Dalmore

The problem is that this system basically forces everyone into an all-in-or-fold style during the last 15 minutes before late registration closes, no matter how trash the hands are, because this is only a qualifier stage.
A single player carrying a $100 bounty can even be worth more than finishing first after grinding 5–6 exhausting hours against thousands of players. The moment someone like that appears, everyone will dive in trying to steal the bounty. Just try shoving all-in and see if the whole table jumps in or not.
The next issue is that whenever I get covered in chips, it feels almost predetermined that I’ll lose in the most absurd ways possible regardless of the hand strength. Trash hands constantly get “drawn into” two pairs, straights, flushes, small pairs crack big pairs, weak AX hits one of its 3 outs against stronger AX — and after experiencing this hundreds of times, I’ve honestly gone numb. I don’t even have the energy left to rage or complain anymore.
This site, in general, feels terrible. It constantly manufactures ridiculous runouts just to force losses in the dumbest ways imaginable. There’s no real sense of randomness or skill here anymore — only setups and gambling variance. High-level players would never seriously stay in environments like this anyway; they’re busy playing million-dollar Main Events elsewhere.
The problem is that this system basically forces everyone into an all-in-or-fold style during the last 15 minutes before late registration closes, no matter how trash the hands are, because this is only a qualifier stage.
A single player carrying a $100 bounty can even be worth more than finishing first after grinding 5–6 exhausting hours against thousands of players. The moment someone like that appears, everyone will dive in trying to steal the bounty. Just try shoving all-in and see if the whole table jumps in or not.
The next issue is that whenever I get covered in chips, it feels almost predetermined that I’ll lose in the most absurd ways possible regardless of the hand strength. Trash hands constantly get “drawn into” two pairs, straights, flushes, small pairs crack big pairs, weak AX hits one of its 3 outs against stronger AX — and after experiencing this hundreds of times, I’ve honestly gone numb. I don’t even have the energy left to rage or complain anymore.
This site, in general, feels terrible. It constantly manufactures ridiculous runouts just to force losses in the dumbest ways imaginable. There’s no real sense of randomness or skill here anymore — only setups and gambling variance. High-level players would never seriously stay in environments like this anyway; they’re busy playing million-dollar Main Events elsewhere.
The problem is that this system basically forces everyone into an all-in-or-fold style during the last 15 minutes before late registration closes, no matter how trash the hands are, because this is only a qualifier stage.
A single player carrying a $100 bounty can even be worth more than finishing first after grinding 5–6 exhausting hours against thousands of players. The moment someone like that appears, everyone will dive in trying to steal the bounty. Just try shoving all-in and see if the whole table jumps in or not.
The next issue is that whenever I get covered in chips, it feels almost predetermined that I’ll lose in the most absurd ways possible regardless of the hand strength. Trash hands constantly get “drawn into” two pairs, straights, flushes, small pairs crack big pairs, weak AX hits one of its 3 outs against stronger AX — and after experiencing this hundreds of times, I’ve honestly gone numb. I don’t even have the energy left to rage or complain anymore.
This site, in general, feels terrible. It constantly manufactures ridiculous runouts just to force losses in the dumbest ways imaginable. There’s no real sense of randomness or skill here anymore — only setups and gambling variance. High-level players would never seriously stay in environments like this anyway; they’re busy playing million-dollar Main Events elsewhere.

Maybe you were simply lucky in that hand because the system wanted you to stay alive for a few more minutes before getting taken out by another garbage setup afterward.
I’ve lost with KK and AA all-in preflop against trash hands so many times while being covered in chips that I honestly can’t even remember the number anymore, so spots like that don’t feel special to me at all.
It becomes a programming issue and a mathematical randomness issue.

I don’t think this place resembles real poker anymore. It operates more like a roulette wheel built on pure luck, gambling, and bigger-vs-smaller outcomes — nothing more.
If there’s truly something wrong with the system, it’s that after grinding day and night without sleep just trying to fight for a few tickets and seats, I’m still only walking away with scraps of money.

Is anyone from the poker operations team here?
 
I honestly don’t think this tournament structure is good or even feels like a real competitive event. The first 15 minutes are basically nothing but all-in flip fiestas and multi-way gambles. After that, the players who survive are sitting on absurd stack sizes — x5, x6, x10, even x20 starting stacks — because the blind increases are far too soft at levels like 70/140 → 175/350 → 450/900. It feels unnecessarily inflated and fails to create meaningful pots during key situations.
 
Right now the fields are massive, with 3k, 4k, 5k, even 6k entries, and 90% of the gameplay during the first 30 minutes is just push/fold chaos. The first four low-blind levels are basically meaningless and might as well be removed entirely. The tournament should just start at 50/100 from Level 1.
 
The first hour wastes far too much time on tiny insignificant pots, endless waiting, players stalling, slow decisions, and poor calculations.
 
Meanwhile, once the tournament reaches 25k/50k blinds and above, the structure suddenly becomes way too fast and shallow. From that point onward, everything feels under 10BB and turns into pure luck and setup situations. Blind levels there should last at least 10 minutes instead of only 5 minutes like the early stages. Because realistically, only when players still have more than 20BB around the 50k/100k stage does it truly feel like an actual poker tournament.
On top of that, with tournaments having 3k–4k entries while only giving out around 24–40 ITM tickets each time, it honestly feels like you have to exhaust all your strength and burn through an entire year’s worth of luck just to win once.
At the very least, the ITM percentage should be around 5% to properly compensate the amount of effort, time, mental energy, and emotional pressure players invest into these tournaments.
So Funny!

Crypto poker is becoming a clear trend, and many new poker rooms are now emerging with a sole focus on cryptocurrency. I believe that to truly compete for traffic in this poker segment, the Stake Poker team needs a bold structural change: replace the entire daily tournament schedule by centering it around a Weekly Main Event every week and a Super Monthly Main Event every month.
The ecosystem should start with a structured freeroll series that rewards cash prizes and satellite tickets into these Main Events, then continue on a weekly and monthly cycle throughout all of 2026. This is how you consistently generate events with thousands of entries, turning almost every month into a festival season—from spring to summer to autumn—instead of relying solely on the Christmas period.
If executed properly, the platform will always feel alive, driven by massive traffic from Big Games, with professional players constantly present, rather than the current situation where many tournaments attract only a few hundred players and feel stagnant.
Just One Time
Additionally, I found the recent 14 Days of Xmas event to be very poorly executed. The schedule was overloaded, and there were serious server crashes and congestion.
Instead of compressing everything into 14 days, turning it into a 31 Days of Xmas event would have felt far more special, simply by cutting the number of daily events in half. This would reduce pressure on the servers while still maintaining consistent engagement throughout the entire month.
Instead of placing two 100K GTD tournaments on the first two Saturdays of the month, why not schedule those two 100K events on the nights of December 24th and December 31st? That way, everyone could truly feel the festive atmosphere, have something meaningful to look forward to, and enjoy the celebration together.
As it stands now, when the actual holidays arrive, the schedule feels completely empty and lifeless.