Twitter, etc and at the table! I've heard personally multiple recreational players express disgust at wth the new payouts etc are and many others said the same. Please run surveys and show the results! I don't see how you can justify claiming what's good for the players when overwhelming majority are opposed to it in most events..

EPT Malta cashgames and rake info?

thx

Can we please get some info on tournament structures and payout structures for the NJ-festival? I am considering making the trip over from Europe, given it's not going to be another Barcelona experience.

Hello!
This is crazy. How can you change the EPT 12 Malta TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE now, when it so close? Me and my 4 friends already booked the apartment and we bought flight tickets from 21 to 29 Oktober according to previous schedule.
you removed the best two tournaments, which we going to play (Omaha High/Low 1650 and PLO 2k) and change the dates of the rest tournaments. Now we should change our flight tickets and apartment. Who will pay for that?
Please, return the previous schedule!!!

Event#34 Mixed Games 5K
Event#45 10 Game Mix 5K
Event#53 PLO 5K
Event#69 HORSE 5K
Most of this events will cancelled like many times before.
Please change buy-ins to 2K, make re-entries and thats will be a good events!! Why do not you listen to the views of the established players?

I feel they made a huge mistake: the link is to previous ept 12 schedule! But current season is 13. Nothing is changed.
my 2c

Yes, they answer me by mail, that bc of technical issue at the EPT landing page, link re-direct to the last year schedule.
But many player can made there plan of jorney now according to this wrong schedule. They better change it fast

Just a little bit. Someone else does it better

CIPLO
Perla Casino & Hotel, Nova Gorica
27 - 30 October 2016
Thu 27 Oct at 8.00 pm Add to Google Calendar € 10 + 10 Satellite to Main Event
Fri 28 Oct at 5.00 pm Add to Google Calendar € 10 + 10 Satellite to Main Event
Fri 28 - Sat 29 Oct at 8.30 pm Add to Google Calendar € 160 + 40 No Limit Hold'em - Main Event Re-Entry.
Fri 28 Oct at 9.30 pm Add to Google Calendar € 40 + 10 No Limit Hold'em - Rebuy
Sat 29 Oct at 2.00 pm Add to Google Calendar Main Event - Day 1B Re-Entry.
Sat 29 Oct at 6.00 pm Add to Google Calendar € 100 + 30 No Limit Hold'em Re-Entry.
Sat 29 Oct at 9.30 pm Add to Google Calendar € 100 + 30 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Re-Entry.
Sun 30 Oct at 2.00 pm Add to Google Calendar Main Event - Final
Sun 30 Oct at 3.00 pm Add to Google Calendar € 100 + 30 Razz Re-Entry.
Sun 30 Oct at 9.30 pm Add to Google Calendar € 100 + 30 Pot Limit 5 Card Omaha Re-Entry.

Hi all,

Really long post coming on all the changes and all your posts.

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

Man it's unbelievable how (stars, not Neil personally) you always try to make every change sound positivE. Sure a business wants to increase its bottom line but the new "pay more players" and now "we listened to you guys, we will pay the min cash more!" is even MORE flattening payouts and clearly designed to decrease edge of pros. Which is your right to do but at least don't insult us with these announcements.

Also I mentioned this somewhere but can you please consider paying out some of the higher buy-in turbos with the old structure too such as 2k turbo+, virtually none of the 5k turbo players are recreational players taking a shot, almost everyone regularly plays similar buy-ins and would rather pay less %, and more for first etc. I guarantee if you ran a survey for the actual players who play these events you would find overwhelming consensus.

And realise it's difficult but please try make the 8h 2k high roller 8 handed or at least 9, 10 is really uncomfortable experience for everyone and even significantly damages what otherwise would be a reasonable structure. So many short stacks after a few levels. I have heard TONNES of people complain about 10h "so little space" "i have no space" "10h sucks" etc and this is definitely a mix of pros and non-pros. It's a marketed as a high-roller which should be more of a challenge and not some nitty 10h fest.

Finally maybe this has been asked before but can the rake be accurately presented in future? Many people feel it's incredibly misleading to market say a 10300 buy-in with 300 rake and 300 dealer fees as a 10000+300 when it's actually 9700+600, a huge difference.

Thanks, and appreciate the work you do and suggestions which have been listened to!