Party Poker Shortstack Abuse

[GoodTiMes]

A couple of weeks ago I made a post complaining about short stack abuse on Party Poker. I said I would come up with a rough draft letter, and then you guys could help me edit it, then we could send it in large numbers...

My lazy azz never made the letter, but I just did a quick one to start the process.
I did it quickly and I'm not the greatest writer, so I would be very appreciate if you guys could help me finetune my letter.

[GoodTiMes]

Here it is...

Dear Party,
While I am generally impressed with the gaming service you offer there is one thing that annoys me and a lot of other players.
Currently you allow your minimum buy-in to be 1/5 of the max buy in. So when I play 2000 NL, players are allowed to buy in for $400. And if they win or lose a pot they are allowed to leave the table and re-enter the table at the $400 mark even if they had more money on the table just 20 seconds ago.

This is different from many of the other top poker networks and causes a huge problem in the games. These players who buy in for the min (shortstacks) usually have two moves.

1. Go all-in preflop, usually over the top of a pre-flop raise
2. Fold

This is wrong and hurts the game on a number of different levels.

1. By going all in pre-flop they destroy the pace and flow of the game. The other players have to play less hands to adjust b/c they have to be in fear of being raised over the top preflop. This is bad for you b/c it also results in less rake for you guys because the game becomes less loose and aggressive.

2. Whenever I see two of these type of players I immediately leave the table or don’t play there at all b/c for one going all in with out see a flop isn’t real poker and that’s a waste of my time and its not as fun to be forced to player a tighter more conservative style.

3. So when the shortstack goes all in preflop and wins a race to get his stack up to $800, he is then allowed to leave the table and come back with $400. This is absolutely ludicrous, I’ve never heard of taking money off the table in a NL, PL game.

How to Solve the Problem:

1) The most common way this problem has been solved by the other major poker networks is not to allow the shortstack to leave the table and come back with a different stack amount for a designated period of time. So if the abusing player doubles up to $800, he cannot come back to that same table with less money. With a bigger stack it is much less mathetmatically equitable to have a strategy of going all in or folding pre-flop.

This is good because now for atleast one hour, I am spared of this player ruining the pace of this specific tables’ game. I will actually get to see flops and play real poker.

2) Another way to solve the problem would be to increase the minimum buy in. Changing the buy in from 1/5 to 2/5 would go a very very long way in solving the problem.

[fsuplayer]

you rock dude. I am pretty much just copying this and sending it off.

death to cduhong!!

[fsuplayer]

we really need everyone who plays on party to send this letter, this could help our btm line alot, as i have had crazy LAGs sit out, refusing to play bc of these short stacks.

so damn frustrating.

[GoodTiMes]

Cdu is by far the worst abuser. Fancy being the 2nd.

These guys have no talent and are just abusing Party Poker's incompetence.

But I think a much better, more organnized and eloquent letter can be written that will more effectively convey our frustration.

So hopefully one of you smarter guys can help us out.

[fsuplayer]

as my posts demonstrate, i am much more proficient as a poker player than a writer. maybe one of these law school guys can help out.

[The Ocho]

perhaps a mention of the term "rat-holing" and it's unacceptableness in live games would be appropriate in this letter.

[Mr. Curious]

There are two fundamental problems with your letter:

#1 It sounds like you are whining about short stack players

#2 You are not focusing on the one way to ensure that Party makes a change: lost revenue


Your letter should go along the lines of:

Party Poker,

Myself and other high stakes no limit players would like to point out a problem that is costing you revenue and could lead to you losing most of your players.

The problem is that people are not forced to re-enter a game with the same size stack that they just left the same game with. The biggest abusers of this problem are people who buy in for the minimum and once they double up, they immediately leave and then re-enter the game for the minimum again. This causes many other players not to play with them, decreasing the size of the pot and the amount of money that you can rake. Since many other poker websites dissallow this type of behavior, many of the high stakes players are leaving party and going elswhere.

We can think of three solutions to this problem:

#1 Doubling or tripling the minimum buy-in. This would remove the short stack people's ability to do their "all-in over the top" move and ensure that other players would be willing to play with them.

#2 Force people who leave a game to re-enter the game with the same size stack that they left with. You could expand this to include a time out where if the person does not wish to re-enter the game with that many chips, they are forced to wait an hour before they can re-enter.

#3 Make the buy-in a fixed amount.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this problem.

Sincerely,
Non Short Stack Players

[fsuplayer]

i think appealing more to their lost revenue is a great idea.

what does everyone else think?

[whitelime]

The problem is, I don't think short stacks decrease their revenue. Assume for the most part that most short stacks are losing players. They will contribute significantly more in rake with 5x $400 buyins than 1 $2k buyin.