You shared your feedback and now we’re acting on it.
A few weeks ago Doug Polk donned his visor and went into survey mode, passing around a questionnaire to players at The Lodge Card Club.
The results are in and we’re making a few changes to our $1/$3 and $2/$5 No Limit games based on your answers. All other games are unaffected.
Bomb Pots Changes
1. Bomb Pots Are Back (with a Cap) at $1/$3 No Limit Hold’em
We’re re-adding bomb pots to one of our most popular games: $1/$3 No Limit Hold’em.
These bomb pots will be capped at $500 per player. In other words, each player can put in a maximum of $500 in a bomb pot. Once that cap has been reached, the hand will proceed as if players are all-in.
2. $2/$5 Bomb Pots Now Have a Cap
Bomb pots at $2/$5 No Limit Hold’em will have a 200 big blind ($1,000) cap.
The “Why” Behind Bomb Pot Changes
Bomb pots are a Texas poker staple, and our survey results back up that statement.
65% of players said they like bomb pots. When given the choice between capped bomb pots and uncapped bomb pots, most players said they preferred capped bomb pots.
In addition to being the more popular option, capped bomb pots are a much better choice for protecting the ecosystem at The Lodge. In other words, games will run longer and break less often with a cap in place.
Buy-In Changes
1. The Max Buy-In for $1/$3 Has Been Raised to $1,000
It was previously a $200 to $600 buy-in game, but we’re making it $200 to $1,000 instead (no match the stack).
2. The Max Buy-In for $2/$5 Has Been Raised to $2,000 with No More Match the Stack
This buy-in range was previously set at $200 to $1,000 with an option to match the biggest stack at the table. We’ve removed match the stack and increased the maximum to $1,500.
The “Why” Behind Buy-In Changes
Players were given 4 different buy-in structures on which to share their preferences:
- 150 big blind cap
- 300 big blind cap
- Match the Stack
- Uncapped
For each buy-in structure, the players had 4 options:
- Favorite
- Like
- Dislike
- Least Favorite
Uncapped and 150 big blind cap had a huge chunk of people vote “Least Favorite” and relatively few said “Favorite”, so those two were out of the running immediately.
When it came to Match the Stack vs 300 big blind cap, interpreting the results was a bit trickier.
Slightly more players had a favorable opinion of 300 big blind cap (73%) versus Match the Stack (70%). More players said Match the Stack was their favorite, but there were four times as many players who said it was their least favorite.
These results were too close to call based on just the data, so our team decided to go with the option that is less disliked and better for the longevity of the games: 300 big blind cap.
To quote Doug Polk:
I think match the stack (MTS) is incredibly predatory. At basically every table I’ve been at with MTS, the moment a weaker player doubles every regular pulls out money to cover him.
How are recreational players supposed to feel about that? I dont think its a good look for the game or the room. Now, additionally, that player has to play way bigger in a game that might have multiple straddles and the players to their direct left are deep stacked to try to stack them. This forces that player to either play tight (bad for the game), get stacked and leave (bad for the game), or just leave because they are uncomfortable (bad for the game).
I think MTS is truly a terrible buyin option for the average players at these limits and is one of the reasons why $1/$3 and $2/$5 run so much less often.
Thank You, Lodge Members
Our team put a lot of time and thought into these decisions and we hope this article helped shed light on that decision-making process.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we experimented with different structures, all with the goal of creating the best possible poker ecosystem for every Lodge member.
