Recently, a thread in Poker Discussion solicited member questions for representatives of PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site. A bevy of questions were posed and PocketFives.com poster BryanS - PokerStars took time out of his busy day to fill the community in on synchronized breaks in sit and gos, new games, time bank changes, and tournament guarantees. Fresh off announcing the schedule for the 2010 Spring Championship of Online Poker, PokerStars has a flood of changes planned for the coming months. Let’s take a look at what you can expect.

PocketFives.com Member: Are there any plans to add Hold'em games with antes? If so, will they be available at all limits?
PokerStars: Yes, Hold'em cash games with antes are coming and they're being tested now. I'm not sure how widespread they will be yet. We will likely only open a few stakes at first, but we’ll roll out more according to demand.

PocketFives.com Member: Will you ever have an option to change your screen name?

PokerStars: I avoid saying “never,” but the answer to this one is very close to “never.”

PocketFives.com Member: Can we have visual time banks?

PokerStars: This is in development, but I don't have a timetable for deployment.

PocketFives.com Member: Are there any plans to synchronize breaks in sit and gos?

PokerStars No, we do not plan to do this for sit and gos with fewer than 45 players.

PocketFives.com Member: Are there any new games coming?

PokerStars: We have discussed multiple new games that could make their way to PokerStars in the future. We don't have any active development of a new game at this time, but your suggestions are welcome.

PocketFives.com Member: When will we have cash games in GBP or CAD?

PokerStars: It's unlikely that these will be added this year.

PocketFives.com Member: Will there ever be a Step 3 buy-in level for regular MTTs?

PokerStars: Again, I try to avoid saying “never,” but the answer to this question is close to that. The main purpose of the Steps is to progress to Step 6 and into large events both live and online. We offer some other options for leaving the system, but I don't think that we'll offer this on a regular basis for Step 3 in the future. We have offered one-off $82 tournaments that allow Step 3 ticket usage in the past and will undoubtedly do so again.

PocketFives.com Member: Why don't you publish the names of players who have been banned or suspended?

PokerStars: Our primary goal is to protect the integrity of our games, not to satisfy the quest for vengeance. Such players have not committed a crime (usually); they have been deemed by us to no longer be welcome on our site. It would be inappropriate for us to create a public blacklist, possibly violating the right to privacy, in order to satisfy the natural human desire to want to know when someone else has been punished. We understand that you might want to avoid colluders elsewhere, but that’s a major source of problems too, as someone else may be using the same User ID and have done nothing wrong.

PocketFives.com Member: Please change the time banks.

PokerStars: We have considered various changes to the time bank (which PokerStars introduced to online poker), but so far, no alternative offered has been clearly superior to what we have now that we've found ourselves compelled to change it. The most important aspect of the current system is that it becomes the player’s responsibility to manage the time bank; most of the proposals floated actually limit the flexibility of the system. There is ongoing discussion of this issue at PokerStars and people on the team support different ideas, but I can’t promise any changes.

PocketFives.com Member: Please add some good guarantees in the $10 to $30 range from 9:00pm CST to later.

PokerStars: We have the following guaranteed prize pool tournaments in the range requested:

21:00 CST: $11+R NL Hold'em [$50,000 guaranteed]
21:20 CST: $22 NLHE [big antes, 500 cap, $2,000 guaranteed]
22:00 CST: $33 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed]
22:15 CST: $11 NL Hold'em [6-max, $7,000 guaranteed]
22:40 CST: $27.50 NL Hold'em [turbo, $15,000 guaranteed]

The above represents a small selection of the guaranteed prize pool schedule, which is by far the largest in the world in terms of total guarantees and number of tournaments. We have over 1,400 guaranteed cash tournaments per week and more than $16 million in total guaranteed prize pools. On Sunday alone, there are about 220 guaranteed tournaments, guaranteeing over $5.6 million. Having said that, we evaluate the guaranteed schedule often and such a review is likely in the near future. If there's room and demand for guarantees to go up and/or new guarantees to be created, we're happy to make changes.

PocketFives.com Member: Why doesn't PokerStars hire a position like Urgency Support Representatives who can deal with final table chops, scamming situations, cheating, etc.?

PokerStars: Our e-mail system has triggers in it that identify certain urgent e-mails and bands them in yellow so that they can be dealt with first. Also, we have divisions in Support specifically trained to deal with certain situations and e-mails such as the ones you describe are routed to them for special handling as quickly as possible. That said, the flow of urgent e-mails is not consistent. The people who are designated to do chops, for example, can’t simply sit there doing nothing waiting for chop requests. They do other things, but try to grab deal request e-mails as quickly as possible.

One thing we won’t do is treat collusion or scamming allegations as “urgent” requests. An allegation of cheating in poker is very serious and is the worst thing you can accuse a player of doing. We won’t make such an allegation without complete research leading to verifiable proof. No matter how obvious something may seem in the moment, it’s a situation that demands due process. It’s wrong to make snap judgments about something so important, so we consider all collusion accusations carefully and submit them to peer review.

PocketFives.com Member: Can you add satellites to the $55 and $109 Pot Limit Omaha High/Low tournaments?

PokerStars: We certainly can; I’ve added it to my list of things to do.

PocketFives.com Member: Why are there no Second Chance tournaments for the upcoming SCOOP?

PokerStars: SCOOP is unique in that there are an incredible number of tournaments compressed into a small timeframe, each of which is a Championship event. In considering whether or not to have Second Chance tournaments, we balanced what they would add to the series versus what they would take away from other events and decided not to hold them.

PocketFives.com Member: Change the payout structures, please.

PokerStars: In 2009, we made many of the changes that players requested, including increasing the amounts paid at final tables by a significant margin and reducing the size of the tiers in each possible pay table so that it became unlikely that a tournament that intended to pay 15% of the field actually paid 18%, etc.

Regarding the ever-present debate about how much of the field should be paid, that has also changed in the last year, as we now have a significant number of guaranteed tournaments paying out to between 10% and 12% of the field every night, especially at higher stakes. We have thousands of tournaments per week and an enormous variety across the spectrum, ranging from tournaments where only the final table is paid to tournaments where approximately 20% of the field is paid. Overall, the average seems to be about 14%, which I believe to be a good thing. We continue to work on improving everything about our tournaments, including the pay structures, but the general philosophy on the percentage of the field that should be paid is not likely to change.

PocketFives.com Member: Will you be at Monte Carlo?

PokerStars I don't think so. If I will be, I haven't heard about it yet.

Visit the original thread in Poker Discussion to see a full list of questions posed. Also, be sure to check out similar question and answer articles we’ve featured in recent weeks:

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