Where to play midstakes+???

Hi there, fellow

So we go like this, nowadays, you really have two options-it's either stars...or stars. French stars.

Besides the hours you can play, you have relatively high requirements tbh. But as I play both networks(stars and stars.fr) frequently, I can assure you that traffic/games are getting bad for everybody and I wouldn't imagine going SNE f.e. without mixing games. 60$ 6-max don't run very often, when they do-they are very reg fested. Not to mention 100-300$ stakes. You can imagine. Traffic is really bad for those(except for night time-which still isn't great, but ultra reg fested).

The truth imo is mixing formats. You have to go flexible in order to play + EV games. That would include hypers, KOs, 9-max, 18-man, 6max turbos and reg speed. If you just wanna play 6max turbos, then you are stuck to playing 30-100$ for the most part with 30$ being your most dominant game by far.

Forget about 9-tabling FR 50:30:20 games anywhere except for stars and doesn't apply for any stakes higher than midstakes(60$). SH games ofc offer better traffic and easier table selection, but as I mentioned before-moving up higher than midstakes is a pain! I am not saying you can't do it! You can if you give up on table selection and work at night. But believe me, fighting with 4 other regs, 1 fish tops is not much fun. You need to spend IMO endless hours of studying your reg opponents and try to look for leaks and adjustments. And when you have a reg like bigstealer and one more like him...well... I ain't joining.

Stars is a great place for mixing 15-60$ though. That's the games you are looking for. You can get good variety of both.

As for numbers-stars.com traffic is never an issue.

stars.fr- traffic sucks until 5-6 p.m.(London Time+1 hour), but then you can 6-9table easily mixing hypers and 20-50 euro games. All 6max. Check 888 poker by the way. I think they also have some good games running, but it's weird games...like 6max 50:30:20 pay out structure.

Traffic at stars.fr goes as high as 52-65k people at night.

A lot of your other questions, f.e. about the rooms, I suggest you refer to our support department as they will know better.

Overall, I will go like this-it's a monopole out there. For a SnG player whose ambition goes beyond low stakes, you gotta go stars. Forget about Ongame and Ipoker. Traffic sucks, software is not so good either. If you want good games/good traffic, you need to mix games. Exception would be for 15$-60$ 6-max turbo when you will always find games to run. Another thing to do is mixing up 2-3 rooms.

Cheers!

P.s. try as I said microgaming(maybe) and 888, but I doubt you will get enough traffic.

hey buddy! thanks for such a detailed response! I knew i could count on you

it's a shame that Ipoker isn't an option cause i was actually looking forward to take advantage of their 15k$ combined FDBs

i'll definitelly have a closer look at the stars.fr option, ive actually did already and thats most likely where im gonna end up moving to. Couple more questions if you dont mind and find a spare minute to answer:

- withdrawals only by direct bank transfer for French plrs, do you happen to know whether more common options (Skrill?) are available for others?

- is it even possible to have a $$$ acount there instead of Euro? Not that its a big issue, just wondering

- ive tried to find some info abt the SnG rake there but for some reason i couldn't. Can you pls give me some rough numbers? Unfortunatelly i dont have time at the moment to register there properly to check myself - and i do want to do it 100% properly, meaning ps tracking, since this is absolutely my last option to ever get Black Member Ive seen some example numbers on the VIP calculations page ("€8.80+€1.20; €4.40 buy-in Sit & Go poker tournament with a €0.60 entry fee; €54 buy-in tournament with a €6") just want to confirm that. It does seem pretty expensive (btw is that 48+6 or 54+6?) but i guess its the result of the French government having a share in it. is the rake different depending on 6max/FR and Turbo/nonturbo like they do on .com? Their VIP system doesn't seem as great as the .com's one either. Normally all that would mean that potential profit (ROI+RB) would me much lower but maybe its not as bad as the player are weaker? Are they though?

Thanks a lot and gl at the tables! it looks like there's some chance that we're gonna be meeting there soon on a regular basis

p.s. off-topic - are you coming to the London's diamond event?

edit: do you know whether Tourney tickets bought with FPPs are valid for SnGs as well or only MTTs? Cause that could help boost the RB at least a bit

No worries, glad I could help.

Rake goes like this, it's 8,6-8.7%, you play 10euro games, 20 euro games and 50euro games.

Rake is as follow:

0.87 euro for 10 euro game(both 6-max turbos and 6-max hypers) and 0.95 for 6-max normal speed

1.74 euro for 20 euro SnGs(a bit more for normal speed)

4.3 euro for 50 euro SnGs

Hypers run all the way to 20 euros with that being the higher BI.

Other SnGs run up to 50 euros. As you can see, there is no high stakes, but believe me-I think that's good. It made many regs move out.

Multiply-er is 6.5 x per 1 euro raked instead of 5.5 x per $ raked. It makes reaching SN much easier than stars.com. Yes, reward system is worse, but you have a 500 euro deposit bonus and with all the BoP and other promotions, you can certainly reach rakeb of 37-50%. Rake for hypers is high and unless you want to mix them in, traffic might be a prob for you to be honest. So keep that in mind.

Withdraws are only made to your bank account. No skrill or other option is available. It doesn't matter if the account is in Euro or $. It will change it automatically depending on the currency rate.

As for Ipoker, it might be an option by the way, if you mix say 2 rooms. So check our promotions also. Best is to ask somebody from our support department and check the traffic yourself. It is gonna be lower than french stars for sure though.

All in all, french stars is suitable if you don't mind playing from 6-12 p.m. mixing formats(including hypers) within the 10-50 euro range. Prolly you can still play like 6+ tables 10-50 euro(with 10-20 euro being more dominant for sure) after 6-7 p.m. If you mix in hypers, your average BI can go as high as 22-23euro, which is not that bad.

I like the room as they run nice promotions and currently I am getting a great rakeb deal. But as I said-check 888, microgaming and ask our support for help as they might be able to give you a very good deal considering the volume you can put. Never hurts to consider all your options.

Cheers!