Potential Lobby Changes, New Rake Discount Rematch Promotion

Earlier this month, three representatives of the heads up sit and go community were flown in to PokerStars headquarters, located on the Isle of Man, to discuss improvements to the heads up sit and go games. Chadders was previously the leading vote getter in the twoplustwo Internet Poker Forum's player rep meetings. He was involved in a car accident that caused him to be unable to attention the meeting. Due to the overwhelming participation in that vote process from heads up sit and go players, and the popularity of the game, PokerStars invited Chadders for a private meeting at a later date. Coffeeyay was also selected, as he was both publicly and privately suggested by many users. Jossel represented the PokerStrategy German forum's heads up sit and go community.

The representatives came in with two major focuses: Lobby improvement and new promotions.

Lobby Changes

On the first topic, the representatives proposed a built in wait in waitlist for the lobbies, where players could choose to sit one of the two lobbies like they can currently, or sit some or all of the players on the wait list. PokerStars unveiled their big idea for lobby improvements by going over a plan for a random seating style registration, being referred to by PokerStars and the community as "battlenet." PokerStars feels very strongly that this system will be the best system for heads up sngs moving forward.

In the coming weeks, PokerStars will survey non-professional (recreational) players, to get their take on the matter. The looming question will be: Is having a choice in playing a specific opponent as important to the casual player as it is to the professional? If recreational players support this model, expect PokerStars to continue to develop and eventually roll this idea out in late 2013 or 2014. Chadders is the representative most supportive of this style lobby. While details from PokerStars are thin at the moment, Chadders has proposed an idea (originally credited to Ibavly) that would allow two players to not be seated against each other if both "opted out." Details on that proposal also vary, with potential limitations to how many players you can opt out against, either by buyin level or overall. PokerStars has not yet commented on their willingness to incorporate that type of change into the battlenet idea or many details about the system at all.

PokerStars rep Baard had initially floated the idea earlier this year on twoplustwo, but it was met with much hostility from forum users, and Baard ended up indicating that perhaps the idea would be more for lower buyin games. That thought process has evidently changed, and indications are that growing complaints of the lobby situation and popular 3rd party registration tool Sharkystrator, are potential reasons for this. PokerStars rep Steve specifically mentions that the implementation of a battlenet style lobby system would be expected to make 3rd party seating scripts obsolete.

Rematch Promotion

On the promotional front, the reps went into the meeting armed with a simple idea for a promotion that could be great for PokerStars bottom line, the ecology of the games and rewards for top players. The idea was to give a discount on rake for players that face each other a certain amount of times. Armed with extensive data provided by the Coffeeyay led HUSNG.com Staking Program, data that analyzed PokerStars mid to high stakes regulars and how often they faced each other in the last few months, enthusiasm for this idea from both sides was high from the start. The end result was that PokerStars decided to offer 1.5 FPPs extra for every VPP earned if the same opponents face each other at least 250 times during the month at specific buyin brackets. This results in roughly 12.4% additional rakeback equivalent if using a $1500 bonus FPP value, or 13.2% additional rakeback equivalent if using the $4000 bonus FPP value (both examples using 5.5 VPPs per $1 rake as a base). The promotion is taking place for July. There are no indications either way of a renewal or adjustment of this promotion for the future, but one would imagine if the promotion were financially positive for PokerStars, that considerations would be given for a similar promotion in the future.

Other Issues Discussed

PokerStars Steve mentions in his report that the three HUSNG reps spent 10 minutes with the tournament team to discuss heads up tournament options. Some specific suggestions are likely to be implemented when the new schedule is deployed.

A while back, PokerStars rolled out a feature that unregisters players from heads up sngs after the player is disconnected after about ten seconds. PokerStars is taking a closer look at this feature, to make sure it is functioning properly, as reports indicate that there may be issues with the feature.

Many software features were discussed as having room for improvement. Among these features:

- Rematches popping up for two players, even if one player does not have enough funds to rematch.

- Some players may not want to view their balance in the rematch window.

- Players can't currently take notes while the rematch window is open.

- The countdown timer on the rematch window could use visual improvement.

- When at least one player times out on the rematch button, the window could use an automated closing feature.

- There is a five second delay between rematch window timeout and the other player being able to manually exit the rematch box.

- The rematch window prevents other tables from being in focus while it is your turn to act.

These software changes were stressed as not being too likely to go into effect until after PokerStars 7 software rolls out.