Stars vs. Party, an observation

[PrayingMantis]

Comparing Stars's and Party's NL MTTs, at the -+$109 range, I've noticed recently that on Party you see much more mini-raises PF, and limit betting and raising post-flop. I'm talking about the early-mid stages, not only when stacks are very short and some players choose to play the mini-raise game.

I think this has a lot to do with the different structures and stacks sizes/blinds ratio, and people adapting to it, even without thinking about it conciously. I don't think it is only about the relative fishiness of Party's players.

Any interesting thoughts about this phenomenon? Did anybody notice it? Does this difference in behaviours really exist?

[young nut]

I think the reason is that party's structure almost requires weak/tight play early on. With only 1000 starting chips, its kind of hard to make large PF raises and then miss a board.

Whereas on stars, the chipstacks are deeper and allow more room for higher PF raising and flop bets. Those extra 500 chips make quite a difference.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the reason is that party's structure almost requires weak/tight play early on. With only 1000 starting chips, its kind of hard to make large PF raises and then miss a board.

Whereas on stars, the chipstacks are deeper and allow more room for higher PF raising and flop bets. Those extra 500 chips make quite a difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely you realize that it is not about the number of chips per se, but the ratio chips/blinds (either for an individual player, 2 stacks together [since most of the pots are played HU] and/or for the table [9 player on stars vs. 10 on party]). A simple calculation will show that there's a very small differece between the two sites, and that for leve 3-4, for instance (of you keep the avarage stack the same as at the start) party's structure is actually slightly deeper. 1st level it's the other way around.

I think the explanation is more complex, and maybe has to do with the number of hands played / rate of players busting / psychological impact of having "only" 1000 chips, as opposed to 1500. You see, even you, as a 2+2er, had the wrong idea about the deepness of the stacks, and I assume you're not a fish.