Pokerstars review

[fundiver199]

After mostly playing on 888 Poker for a long time, I recently returned to pokerstars, and I would like to share my thoughts on the different games offered on the site, and how these games are here in the spring of 2021. I will focus only on tournaments, since this is, what I now play.

6-18 man SnGs
One of my reasons for coming back to PokerStars was, that I wanted to get more into single table SnGs, since I dont always have time for a long MTT session. Strictly speaking the 18 mans are already MTTs, but they have the same structure and rake as the 9-mans, and they only go on break every two hours, so they are much more similar to a 9-man than a 45+ man in most aspects.

After returning I have mainly played the 3,5$ and 7$, and the 9-mans are by far the most popular and therefore easiest to get into. There are also 9-man KOs for 3, 5 and 10$, and these are sometimes very soft. But they tend to run less frequently, so you kind of need to catch them at the right moment, or else you might end up waiting for a very long time.

Coming from a background of playing mostly MTTs, one of the first things, I noted, was, that its definitely more hard work firing up a session of 4 9-man SnGs than 4 MTTs. Unless you bust in some fairly quickly, you are going to have a lot of work to do, when play gets shorthanded.

On the positive side this also mean, you get a surpricingly large amount of play in these 9-man SnGs on PokerStars, at least if you choose those with regular speed blinds, which I have mainly focused on. Compared to 888 Poker blinds go up more slowly (10 vs. 8 min), and they also go up in smaller increments. On 888 Poker the second blind level is 40/20, on PokerStars is 30/15, and this difference continues for the rest of the tournament.

The rake decline, as the buyin goes up, and below 3,5$ its really to high in my opinion. So for grinding these 6-18 man SnGs I recommend depositing at least 200$ and then begin with the 3,5$ versions. You are still going to pay quite a bit of rake here, but even so I have managed to achieve a 10% ROI over 374 of these, so they are definitely beatable, and sometimes they are even soft.

45-180 man SnGs
These are the games, I mainly played on Stars in the past, when I was building up my first bankroll. After returning I have played some of them again mainly the 3,5$ 45-man and 4,5$ 36-180 man "on demand", which has 45 minutes of late registration. Unfortunately these games seem to be slowly duying out, which has likely been going on for years.

Even just 18 month ago the 4,5$ 36-180 man tended to start every 10-15 minutes during peak hours, but this is now up to 20-30 minutes, and outside the absolute peak hours its more like 45-60 minutes. They also only run for like 8 hours a day, and its pretty much the same with the 3,5$ 45-man.

You can still start out playing these games, since the lower buyins tend to run more frequently, but sooner or later you will need to move into MTTs, which I will cover below. All the 45-180 mans are fairly reg infested for their level, even down to the 25c 45 and 90 man. They are still beatable, but dont expect to see a very high ROI except maybe for the 25c 90 man.

The good news is, they all have a reasonable rake, which is perhaps also why, so many grinders seem to be playing them. I highly recommend sticking to those with regular blind speed, since the turbos are simply to fast in my opinion. The 5$ 90 man PKO turbo is often very soft, but overall you are better off playing the new 3,3$ "on demand" PKO, since this has a more reasonable blind structure.

Tournaments (MTTs)
In the past I largely avoided the regular time scheduled tournaments on PokerStars, partly because the rake is lower in 45-180 man SnGs, and with smaller fields also come less variance. You can play time scheduled tournaments cheaper on other poker sites up to the 16,5$ level. But if you want to play on PokerStars, their tournaments do actually have a lot to offer.

They dont seem to be much tougher than on 888 Poker, if there is even a difference at all, and the game selection is without competition. This is something, I have really come to appreciate, after 888 Poker reduced the number of tournaments running.

The fields are still larger than on 888 Poker, which increase variance and the spacing of time between really significant wins, since the bulk of the money is always in top 3-5. This can be mitigated somewhat though by playing outside peak hours, and some tournaments on Stars are also less popular than others.

PKOs are all the rage on Stars these days, and its to the point, where they almost seem to be killing off tournaments without bounties. Yesterday I played an 11$ "big", which as the name indicate were supposed to be some of the largest daily tournaments at a given buyin. It had a 4k guaranty, but I also played an 11$ "bounty builder", which had a 18k guaranty.

The "bounty builders" are the main PKO events on PokerStars, and they have a rather unique blind structure, where blinds go up every 7 minutes but in very small increments. So its still a fairly slow structure, and late registration run for 130 minutes. There are also several other PKO formats though including "on demand" PKOs for 3,3, 11 and 33$, and in general all the PKOs tend to be softer and more popular than similar tournaments without bounties.

And basically if you are gonna play tournaments on PokerStars, you have to get into the PKOs, since this is now, where the bulk of the action and the recreational player money goes. Not saying you should completely avoid normal tournaments, but if you want to specialize and only play PKOs, that is certainly a reasonable choise

 

[fundiver199]

Just as a quick addition I started (again) a few month ago on Pokerstars with a 200$ deposit and have now run it up to almost 1.200$. So all those games mentioned in my post are definitely still beatable in 2021 using a fairly simple TAG strategy, which people can learn here on CC. I dont own a solver, and I dont subscripe to any expensive training sites, yet I have no problems competing in the games on PokerStars up to at least the 11$ MTTs. I hope, this post can be an inspiration to people, who want to grind up a small bankroll on PokerStars or other sites

 

[Artbart805]

Pokerstars needs 100 Million dollars

https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-ne...its-first-100-million-from-pokerstars-lawsuit

 

[venycyos]

I really liked the topic, congratulations on the beautiful explanation. Thank you very much.

 

[suitedsadness]

For what it is worth, I have found that pokerstars microstakes cash games are tougher than other sites. If you want good bb/100 stats, I would not recommend pokerstars, also the abysmal 'rakeback' is bad. I play on pokerstars, however, because I like to battle against the better players for less money.

 

[fundiver199]

I really liked the topic, congratulations on the beautiful explanation. Thank you very much.

Happy you found it usefull

 

[fundiver199]

Just want to add a few words about another game format on PokerStars, the so called Fifty/50 SnGs. They are a variation of DoN (Dubble or Nothing), where half the price pool is paid out based on chips, when the tournament ends. These are now run in the 8-max format and exclusively as turbos. I have never played them much, but yesterday I decided to give them a shot, and it went pretty well.

Since these tournaments end, when 4 players are left, and run in the turbo format, you are not getting all that much play in them. PokerStars have however compensated for that with a pretty low rake. As with the regular 6-18 man SnGs, the rake drop, as the buyin goes up, but only until the 7$ level. For a 3,5$ Fifty/50 you pay 20c rake, and for a 7$ Fifty/50 its only 32c, which is a pretty substantial drop of 25%. After that it stays pretty much the same, and the highest buyin, you can play, is 60$.

With this rake structure I think, you really want to get to the 7$ level as fast as possible. And since variance in this format is not much more than in cash games, you can be pretty aggressive with your bankroll management. Somewhere around 200$-300$ seems completely reasonable for grinding the 7$ Fifty/50.

From my experience so far they seem to be reasonably soft, and they definitely favour players, who understand ICM and push/fold situations well. So if you purchased ICMizer, why not give these a shot. They are also the closest thing, a tournament player can come to cash game like flexibility, since they rarely last more than around 20 minutes. I am planning to play at least 100 of the 7$ version and then evaluate, how it goes. So far I have cashed in 12 out of 15, but that is almost certainly a sunshine run. Given the low rake, and how fast these events are, even a 5% ROI will actually be a fine result.

 

[DomDoctor01]

Nice review , i ve really enjoyed it .But it doesn't change the fact that on a consistent basis on pokerstars bad hands beat good hands .
Without exception for the last few weeks when im a huge favorite i lose in important spots , especially AK vs Ax(rags) and I have been 2 outed or even 1 outed on a consistent basis.Im not a conspiracy theorist but the variance their software creates , especially to reward bad players is unbelievable.

 

[najisami]

Just as a quick addition I started (again) a few month ago on Pokerstars with a 200$ deposit and have now run it up to almost 1.200$. So all those games mentioned in my post are definitely still beatable in 2021 using a fairly simple TAG strategy, which people can learn here on CC. I dont own a solver, and I dont subscripe to any expensive training sites, yet I have no problems competing in the games on PokerStars up to at least the 11$ MTTs. I hope, this post can be an inspiration to people, who want to grind up a small bankroll on PokerStars or other sites

Great review man . It made me want to know your opinion on a subject some members and myself have talked about here previously.
What do you think about those extended late registration periods as opposed to the old days freezeouts and rebuy tourneys with no more than an hour rebuy/registration period ? And what's their impact on the way people play ?

 

[fundiver199]

Great review man . It made me want to know your opinion on a subject some members and myself have talked about here previously.
What do you think about those extended late registration periods as opposed to the old days freezeouts and rebuy tourneys with no more than an hour rebuy/registration period ? And what's their impact on the way people play ?

I did not begin playing tournaments until a few years ago, so I dont know, what the "good old days" were like. As for late registration, I do find it a little annoying, if it runs to long. If people can still enter with an 8BB stack, it has little to do with an MTT any more, and this should not be allowed. PokerStars however is actually somewhat reasonable, when it comes to this. Their "big" series, which are some of the more featured normal MTTs, only have late registration for 1h45m.

As for how it affect the way, people play, there are for sure some "late registration snipers", who deliberately show up very late to save time and avoid playing with a deeper stack. This is actually not fair to other players, since they gain an ICM advantage, and therefore late registration should not run to long.

As for reentries I think, they should be allowed, as long as late registration is open. To me it makes no sense to allow players to show up 2 hours into a tournament but then not allow people, who were there on time, to reenter. Its not like, people get any advantage what so ever by reentering. We are competing for money not some title or imaginary honour, and if you play a tournament twice, you also pay twice.

For this reason I also dont see any reason, why reentries would change the way, people play. Maybe if reentry is not possible, some people will play a bit more cautious, because they dont want to bust. But that will only be the case, if the tournament is something truly special, that they have been looking forward to play for a long time. For the vast majority of online tournament though, people can just buy into another similar one, when they bust, so it makes no difference.

PokerStars however do actually run a lot of their MTTs as shootouts for whatever reason. Maybe they think, the fields are large enough even without reentries, or they ran some customer surveys or whatever the reason might be. Personally I dont care much either way, because PokerStars have so many tournaments running, that its usually easy to find another one to play, if I bust early.

 

[najisami]

I did not begin playing tournaments until a few years ago, so I dont know, what the "good old days" were like. As for late registration, I do find it a little annoying, if it runs to long. If people can still enter with an 8BB stack, it has little to do with an MTT any more, and this should not be allowed. PokerStars however is actually somewhat reasonable, when it comes to this. Their "big" series, which are some of the more featured normal MTTs, only have late registration for 1h45m.

As for how it affect the way, people play, there are for sure some "late registration snipers", who deliberately show up very late to save time and avoid playing with a deeper stack. This is actually not fair to other players, since they gain an ICM advantage, and therefore late registration should not run to long.

As for reentries I think, they should be allowed, as long as late registration is open. To me it makes no sense to allow players to show up 2 hours into a tournament but then not allow people, who were there on time, to reenter. Its not like, people get any advantage what so ever by reentering. We are competing for money not some title or imaginary honour, and if you play a tournament twice, you also pay twice.

For this reason I also dont see any reason, why reentries would change the way, people play. Maybe if reentry is not possible, some people will play a bit more cautious, because they dont want to bust. But that will only be the case, if the tournament is something truly special, that they have been looking forward to play for a long time. For the vast majority of online tournament though, people can just buy into another similar one, when they bust, so it makes no difference.

PokerStars however do actually run a lot of their MTTs as shootouts for whatever reason. Maybe they think, the fields are large enough even without reentries, or they ran some customer surveys or whatever the reason might be. Personally I dont care much either way, because PokerStars have so many tournaments running, that its usually easy to find another one to play, if I bust early.

In the old days, there were only freezeouts and rebuy tournaments with an hour rebuy period during which late registration was allowed. I'm talking about partypoker, Pacific and Pokerstars days. When some smaller sites showed up (ACR for instance), and in order to be able to stay in the competition, they started offering relatively big guaranteed prize pool tourneys with small buy-ins, but they often lost money due to the insufficient traffic, so they came up with these ridiculous extended LR periods.
What I never understood is the fact that the bigger sites got affected by that despite the huge fields their tourneys already used to generate !

 

[Pawlowski]

Thanks for fruitful discussions.
Really interesting! I will have a look on this 50/50, looks nice.
And I would love to come back to old times, with maximum of an hour late registration. Regards

 

[fundiver199]

Just a quick update on the 50/fifty SnGs. I have now played 149 of these in 2021 with an overall ROI of around 8%. This might sound like a lot, but its only around 6.000 hands, so there is still a lot of variance.

When I first starting playing them, my intuitive thought was, its an extreme ICM format, but after checking it in ICMizer its actually not. If everyone have the same stack size on the bubble of a traditional 9-man, where the payouts are 50/30/20, then the bubble factor is 1,9. Bubble factor is a measure of, how much raw equity a player need to call a jam from another player.

In a DON the bubble factor is 4, which mean, you need 80% equity to call a jam, if everyone have the same stack. This is kind of common sense, because you already had 80% chance of cashing and by knocking someone out this only increase to 100%. However in a 50/fifty the bubble factor with 5 players left and identical stacks is only 1,6, so its actually lower than in a traditional 9-man.

The main difference between a 50/fifty and a traditional 9-man or 6-man however is the fact, there is no short handed play, since the tournament will stop, when 4 players are left. This is an advantage, if you are not very good at or just dont like shorthanded play and especially heads-up. The downside is, you also dont get any practice with it, so if one day you final table a MTT, you will likely be kind of lost, if you make it to the top 3-4 places.

All in all the 50/fifty are probably the most mechanical of any tournament format, which makes it ideal for grinders. When playing 9-mans or 6-mans its also a bit difficult to control your work load, because suddenly you are heads-up or 3-handed on 2-3 tables, and its easy to get a bit overwhelmed by the amount of action. This problem does not exist with 50/fiftys, and since they only last 20-25 minutes, you can play a lot of them. You will probably get tired of this pretty quickly though, precisely because it is so mechanical. So I dought, I will see many of the same grinders, if I play them 6 or even 3 month from now. The vast majority will then most likely have moved on to other game types.

I do think, they are also good for beginners though. As a beginner its good to keep things as simple as possible, and as I already said, poker does not get much more simple than in these 50/fiftys. They only start with 50BB, and blinds go up every 3 minutes, so the amount of tricky postflop situations is fairly limited. Blinds go up in rather small increments though, so they are not hyper turbos, and stacks typically remain at pretty normal levels for a SnG. Probably actually deeper on average than a turbo 9-man or 6-man.

So you really get to practice blind stealing, restealing and all those other spots, which make up the bulk of tournament poker. And you dont have to deal with tough heads-up opponents to finish the job, because their is no heads-up. As I already said, the rake is also a lot lower than for regular 6-mans or 9-mans, which definitely matter.

You also dont need much of a bankroll, since variance is lower than other tournament formats. 50$ is completely reasonable for the 1,5$ 50/fifty and a bit more than 100$ for the 3,5$ 50/fifty. So this is a good alternative to starting with the 25c or 1$ 45-mans, as I have recommended many times before.

 

[Tony0]

Really useful thread thank you very much. I have subbed to future updates.

I am a beginner currently enjoy the 45man 25c sng. May change over to the 90man.

The 50/50 intrigues me I must try them.

I cannot get on with the large field tournaments, (55c, $1.10) the way they play is too strange with the 5 way flops etc. I struggle to pass late reg with an increased stack.