The flagship skin for the Merge Network, Carbon Poker, made changes today to the HUSNG games. All formats, hyper turbo, turbo and regular speed were impacted.
Hyper turbos now run with 2 minute blind levels (from 3 minutes), start at 25bb (from 30bb), but the extent of the blind levels raises less drastically. The rake at hyper turbo buyin levels $11 and above is now under 2%. Rake at the $5 is just over 2%, with the $2 level and $1 level at 2.8% and 3.7% respectively.
Turbo speeds have some major structural changes as well. Stacks now start at 50bb, and blinds increase every 3 minutes. Blind levels do change at a less steep pace, allowing for plenty of play in the mid stack areas.
And finally, regular speed games have extra blind levels added, making 5-6 viable blind levels in play for near full stack matches, and at 10 minute levels, this structure is perfect for the player that wants to really get to know each and every opponent and try to raise their per game edge.
These changes put the Carbon led Merge Network in line with some of the top offerings in the world, and ahead of many European poker rooms.
Below is a free video played by RyPac13, on the Carbon skin of the Merge Network, in the hyper turbo structure, overviewing these changes while talking a little strategy.
Carbon buyin and rake table
new regspeed 10-min
new supers 2-min.
new turbos 3-min
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I love the ST and regular speed changes. The Turbo changes are fine also. My only issue is that rake doesn't really decrease for high stakes and it's a bit rough. 500s used to be raked at 1.5% for STs and are now 1.94%. It's still looking like a great change overall for the structure though.
BTW: What's up with the huge jump from 215 to 530 and no regulars or turbos offered higher than 215? I hope they're just still working out the kinks.
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I disagree with Katipo when it comes to regular speeds. Looks like they got screwed over.
Before:
$20+1 (5%) i prefer to do ( fee / buyin)
$30+1.5 (5%)
$50+2.50 (5%)
10/20, 15/30, 20/40 30/60, 40/80, 50/100; 10 min blinds
New:
$20.50 + $1.50 (7.32%)
$30.90 + $2.10 (6.8%)
$56.40 + $3.60 (6.38%)
structure same as old.
So as you can see your paying more for regulars. Remember merge doesn't have RB. Now compare this to other sites:
BCP
$20 + 1 regular
$30 + 1.5 regular
$50 + 2.5 regular
10/20 15/30 20/40 30/60 50/100 (if i remember correctly) 6 min blinds
Revolution
$25+1.25 regular
$37+1.85 regular
$50+2.4 regular
10/20 15/30 25/50 50/100; 10min blinds
But yes, super turbos improved drastically. Lower fees, better structure.
Regular speed rake did go up. But you have to be realistic when looking at average game length (over 6x more in reg speed) and average edge (over 6x more in reg speed) versus hypers.
From the poker room's perspective, if they are going to offer these slower, higher edge games, they need to at least make 25% of the money they are making from hypers. So I think their changes are at least in line with rake levels, comparable to their hypers.
You're right about other rooms, they don't do it this way, but perhaps they should (and that could also mean lowering hyper rake so the ratio of 5% regular speed to .5-1% hyper is achieved). It doesn't have to be a raise in rake to achieve what I talk about, but for this US facing site (higher costs), it meant a slight reduction in hyper rake and an increase in regular speed.
I was only looking at the 215s and I figured that the extra blind levels may off-set rake increases. The reason is that for higher stakes, the limiting factor for hourly isn't game length but rather actually getting games to begin with. I never have the issue where I can't add a table because I'm playing too many. This isn't always true for lower stakes and there, an increase in game length may off-set any benefit from the increased skill edge (especialyl if rake is higher).
BTW: While the structure is far better, the fees for STs are actually quite worse at higher stakes.
Compare:
120 + 2.3 (1.92% rake)
150 + 2.75 (1.83% rake)
180 + 3.10 (1.72% rake)
250 + 4 (1.6% rake)
500 + 7.5 (1.5% rake)
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I don't know why everyone thinks this hyper structure is so much better
Because you have 8 minutes of viable edge instead of 6 minutes.
There really isn't a difference between 20-30bb areas, lots of edge available in those areas. 10-20bb has some good edge too. But overall, I think you'd much rather keep the game going for longer anywhere in between say 15-25bb, and then 10-15bb, if at all possible, rather than start slightly deeper but get into shove or fold faster.
I think Stars winrates, even vs much tougher fields than Merge or Winning Network, really show that.
It's like the old Stars turbo structure. It was 75bb and 5 minute blinds. The FTP one was 50bb stacks and 3 minute blinds. But the FTP guys still managed to get nearly the same high winrates as the Stars structure, except their matches lasted much shorter. So their hourly rates were quite a bit higher.
It's a little different here, it's more about staying in the higher edge area of the STs for longer. Another big thing is that recreational and pros prefer to play 10-30bb areas much more than 0-10bb areas, so we made the structure quickly go up once it got to an area where you're likely under 10bb almost always, to end the games faster in those areas (and thus the edge per minute you play should increase a bit).