A Proposal for an Improved Stars Sunday Million Structure

[nath]

To all:

One of my, and plenty of other people who play online MTTs, complaints about PokerStars is their tournament structure. It has too many large jumps in the blinds, and the antes are ludicrously small. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Sunday Million.

So I've attempted to come up with a structure befitting the most prestigious weekly event on the 'net. After some work, I think I've come up with something that addresses both the logistics of an event of the Million's size and player concerns about the lack of play and sheer amount of luck involved.

Here are some of the major issues I try to address with this structure:

- The tournament needs to move along quickly enough to finish at a reasonable time. The current structure accomplishes this with relatively large jumps in the blinds in certain spots. It caps out at 500,000/1,000,000/50,000 in level 37. This anticipates a running time of approximately 9 hours. The last Sunday Million ran about 10 hours and 22 minutes, and even factoring in break time, that still means players played over 9 1/2 hours. In other words, they're already hitting the 500k/1M level under the current structure; this adjustment would not delay it significantly at all (and after all, the increased antes really mean that in terms of pot size the 400k/800k/100k level is closer to the current 500k/1M/50k level). While the structure I propose has smaller increases in the blinds, the increase in the antes will help offset that, and in addition will induce more action, both of which compensate to pick up the pace. In other words, I don't anticipate the extra levels slowing down the tournament significantly.

- At the same time, another concern is that the current structure doesn't allow enough play. The jumps in the blinds create a shallower structure, which usually means that most people's tournaments come down to a couple of large all-in confrontations-- and in a field as large as the Million, it often means surviving a large number of "races" and all-ins without losing, a very tough feat, and one out of the players' control, which is very frustrating to players who feel they have a skill advantage over the field and seek to use it. The deeper and slower structure I propose will allow more play, and the higher antes will create pots preflop worth playing. Rather than big all-in moves preflop when two people pick up hands, this favors a more skilled and nuanced form of play, with deeper stacks that allow preflop and postflop moves. It creates a structure which favors playing more and smaller pots, rather than putting the entire tournament on one or two large clashes.

The biggest weekly tournament on the Internet should have a structure that matches that pedigree, and the structure I have created closely mirrors that of many major live events. They have their structures for a reason; their buyins and status, and the amount of prize money involved, means that they must have a structure which allows poker to be played and skill to be exercised. Why, then, does the largest regular online event have a structure which leaves many players bemoaning it as a "crapshoot"? For the amount of money being contested, the event and its players deserve a structure which allows for real poker, instead of turning into a pre-flop all-in competition two hours in. And for the people who aren't regulars, who just see this as a shot at a big score, this is an opportunity for them to play with a "big league" structure-- one that mirrors the one the live tournament pros use.

My proposal is that PokerStars put this new structure on trial for a period of time, either in the Sunday Million or some alternate events, and request feedback from the players. If it meets sufficient approval, it could then be implemented for the Sunday Million, other major events, and perhaps even eventually adapted to be the standard structure for other events (I think it's very usable for the 1500- and 2500-chip events if you add the 10/20 and 15/30 levels back in).

The structure is also flexible. If it turns out to be too slow, levels can easily be knocked out. Taking out the 250/500/50, 2500/5000/500, 25000/50000/5000, and 250000/500000/50000 levels still leaves 37 levels to 500K/1M and a reasonable pace that should satisfy both the desire for mid- and late-stage play and the need to keep the tournament moving. If even that is not enough, removing the 500/1000/125, 5000/10000/1250, and 50000/100000/12500 levels would leave 34 levels to 500K/1M and still would flow relatively smoothly-- and that would technically be quicker than the current Million structure.

Here is the structure as I propose it:

-The starting stacks will be 10,000 chips, the same as now.
-The level lengths will be 15 minutes (and 20 for the $530 and $1050 Millions), the same as now.
-The blind levels are as follows:

25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200

100/200/25
150/300/25
200/400/50
250/500/50

300/600/75
400/800/100
500/1000/125
600/1200/150

800/1600/200
1000/2000/250
1200/2400/300
1500/3000/400

2000/4000/500
2500/5000/500
3000/6000/750
4000/8000/1000

5000/10000/1250
6000/12000/1500
8000/16000/2000
10000/20000/2500

12000/24000/3000
15000/30000/4000
20000/40000/5000
25000/50000/5000

30000/60000/7500
40000/80000/10000
50000/100000/12500
60000/120000/15000

80000/160000/20000
100000/200000/25000
120000/240000/30000
150000/300000/40000

200000/400000/50000
250000/500000/50000
300000/600000/75000
400000/800000/100000

500000/1000000/125000

Here is a link to a side-by-side comparison of my proposed structure and the current one.

I would really appreciate feedback on this, and if you support my proposal, by all means send a link to this thread to Stars support and Lee Jones and tell them you would like to see this implemented, at least on a trial basis. Stars is usually good about responding to player concerns, so I think we can really make a difference here if we make ourselves heard.

-Nath Pizzolatto

[aaronbeen]

Good post Nath. I think your proposal is a good one.

I know they can't follow my advice because there are a lot of nits who would complain but I think the future of online NLHE is 6max. Especially for MTTs. Playing shorthanded solves all of the problems. SH play gives more hands per hour making tournaments shorter. Like antes, (I advocate large antes in 6max tournaments, the FTP tournaments are a perfect example.) SH play drives the action because play is more loose aggressive in co/button/blinds wars. SH play also forces deepstacks because the short/medium stacks get so my opportunities to resteal or open shove. I even think SH play increases a good player's skill edge because weak players don't know how to adjust to aggression and don't understand how to play out of the blinds. And once the fish get used to it they love SH because they get to play lots of hands and the action moves faster. Look at what happens whenever a site opens up new 6max ring games.

[Vraket]

Looks great.

[1p0kerboy]

See if you can get us a better structure for the regular tournaments as well. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[NoahSD]

Great post, nath, and great structure. I really hope stars listens.

[NoahSD]

[ QUOTE ]
Good post Nath. I think your proposal is a good one.

I know they can't follow my advice because there are a lot of nits who would complain but I think the future of online NLHE is 6max. Especially for MTTs. Playing shorthanded solves all of the problems. SH play gives more hands per hour making tournaments shorter. Like antes, (I advocate large antes in 6max tournaments, the FTP tournaments are a perfect example.) SH play drives the action because play is more loose aggressive in co/button/blinds wars. SH play also forces deepstacks because the short/medium stacks get so my opportunities to resteal or open shove. I even think SH play increases a good player's skill edge because weak players don't know how to adjust to aggression and don't understand how to play out of the blinds. And once the fish get used to it they love SH because they get to play lots of hands and the action moves faster. Look at what happens whenever a site opens up new 6max ring games.

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally agree.

Also, I just wanna point out that FT already has a great blind structure and a ton of 6-max tournaments. I think Stars is seriously risking losing business over this.

[nath]

Yeah, I agree with Aaron's assessment of how 6-max affects the game. The last time I final tabled a 6-max event on FTP, the stacks were still quite deep on average for an online tournament.

One other thing I want to note is that during the WCOOP Stars changed the structure of some of the events to one closer to the one I've proposed, particularly in regard to the antes. I think it's telling that they considered it necessary to do this for their prestige event of the year-- don't the regularly scheduled events merit a better structure, as well?

[tendog]

aaroun you are very correct on the 6 max thing.

i never feel like i did not get enough opportunitites when i play the 6 max tournies even with the 1500 starting chips.

i think people just need to learn how much better the 6 max game is. i think alot of casual players would enjoy it more because its more of an action game.

the major obstacle though is that 6 max just is not very popular right now. so i could not see stars changing it this radically.

[NoahSD]

[ QUOTE ]


the major obstacle though is that 6 max just is not very popular right now. so i could not see stars changing it this radically.

[/ QUOTE ]

Open the stars lobby for NL cash for evidence to the contrary.

[tendog]

well the 50 buy in 6 max at 10:15 draws about 190 players a night.
and the 10 buy in 6 max draws 500. every other 10 buy in at this time of night is 1000 plus players.
so evidence is pretty strong right now that 6 max tourneys are less popular.

of course stars could put a 2000 guaranteed on the 50 6 max and probably get it up to 300 players.