This will help deepstackers a little but not a ton. Shortstackers will 100% survive this although the SNE ones may have a rougher time given the 1 hr rathole timer to go along with it.

im expecting to be constantly playing against 40bb stacks now, seems like an odd min buy in for the game that will likely run most

yeah but it's def better than FTP's 35bb min. Obv 50 woulda been nice but 40 isn't so bad or odd

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

is this really that big a deal? I followed the debate all the way through in the Internet Poker forum and I was hoping for something a little more dramatic... but I'm not too surprised, guys like 1Bunn and WizardofAhhs are unreal rake machines and if I were Stars i sure wouldn't be doing anything to shut them out.

I can't see this really having a huge impact on player pool/game selection... I'm hopeful though. Mostly just grateful Stars took action, I thought they were going to string us along forever.

soooooooooooooooooooooooo sweet

i'd imagine fish will naturally gravitate towards the 20-50bb buying games.

As someone who plays European times it seems pretty dangerous to split the player pools to this extent but i guess time will tell if it improves the situation or whether there will be a ton of 20-50bb tables and not much else.

a lot of weak regs kept tons of non 50bb tables going to avoid the strong regs who played 50bb tables almost exlusively but with this change they are now forced to play in "our" games(unless they want to play with 50bb ofc).

additionally the shortdonkers wont be able to leech of the normal stacks anymore who oftentimes were forced to play suboptimal against them due to the very different stacksizes

---> 50bb/20bb table ratio will increase a lot which automatically means a lot more fish on the 50bb tables

The player pool was already split between 20-100 and 50-100. Now it is split between 20-50 and 40-100.

Every recreational player that buys in for 50-100 bbs will now only have one choice of game--the 40-100 game.

40-50bb recreational players will now have the option of buying in to the deeper-stacked game.

The 20bb min tables will no longer be viewed as standard because they were previously unlabeled.

I really believe that these changes will have a huge impact on the games in that the number of 40-100 tables will increase significantly and the number of 20bb min tables will show a corresponding decrease. Second, the composition of players (rec to reg ratio) at the 40bb tables will look nothing like the current composition at 50bb min tables. Time will tell, of course, but I'm really optimistic.

imo the games will be well balanced now, just like they have been on full tilt.

the games will have good mix of strong/weak regs and recreational players.

i

i dunno why you think they're gonna die. there are just gonna be lots of short tables running all the time now

I hate that it's 20-50bb. It should be:

20-35bb
40-100bb
100-250bb

I don't like that either and I prefer that shallow table variant that FTP has.
All the fish that like to buyin short will play these tables because they don't have enough in their account to play the regular tables.

did i miss something? Didnt think pokerstars had changed their policy on the HU lobby yet? If so, can someone summarize it for me or link me to it? Ty

You guys realize that PokerStars guaranteed that shortstacking will be even more profitable than ever right?

Fish randomly sit at tables... shortstackers will just be starting a **** ton of tables whenever they double up. The games died today on PokerStars. Unless regs are willing to not sit at the last available seat in a game full of regs, not leave when the fish leaves, and help start tables, shortstacking is the most profitable form of poker on Stars now.

THIS. Today's announcement was a copout and it seems like some have bought it. The games last week will be goldmines compared to the games next week.

this is definitely not true, have you ever played on FTP? Shallow tables don't run that much

they changed the rules 3 or 4 days ago. you can open only 4 tables on every limit (2 50bb and 2 standard).

Let's just play only 40-100bb tables and don't bumhunt 20-50 bb please. Try to be optimistic the fish will play our tables instead of the short tables. The new policy seems to have some advantages as well as disadvantages, we can only imagine right now what will happen exactly. Give it some time, we might become the winners!

i hate you whiny bitches, always complaining unless the change is optimal for YOU

stars needs to change the shallow tables to 20-35bb!

Please explain, using logic, how the games could possibly get worse with any of these changes.

I'm not sure if this was directed to me as well, but I'm certainly not whining. I'm optimistic about the new policy, just like you, and I try to encourage the fullstacked regs who seem to be pessimistic.

this is awesome. i'm very pleased with the changes. sure it's not perfect but its like 100x better than the status quo. we also now have 250bb deep tables, super sweet considering how tough it is to get deep tables on ftp going

The biggest difference between when FTP changed the buyin structures and when Stars implements their changes is that when FTP did it, the shortstackers had the option of moving their play to Stars. Many did exactly that.

Now, without that option, they'll likely play the shallow tables on both sites.