[Tom Bayes]

A couple of comments:

1. As of the last time I looked, the 20% payouts were only for the NL Holdem tournaments $10 and under. The small buy-in events in all other games (limit holdem, omaha, stud) were still paying 10%. I played a $1 stud H/L last night and it was paying 10%.

2. I have played a few hundred tournaments at Stars (mostly micro buy-in stuff) over the last few years. I admit I used to be a weak-tight chump who either just missed or barely made the money a lot and that I've had a small number of FTs and no wins at Stars (I have won at other sites). If I have time tonight, I might take my database and see how my ITM% and ROI would have changed if 20% payouts had been used on all of these events. I can't do this right now.

3. Here's a rant that I originally posted elsewhere:

Traditionally Stars has always paid ~10% of the field in MTTs. Some sites pay more. For example 24h and other B2B Network skins usually pay ~16% (about 1 of every 6) in their tourneys. Stars is now paying ~20% of the field in NL Holdem tournaments with a $10 or less buy-in; non-NLHE events have not been changed yet. I am against this change. In order to give twice as many people trivial payouts (what I call "Taco Bell" money), a lot of money has been taken from the final 3 tables. If you are lucky enough to final table, you'll make less than before. The second (10-18th) and third (19th-27th) tables in the 1000+ events have really gotten hosed. The payout used to almost double from third to second table, not anymore. Similarly, the pay used to virtually double from 10th to 9th place; not now.

For example, I finished 13th place in a $3 NLHE event with over 2100 players a few days ago (soon after 20% was introduced) and was paid $19.14. 19th place got about $16 and 9th place got about $28.

I also believe Stars' spread between 9th place and 1st place is too extreme. Final tables are usually all-in festivals forced by the fact that several players will be "short-stacked" (i.e. under 10 BB) and luck is a big element. In the big tourneys like the $200 it is pretty typical for a deal to be made. You can make deals in the small tourneys as well, although I've rarely seen it. You do have to email and get the attention of support, since Lee Jones doesn't rail the $3 events.

In the event I played last night, 9th place made $28.76 (0.45% of prize pool) and 1st place made $1116.16 (17.5% of prize pool). 352nd-450th made $5.10 (0.08% of prize pool). Ridiculous! I don't like the fact that 1st place is making 39 times as much as 9th place, but I'm certainly not advocating take more away from the top 3. For some context, in the WSOP main event, Hachem made $7.5M for first and Matusow made $1M for ninth. I think the spread between 1st and 9th (last player on FT) should be about 10-15 times as much money; I admit that 9th place was inflated at the WSOP so the final table could all be advertised as million dollar winners. It's a absolute travesty that 9th place (a person on the FT) is only making a little over 5 times as much as the schmuck who stalled and finished 450th.

I think that about 8-12% of the field should be paid (so about 1 out of every 8 to 12 players) and that the winner should make about 10-15 times the amount the first player eliminated from the final table does.

4. If you want to cash 30+% of the time, play single-table SNGs.