I have been playing poker for 8 years.

First three years I helped run and operate a 15 table card room, either dealing, being the floor manager, or playing for ~100 hrs/week. I have a strong idea of what keeps both players and the house happy.

My fourth year but my first time online, I played MTTs professionally on Stars.

The last four years, I played a mixture of NLH, SNGs, and PLO. I got SNE 3 out of the last 4 years and plan on getting it in 2012 assuming I can afford to based on the changes. I have been an active member of 2p2 and have been following all the threads on the changes very carefully.

In addition to playing poker, I staked and coached a group of 12 players from 2p2 over two years, and I have had an unblemished record of transfers, trades, and stakes. I also feel like I am one of the most honest and fair players at the tables when it comes to bumhunting, blindstealing, or any other angle shooting.

My viewpoint is that dealt method can not be kept, but the relocation of the funds should go directly to the player pool and not to Stars directly.

I don't want to fly to the Isle of Man either, but I would if that is what it takes to get this situation handled. Poker and Pokerstars has been my life and career for my entire adult life, and I have no desire to see it become unplayable.

+1 to all of this. Again, I am more than willing to trust nominated reps although I really think this should be done via private conference call as opposed to an IoM visit to allow this to get done in a timely manner with more segments of the population represented, with reps being able to fully express their general opinion sans Stars numbers in a dedicated thread.

haven't been following this thread entirely but didn't i read that pssteve said they'll hold off on these changes because of all this discontent from players?

I would be happy to have any of these players representing me, and JH1 as well.

Agree

They agreed to hold off on the rake changes, but not the change to Weighted Contributed.

The other changes were actually fairly minor, so this wasn't much of a concession.

The lion's share of the debate (switching to WC without compensating players, resulting in more money for stars and less for the players, and potentially outright killing some games) is still in dispute.

For that reason, a strike is currently still planned.

+1

The VIP Club Blast Off is specifically designed to discourage this Mass Sit Out group.

Look at the promotions:
Happy Hours
Pace Bonuses with target VPP goals
Discounted store items
Limited stock TCOOP tickets in the store
Starting Jan 2nd to avoid the initial day of protest.

This promotion is specifically designed to create anger amongst those players unaware of the effects of the changes towards the Sit Out group that are going to be trying to explain the situation to them. We will be disrupting their ability to earn extra VPPs, bonuses and tourney tickets. Secondly it will attempt to encourage the Sit Out group to put in more volume and make up for the volume lost while sitting out during non-sit out times.


Do not participate in any part of this promotion. Do not sit in until they negotiate.

This mess needs to be resolved here, on line. No matter how fair and trustful you guys are the crow will not be convinced and satisfied:

posting again cos this seems to be the more active thread:

there are two specific games which are on the brink of becoming unbeatable with the proposed changes.

Small stakes LHE and SSNL Cap games.

I can only speak for the cap games.

The profit in these games is the rakeback. I have looked at hundreds of PTR datamines. Noone is winning by more than 0.5 ptBB over a significant samplesize in nl 200 cap. And those are the elite few. In fact, 80% of regs are losing money pre rakeback.

I do realise that we grinders have to give up something. Because of the regulatory environment changes Pokerstars ends up paying a lot more tax and somehow they have to pass this along. And dont forget that black friday cost them like $ 150m plus 20% of their customer base was gone overnight.

However, their games have to remain beatable at all levels. Thats in their best interest as well. A very big part of the reason why Poker got so popular is because it was beatable for some of the players. At university we heardt stories about people depositing 50$ and winning serious money. Word of mouth of people winning is much better advertising than the best TV ads.

By making the low stakes games unbeatable you will quickly destroy that. I don't see many university students grinding slot machines....

For the cap community I would nomiate starvingwriter as a representative. "do it right" also seems to be very clued up

+1

I agree, a locked forum dedicated to the negotiations with only designated members having contribution rights is a good idea. The community can follow and PM the designated members for input. I'm not struck on the Isle of Man talks for several reasons:

1) Timeframe (we need immediate solutions, the clock is reset Jan 1st for milestones)
2) Logistics, how will selected members arrange travel, accomodations, etc
3) The non disclosure aspect scares me. So after the meetings certain topics can't be talked about? Huh?

That being said I like the list put forward. Starvingwriter would be a great choice for CAP which is my what I play, so he gets my vote IF we have to send a delegation.

I currently play 50NL CAP 6max and expected to get absolutely smoked VPP-wise playing a conservative 18/16.

I also have a soft spot for everyone, I know LHE is in a bad state of affairs, especially FR. Winrates are shrinking more and more, and getting in volume is tough, tables are harder to find. Micro PLO is a joke how much they pay in rake. I'm in it for everyone, this is for all of us, nit/lag/maniac, LHE NL PLO etc.

Pretty much this

QFT

We've gone on long enough thinking of ourselves as separate groups each with the mindset of if my group is doing ok, f the rest. This is how they wittle us down one group at a time.
Since day 1 of the full ring 6x / 6max 5.5x, every last player should have been fighting to move 6max up to 6x as well.
Since day 1 of the SNG rake changes we should have been fighting for them to get a fair deal, too. But cash players don't consider what's good for SNGs is good for poker.

I now seriously regret that I did not even consider these other issues where players were getting ****ed over since they had no bearing on my bottom line.

Couldn't agree more. United we stand, divided we fall.

I find it funny how stars now all for negiotiating + firing up these promotions all of a sudden, unlike in May when we been told to **** off basically when it came to the discussion of the rake changes on SNGs. Perhaps because we didnt had a tool to hurt their revenue in any way.
Just felt to post this for anyone wondering if PS cares... yes, for money, they do, for the wellbeing of their customers unfortunately not much.
Just keep that in mind while being on the Isle of Man - its all for them, not for us.

+1

couldn't agree more.

There are some others/more from the community who i would like to see involved but as far as the major contributors to this thread and players who have volunteered these 10 are the stand out candidates and it's not close -

JH1, MSauce, TheMetetrown, CoreySteel, Starvingwriter, KRmont22, Sect7G, Klairic, Mrtrebus and Jah Onion

+1 glad nobody was excited to see such a lame promo.
throwing a pair of Oakley's in a 30k donkament isn't really gonna pacify this problem. Not to mention the 1hr 'happy hours' at random times that not every player can take advantage of... let them eat cake.

appreciate it Eto

i agree with this^ and i would say that if they're looking to have an open dialogue, postponing the changes would end the strike until an agreement was hammered out... which would be good for the players and stars.

thanks JH1 - but you forgot to put yourself on that list

i would happily go to the IoM to represent players' rights.
cliffs:
i've played exclusively on stars for ~4 years - 24tbln SN every year...
i would represent uFR/SSNL FR NLHE
was the all-time top winner on stars' 50nl for a minute..
i am also not easily swayed by lobster and champagne.

I nominate Klairic as representative for FRNL

+1


As for the nominations, I think there should be at least 2 representatives for NLHE, one for 6max, and one for FR. it's only fair. For FR, I couldn't possibly choose between klairic and ricepaw so i give them each half a vote. Otherwise, the rest of the list is fine by me:

my top-top nominations would be:
Msauce, JH1, Metetrown, Starving, Klairic, Mrtrebus, Coreysteel/Pirahna, Jah, Do it Right, and KRmont.

edit: if it's between myself and Klairic - klairic should get the nod, but if he can't go - i would happily fill the void.. fwiw.

double edit: i would think that a panel would be infinitely better than 1-3 people.

I've been noted a few times so I'll post my meager CV:

I've been playing micro/small stakes online since ~2005.
SNGs in 2006, 80% FR cash 20% 6max cash since 2007.
I've been playing 99% exclusively on Stars since ~2008 as a 100k-200k Supernova.
I started from the bottom as well and managed to work my way up to 200NL FR until I saw my game start to decline due to becoming a late 20s dinosaur w/ family.
At this point (2010) I switched to mass tabling to push my hourly up for games I'm still good enough to beat (50NL/100NL) with little time for study and improvement.
I majored in Geography/History/Common Sense so I don't really have much of a stats/math background as I think I appear to have apart from being able to run a decent spreadsheet and problem solve logically.

I have my own idealistic opinions about rake methods which some other members here would disagree with. If I'm a rep or part of a consultation team I do have the ability to set those contrary opinions aside and would argue our specified talking points even if I disagree with them on a personal level.

I don't know if it has been discussed in this thread, but are there any infos or estimates on how much Stars is earning in rake a day and how much this protest could actually hurt them?

Very well written and so true.
Let's not settle until we get a good deal for everyone. They want to negotiate now, but no negotiations were available for the SNG changes at all... A bit to late to try and act like they want to to talk with the players and listen.
They can show that they listen, with their actions. Until then they just say whatever is believed (by them) to avoid the strike without having to pay.