PokerStars Changes Sit & Go Blind Structure, Rake and More

The Sit & Go's at PokerStars have undergone some changes recently. Some such changes include two additional filters in the lobby, standardized buy-ins, smoother blind increase structure, rake changes and more.

Just a few days ago, PokerStars announced that they made some changes to their Sit & Go offers. We already copied the announcement by PokerStars into our forum.

The announcement by PokerStars

Two new columns in the Sit & Go lobby: "Speed" and "Type"

The "Speed" column tells you if the tournament has a faster blind structure, either Turbo or Hyper-Turbo. The "Type" column identifies Fifty50, Knockout, Heads-up, Satellite and other special tournament types.

New: Hyper-Turbo Sit & Go's

PokerStars is introducing $5 Hyper-Turbo Sit & Go Tournaments for a trial period. The new Hyper-Turbos feature 500 chip starting stacks and 2-minute levels. For now, these tournaments are available in 6-handed, 9-handed, and heads-up formats for both No Limit Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha.

Standardized buy-ins

All non-satellite Sit & Go's now have standardized buy-ins. Players can choose from $1, $3, $5, $10, $20, $30, $50, $100, $200, $300, $500, $1,000, $2,000, and $5,000 buy-in tournaments. Not every Sit & Go type is available at every buy-in, but the buy-ins offered match player demand for each tournament type.

A wider variety of buy-ins

A wider variety of buy-ins is now available for many popular tournament types. A few new combinations of tournament type and game speed are also available. Tournaments that were rarely or never played in the past have been removed from the lobby to help players find opponents more easily.

Rake consistency

Rake for Sit & Go tournaments has been re-evaluated and set to be more consistent. Variations between the rake charged at various tournament/game types have been eliminated. Check out the picture below for more details:

Click to enlarge

Blind structure standardized

Blind structures for No Limit Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha have been improved and standardized. A few NLHE and PLO tournaments that were deployed with unique blind structures in the past have now been brought into line.

All NLHE and PLO SnG structures now have shorter blind levels and smaller blind increases per level. All Turbo speed single-table tournaments have 3-minute levels while all regular speed tournaments now have 6-minute levels. The table below shows an example of the change, with the old and new levels side-by-side:

Minutes	Old Structure (BB)	New Structure (BB)
6	20	20
12	30	30
18	30	40
24	50	50
30	50	60
36	100	80
42	150	100
48	150	120
54	200	150
60	200	200

Check out our big poker app comparison if you're looking for an alternative to PokerStars. Feel free to discuss these changes in our dedicated forum thread: 

PokerStars Sit & Go Changes: Discussion thread