PokerStars again spoils the life of regulars
This time, the management of PokerStars endured quite a long time - almost a year has passed since the limitation of the number of played tables in the cash to 4. And now the moment of truth has come - the new rules severely limit the ability to search for weak players. What is the essence of the innovations:
- When you appear at non-full table, you must play a certain number of hands before you can leave. Otherwise, you will be suspected of intentionally searching for weak opponents. The most controversial part - the exact number of hands that you must play at the table is not indicated. The main idea here is to make impossible situations where the regular player and his aim sit at the table and go to the Sitout at the same time.
- When approaching your turn, sit down at the table, you must do this and play an unknown number of hands. Thus, PokerStars counteracts players who book all waitlist at tables with weak opponents, but leave them if an interesting opponent has already left the table. Regarding this paragraph of the rules, it is known that players have the right 2 times refuse to sit down at the particular table. After 2 refusals by the player, the table becomes inaccessible for him for the next 6 hours.
- Players can be in the Sitout at an incomplete table if there is only 1 opponent against you. However, after at least 1 other player appears at the table, you must start the game.
- You can’t go to Sitout and come back under a weak player. It seems like the very first restriction, the only difference is that you were already at the table when a recreational player showed up there.
The new rules have already sparked outrage among the poker community. Most of the protests and critics were directed by players to the opacity of innovations. PokerStars security is now has in their hands very convenient tool for blocking professional players. To direct questions about the number of hands that need to be played before leaving the table, PS technical support replied that they would consider each case individually.
The procedure of punishment for violations identified is as follows:
- Warning and account freezing.
- Blocking in case of repeated violation.
If you are not afraid of the new PokerStars selection rules and you want to play there with maximum comfort, we recommend the StarsHelper program. It has many useful features, ranging from hot keys to speed up the game and ending with blocking distracting windows. Moving stacks to the big blinds, built-in HUD, profiles with bet sizes - all this is also in StarsHelper. The program has a free trial period of 30 days. You can download it from the official website of the developer. An alternative is to receive the program as a gift from PokerEnergy. We provide StarsHelper for free if you purchase:
- Hand2Note Edge (annual subscription);
- Hand2Note Asia (subscription for a period of 6 months);
- Hand2Note PRO (subscription for a period of 4 months);
- Any version of Holdem Manager 3 starting at $ 100 inclusive.