hi - can anybody fill me in on what the games are like on merge and carbon in particular. been recommended them by someone and want to get some unbiased opinions on how fishy the games are! looking at regular speed and turbo hu sngs.thanks
hi - can anybody fill me in on what the games are like on merge and carbon in particular. been recommended them by someone and want to get some unbiased opinions on how fishy the games are! looking at regular speed and turbo hu sngs.thanks
Games have been fairly soft in my experience, but I haven't played too many since black friday.I don't think they are soft enough (especially when talking about wait times being longer) to justify playing over Stars currently.^ That's advice for non US players, and it's only my opinion. There's probably some additional risk exposure given they are US facing and Stars and others are not, but not as much as many probably think given that you're not a US player, US players even on FTP after BF have been able to cashout more or less and of course Stars has been business as usual since BF, cashing out US players and remaining strong for non US.I wouldn't go as far to say that it's stupid to play on Merge for non US, I don't believe it is stupid, I just think it's likely that Stars is a better place for non US husng players currently. Many people will look at the superior rakeback, deposit bonus and possibly softer games on Merge and call me crazy, but I've always believed that there is a lot more to a decision than those variables, especially in this climate.All of what I said above may not be the case for non HUSNGs though, and it's just my opinion and observation. We've had plenty of non US players jump onto Merge in the last month, so they can chime in and correct me if they feel I'm off here, I could very well be (I'm not able to play on Stars so I only have an idea of how it is from other players opinions, so you have an opinion based on other opinions for Stars versus personal experience on Merge).
Great post actually Rypac13, but what I've been thinking since when I started playing only HUSNG is, for us, is better to put in a ton volume on a site that bring us back 27%(FT) or 35%(Carbon) of rakeback or just play to reach new status and respectively the bonus option on Pokerstars? My question actually is so simple and I want an opnion of an experience guy in this area to tell me if the PS VIP program is better than any other rakeback site promotion?(I'm a non US player, obv)
only when u make at least supernova, and if u can make supernova elite then stars is the best imo
Do u know the exactly percentage of it Jack? Supernova and supernova elite status?
im not 100% sure so dont quote me on it but iirc SN is about 41% rb and SNE is close to 61% i thought i must say, i rake about 15K/month which is probably enough for SNE on stars, but since stars dont have hypers and thats my main game (hu sts) i play ftp atm, moving to stars tho as soon as they have higher stake hypers, because SNE is just so sick value :Pand i get near 41% rb on full tilt poker and i know bronze and silverstar are like 12 and 17 and gold 22 or so and plat also not much more, like basically unless u have SN, ftp will be the better option for sure
Stars VIP is not quite up to FTP rakeback until you hit at least platinum I believe.However, Stars did recently decrease rake, so for big volume players, especially higher stakes, the rake is already lower on Stars pre VIP than on FTP. It's another variable to consider and probably takes it a bit closer to FTP for the gold level guys.Population of the games is also important (speed of opponent, quality of opponent). We'll see how Stars hyper turbos play when they launch, I wouldn't be surprised if they were spread wider in the next few weeks.
thanksok, so if we forget rakeback for a second and talk simply in terms of softness of games, am i right in saying there is little difference between carbon, merge, ipoker and stars, both in reg speeds and turbos?logic tells me that if stars are getting 200k+ players, then the number of fish should be higher too. or is that flawed?
I play on Carbon, Full Tilt and Stars, and played there even before Black Friday. I can just talk for games up to 22$.Stars and Full Tilt def. got softer (not saying they were though before, but I played around 1000 games after Black Friday and they are really softer than before).Carbon was really soft before Black Friday, and there are plenty of bad players there, but also good good 2+2 and husng members from the U.S. that switched to Carbon and because traffic is slow and you can't wait forever you have to sit good regulars sometimes in order to get volume in. Other downside that even on the lower stakes you sometimes have to wait a few minutes for a SNG to start. And I imagine no american recreational player switched to Carbon, just the good ones, or at least the players taking poker seriously.The only reason for me to play on Carbon is to rake in my HUSNG membership. If it weren't for that I would stick with Full Tilt for the low and midstakes, and starting from higher midstakes to High Stakes I would play on Stars
Ok thanks, much appreciated. Out of interest, does that mean you reckon the lower stakes gams on FTP are much easier that stars?
No, they are the same, but 27% rakeback is better for low stakes then the stars vip system
I would say that it would be better for you to give it a try. Once you have experienced it, you will understand all the questions you have in mind.
Love it