HUSNG game selection: Tilt vs Stars

[passthesuga]

Hi there,
I am currently playing the HUSNG's on Full Tilt. I generally play 30's-100's.

I am considering opening an account on Stars. Obviously, there is no rakeback at Stars, which is a disadvantage.

I have three questions:
1) Which site has the better game selection (i.e. worse opponents) for HUSNG's between 30's-100's, for those who have played both sites.......
2) For those who play both sites, or who only play Stars, why do you play Stars rather than playing at Full Tilt?
3) (Wrong forum I know) Where can one get a better sign-up bonus than the $50 offered on the Stars site.

Thanks alot,
PTS

[dboy23]

if you have a bonus going on ftp + rb you are probably better off there.

Without a bonus it is close, and the higher your VIP level on stars the more it tips towards stars. Now that is just considering rb.

ftp's structure is faster for turbos, so your hourly will likely be higher on ftp.

If you play exclusively HUSNGs I think ftp is the better choice. But it is close either way really, you will still make plenty on stars, and if you like to play their mtts or other games you might want to play on stars.

[xSCWx]

You can get 1.5x as many games per hour on FTP at least. I think my true winrate is higher on Stars but the lack of games and the annoying way it disappears off the list for a few seconds are preventing me from sticking there.

[daveT]

If you are playing regular speeds, the games dry up to about 5 tables at the 30s, and essentially nothing at the 50s. I haven't played on Tilt, but it seems like there are tons more regular games over there, plus, when you click on a table, a screen name shows up. You have no idea who you are playing against on Stars if you are playing at a level with fast turn-over.

I play exclusively on Stars (not by choice), and I think that there software could be faster, and it is irritating to play while tourney-notification screens pop up on you.

[cwar]

Yeah why does Stars make you wait a full minute before starting? Makes no sense, FT has "Im Ready" buttons which are great.

[ChicagoRy]

Dave, there are clearly more players at all levels on Stars.

That being said, I think the others summed up the differences well.

[TNixon]

In addition to all the other things people are pointing out, I'm completely convinced the playerbase at FT is far more donkish, on average, at least at the levels I've played at. (up to $220s)

I haven't actually played at stars, so I don't have any personal experience here, though. It's pure presumption, based on how different people respond to posts here. The Full Tilt HUSNG crowd seems to consistently have very different answers to a lot of questions than the stars crowd, and the differences seem to be pretty consistent across the two groups.

[TNixon]

A quick note on the structure differences:

Full Tilt turbos are definitely faster than PS turbos, but for the first 15 minutes or so, Full Tilt regulars are actually pretty close to Pokerstars turbos. The PS turbo blinds don't overtake FT regulars until after that.

I've been playing regulars on FT, having given up turbos a while back, and I'm still thinking about putting money on stars just for that reason. My average game length is less than 15 minutes, so the structure is only going to have a big impact in the longer games, and there's definitely a bigger playerbase in the turbos on both sites, which can be a pretty big factor past the $50 mark. I haven't had a *ton* of trouble getting opponents at $50s as long as I'm willing to sit first, but depending on the time of day, there can sometimes be a wait for $50s (or even the $30s), and higher than that it really slows down, especially if you're trying to table select at all.

Oh yeah, and if your account does have rakeback, that's a pretty big consideration as well. I don't get RB at FT, but if I did, there's no way I'd consider moving any money over to stars. I'm too lazy to figure out the exact math, but your winrate without rakeback (assuming you're getting the standard 27%) would have to be *at least* 1% higher than your winrate with rakeback just to break even. That just doesn't seem very likely at all if you play PS turbos, because your winrate is likely to actually drop some as compared to FT regulars due to the faster structure after the 15 minute mark. And if you play PS regulars, your winrate could increase because of the slower structure, but your hourly rate could very easily drop more than enough to leave you worse off, and you'll probably have the same sorts of trouble finding opponents at the higher levels.

[ChicagoRy]

My PS turbos take about 11 min. on average.

I've heard stuff like 6-7 min for FT turbos.

Basically 5-6 an hour PS turbos, 8-10 an hour in FT turbos.

[TNixon]

My FT turbo average is somewhere around 9-10 mins, and my FT regular average is around 12-13 mins. (I don't have exact numbers, I'm approximating from average hand counts, which I do have)

6-7 minutes sounds pretty low.