FTP New Software - 'Synchronized Breaks'

This caught me by surprise today during the 3R Donkament but it's actually a pretty useful feature that Full Tilt implemented. I'll highlight the information they put out regarding the new feature.

"Playing in more than one Multi-Table Tournament at the same time can make it difficult to take advantage of individual tournament breaks. With Full Tilt Poker's new Synchronized Breaks, you'll have the chance to "take 5" out of every hour of tournament play without missing a hand.
How Synchronized Breaks Work

Synchronized Breaks will take place at 55 minutes past every hour. For example, if a Tournament starts at 10:15 ET, the tournament clock will stop at 10:55 ET and all hands currently being played will be completed before the break starts. This will ensure that players at tables that finish their hands before all tables have completed their last hand won't miss any of the current blind level. The tournament will then resume exactly five minutes after all tables have completed their hands. This will result in most tournaments resuming at slightly different times. The next Synchronized Break will then take place at 11:55 ET."


Basically this allows MTTers who are playing multiple tables the chance to take a break every hour without worrying about multiple tables.


Here's the link - http://w.fulltiltpoker.com/synchroni...ZQTkU-&brand=1

that actually sounds pretty neat. credit to FT for having a good idea for once.

This is a great idea for multi-MTT players

Snow

Full Tilt is something right thanks for the info

Played there today and was in 2 tourneys at the same time. Excellent for bathroom breaks

Haven't read the details @ the link...any idea if this applies to private games as well? And it says MTTs, so then is that all MTTs including both scheduled and SNG MTTs? I'm assuming single table SNGs are out since they aren't MTTs at all.

But yeah, sounds like it could be an interesting feature overall.

I already created a thread for this.

http://www.cardschat.com/f10/full-ti...breaks-150522/

Does sound like a good idea. Too bad the update basically ruined cash games.

Cool. I locked that thread since there were no replies yet and included a link in there to this one. No sense in having two identical threads running.

What? Do tell.

This is a better link:
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/synchronized-breaks

In the freerolls it's annoying! they start at 40 after then 15 min in a break! Thanks, I was exhausted lol. Well I suppose since the new 1K turbo started at 10 min after we may see a shift in all of them.

Haha I posted the OP about synchronized breaks then I go to the bathroom because the Tourney Info says <1 min til break when thats actually just the Add-On period. So I missed the Add-On and came back to the start of the actual break.

Applause please?

Deep tables separate thus don't run thus have to play with shortstackers .

I completely disagree that this ruined cash games. First, it doesn't change anything significant (that I've noticed) about deep stack cash games. All they did was replace "(deep)" with a deep icon and separate them (but that's not much different than the PS filter for deep tables). That's highly unlikely to change the frequency at which people play at them. Whatever you're noticing is probably just a short term fluxuation probably due to people checking out new features.

But more important is the added ante tables. Sure, they're only optional at the higher limits, but eventually I expect to see them at lower limits if they catch on and I'd love to see how a deep stack & ante table plays. I'm not sure how I feel about the cap tables though. I'm still hoping for an update with new games like draw games or the PS 8-game.

I don't like the 'Synchronized Breaks' because I registered for a tourney, then 10 mins later it was the first break. I found that annoying.

+1

I might become a pokerstars reg if FTP does not fix this. It's pretty unreal that they managed to screw up the one competitive advantage they had over PS.

it did change one significant aspect: deep tables pretty much don't run anymore. 5 deep FR tables running at 200nl vs. 40+ for regular ones. 2 deep FR tables running at 400nl vs. 20+ for regular ones. They pretty much killed the best feature on their site. Totally retarded move by FTP, imo.

Annoying cuz you had to take a break? What about if you're in 5 MTTs at the same time? Can't you see how much better this is? (oh.. maybe it's just an extra post for the freeroll password... my mistake.. sorry.. what was I thinking?).
I always just thought that the 'Gatorade Bottle' (empty of course) was the 'feature' most multi-MTT players used by choice? This is going to put a huge dent into Gatorade sales imo!!

Can you explain what you mean here?.. .I don't get it.

the new lobby is organized in a way that the deep tables for a given stake are grouped together below all the regular tables of the same stake. So recreational players don't see them, and since regs can't just be playing each other, it's more or less impossible to start the deep tables anymore. So 90+% of the tables running now on FTP are regular tables, and it's becoming a shortstack pushbotting ratholers' heaven.

In other words, there is no more fun in playing poker there.

In other words, 50bb min tables on pokerstars are now the best option for people who want to play multistreet poker.

In other words, shortstackers will move towards FTP, deepstacking regs will move to PS, and the enjoyability of FTP game will go down the drain, so the fishes will leave too and cash games at FTP will die.

I don't play FT much but was this really needed? How many people really want/need synchonized breaks? I'll give them credit though for trying something new and different from other sites.

I actually don't like synchronized breaks. I liked how it was before, and I was very used to it. If you get on a roll and all of the sudden you have a break in every tournament, it could possibly hurt you.

I don't really like this and the matrix tournaments they have. I'll give them credit for coming up with new ideas though to make their site different from other sites.

I thought I would post here what FTPDoug has posted on Two Plus Two for those who don't venture off to that Forum.
If your on dialup this is huge. And a few Q and A from FTPDoug
New this update:

A. Blinds + Antes games - No Limit Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha with antes! Limited to higher stakes only for now, but it should work down to the lower limits in the coming weeks.
Not to sure about this, could be good. Interesting atleast. With that being said i'm going to give them a go when they are down a few levels.

B. Ring Game Lobby Icons - No, it's not ring game filters. It is, however, a step closer to that goal (some of the plumbing that is needed for filters is now done because of this feature). For now, you can sort by ring game type better than you could before. For example, Deep tables used to be mixed in with normal tables, and now if you sort by "Type" they are separated.

C. Synchronized Breaks - Basically, every multi table tournament in the game will now start going on break at :55 past every hour. The tournament clock will stop, the current hand will finish, and then the 5 minute break will start. This means that the actual restart of all tournaments will be slightly staggered (since the tournament with more players take longer to finish that final hand before the break than the tournaments with fewer players) but most people will have a good 5 minute break now no matter how many multi-table tournaments they're playing.
The Tournament players have hit GOLD!

D. Improved Network Communication - Even though this isn't a "feature" that you can see when you log in, this is probably the thing that will make the biggest difference in everyone's day to day playing experience. Basically, the way the game client communicates with the server has been completely re-written. It's easiest to notice the difference when you flip back and forth between, say, the Hold'em and Omaha lobbies or when you open a very large tournament like the Double Deuce. What used to take an annoyingly long time is now much faster. The worse your internet connection is, the more of a difference you'll notice.
Big help for me

E. Anti-Ratholing in Limit Games - The same check we've always had for NL games is now being applied to limit games. If you leave a game with more than the minimum buyin, you can't re-join the game with less than that amount within 30 minutes (or 30 hands, whichever comes sooner).
This is good, Congratulations to FT for finally adding this.


Question: In order to promote responsible gambling please allow self banning from stakes of your choice. For example, I want to only be able to play 10nl and lower.
FTPDoug: We'll look into the possibility, but it's not on the radar at the moment and wouldn't be for a good while.

Question: Although you say there are distant plans to add 2-7 triple draw, how distant are they? and do you plan on add all draw games (i.e. 5 card draw, 2-7 triple and single, A-5 triple)?
FTPDoug: When I say "distant plans" that means the end of the year would be the earliest we would see that thing. More likely 2010. Our current pipeline of projects will take us to nearly the end of the year, so if a particular request isn't in that current pipeline, that's when I start saying things like "distant plans."

That being said, when we do add triple draw, we will very likely add other draw games, yes.

Question: "platinum" iron man for 1k points a day, or something equivalent?
FTPDoug: No plans for this. We do have some distant plans (oh no!) for a bigger rewards system for our "bigger" players.

Question: How about private cash tables?
FTPDoug: I've always liked this idea. I've got a few ideas about this, myself. It certainly won't be any time soon, but you know, distant plans...

Dunno about this one. Seems to me that I've had connection problems ever since the latest update and before that I could count on one hand the number of times I d/c from a table. Also, when that huge turbo FR started up it locked my FT, had to end task it. Twice. Third time it did finally work. My connection is a 20meg/20meg FIOS connection so there should never be any connection issues.

As for the deep tables, I don't see where it makes a difference. It's not like the casual player who didn't want to play deep stacks would join the table. If they clicked on it accidentally I'm pretty sure they just left without actually buying in. You're still going to get all the same players at those tables you had before.

I had connection issues last night after this update as well.

As for the deep tables it's made a big difference in the number of deep tables running and in the number of fishes at those tables. Before the casual player just took any open seat, normal / deep didn't matter. Now that the deep tables are separated the casual player generally won't even see the deep tables. At 50nl last night there were enough deep tables running for me to sit at 8 of them but the number running was about 1/3 the norm. At the higher limits the number of available deep tables was considerably less.

this is a pretty cool feature but i think they should come up with one where it lets me win some lol

Right now, at 200nl FR, there are 4 full deep tables running and 3 regs playing each other while trying to open a 5th one, while there are about 30 regular tables running.

Maybe i should learn to become a really good shortstacker. Obviously that's going to be the most profitable way to play at FTP if they keep this running. Oh soooo sad.

Well it would be great if when I was playing multiple tournaments they were all at Full Tilt lol.

But I am usually at Pokerstars as well - so now instead of both of my breaks being on the hour the Full Tilt break will be over when my Pokerstars break begins.

Which means I am not likely to play many Full Tilt tournaments cause I will not be giving up the Pokerstar's tournies.

The synchronized breaks are definately a good thing. To anyone that doesn't like them: You have obviously not played 6+ tournaments at once like some others have. With the old way, playing 6 tables at once and not missing a hand, you basically had to wait 4-6 hours to go to the bathroom or grab some food. Sure you could leave whenever you want, but then you are definately going to miss some hands. Last week I was in 5 tournaments and 2 of them went on break so I ran to the can quick, and when I came back I see that I missed AA on one table, KK on the other, and well...10 2os on the other, lol. That sucks.

As far as the deepstack tables go: I just started playing them last week and have profited considerably. Last night I had to wait about 15 minutes to get into 4 deepstack tables at 50NL and then when I finally got on I realized they were all filled with guys who I already had a couple hundred hands of stats on: AKA the regulars. There were at least 3 at each table. While I play a decent amount, I'm not quite up to par with those guys.....so needless to to say, my profit last night became...well...negative. I couldn't figure out what happened to these tables until I started reading this thread, and now I understand. I just started liking deepstack, but now I'm gonna have to go back to the tables where I try to raise my AQos and get put all-in by some shortstacker. And let me tell you...it is impossible to read these guys as half the time they have junk and the other half they have me dominated. I don't like this "throw money in the pot and let the cards decide the winner" type of stuff. Thats not poker, thats luck (with a little bit of preflop skill).

Well I like the synchronized break idea if for no other reason than you get a break 55 minutes after the last one ends, as opposed to 1 hour.

On the deep stack stuff, I only look at the Omaha HL tables, and there are deep stack tables there. I figured there must be tons more Holdem tables, so I went to check out what everyone was talking about. Lo and behold, I saw no designated 'D' tables at all. What am I missing?

Hey, post # 1234 - 2345 is about a year away. Tomorrow will be my 1 year 'versary here.

I Agree w/ chris,^^ thanks for saving me typing chris,,lol, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,buck

I honestly don't see what the heck you guys are complaining about. Maybe you just play at different times and/or limits than I do, but I see absolutely no difference in the amount of deep tables running than before the update. If anything, it seems to have increased (most noticably at 6-max).

i think you need to renew the prescription for your glasses.

Right now there is a single 100nl 6max table running and two at 200nl 6max. What stakes do you play???

I normally play micro stakes, $5NL full ring. At the time of this post, I see 4 full ring 100NL, 5 6-max 100NL, 5 full ring 200NL, and 8 6-max 200NL deep tables. It's only a modest increase from your post, but I expect as the day goes into night, it'll go up even more. Granted I don't plan to track them (at least not tonight).

Yeah, I do see a greater number of regular tables than deep. And without experience at higher limits I obviously don't know how many of each type is typical. But nothing seems unreasonable about the number of games and different table types running right now.