Large changes to buy-in, rake and blind structure to the Sit & Go tournaments on PokerStars last Friday has received a largely negative response from poker posters and bloggers.
A PokerStars representative responded that “PokerStars will take some time to review this feedback in detail”, and that they will “directly address all questions/complaints posted here, including those referencing rake, by the end of Wednesday.”
The changes, that aim to standardize the buy-ins and blind levels across tournament types, have been met with a largely negative reaction. Whilst some praised the move by PokerStars to attempt to simplify the tournament offerings, many criticized the removal of certain buy-ins, an increase in rake at the lower stakes games, and the new blind structure.
In the announcement of the changes on the 2+2 poker forum, PokerStars representative Steve Day states that although “Some rakes have increased and others decreased”, rake as a whole “is very slightly decreased.”
However, some of the most popular tournaments have suffered rake increases. The ’15+1’ full ring tournament – that used to offer the lowest rake percentage of any Sit & Go and was extremely popular amongst players – has been axed in favor of 10+0.85 and 20+1.70, increasing the rake from 6.67% to 8.5%.
As one poster on 2+2 responds:
“[...] the “slight” overall reduction in rake is presumably canceled out by the fact that the high stakes players, who benefit from the changes, receive a higher level of rakeback. If so, the announcements from Stars are extremely disingenuous and not in keeping with the way Stars usually treats its players.
Others criticized the change in tournament structure. “The structure of 180s, [...] for want of a better way to describe them, all I can say is that they’re absolutely bloody awful.”, lambastes one angry poster, a 2+2 moderator. He continues:
There was no clamor for any changes to the structures at all. You have just dumped this unnecessary fiddling on us out of the blue. Having the exact same blind structure for all sizes of tournament is neither desirable nor appropriate.
However the sentiment was not universal. One poster writes, “I think I’m in favor of the changes [to blind structure]. They mean fewer big jumps which should be good for the flow of the game.”
Further criticism was leveled at the new lobby, that now looks “cluttered” and unorganized. However, a new client release slated for later this week aims to tidy up the lobby with new columns for displaying type and buy-in.
