I'm Australian and pretty new to online poker. I would consider myself a fish who knows nothing.
But do do know one thing: Poker Stars is the worst place to play poker online.


The dream...
I opened an account about two months ago at Poker Stars intending to grind up my original deposit of $50 in hopes of making a decent sized withdrawal.

Besides the once off welcome bonus, the only promotion that I was eligible for during this period were a couple of those "Christmas Calender" promotions and I won somwhere between $1-$3.

That was the first thing I noticed about Poker Stars: they basically don't offer any promotions.
What they do offer are ridiculous "Poker Cash Giveaway" tickets which have an EV of about a 1/3 of 1c.

Poker Stars are raping the players through rake.
What really broke the camel's back was the 2.5% "currency conversion fee."(Which is just an outright lie.)
This greedy cash grab fundamentally increases the rake by 2.5% for anyone affected by it.

The only way around it for me is to deposit via Skrill/Neteller, whom from my experience are criminals. I'm not going to have any dealings with them. (Long story.)

In any case, as soon as I found out that there's no way around the "currency conversion fee" I closed my account; I will never be playing there again.
Poker Star's greed has caused them to take their poker room and smash it against the wall.

You are going to have the currency conversion fee wherever you play. In fact Stars is one of the few sites that you can avoid that (for several major currencies) via exchanging within the software. Australia is out of look, as no rooms have Australian dollars as their currency, and you did not say what currency your Skrill is in. Assuming it is in Australian dollars then every time you deposit from Skrill or withdraw to Skrill from ANY poker site you will pay a conversion fee, and Stars 2.5% is lower than most other sites where it can be 5%+ each way. If your Skrill is in US dollars or Euros then you can move that money to and from sites like Stars and 888 (by depositing in the same currency cashier) without a fee, but you will still pay a fee moving money from Skrill to your bank account.

Banks and other companies charge money to exchange currencies, so you probably needed to do a bit more research on how this works before having a hissy fit. You seem to believe the sites and the e-wallets are all criminals, so perhaps playing for money is not the best choice for you. Stick to play money and freerolls in a variety of sites if you just enjoy poker, but your "dream" is not very practical for 2017, particularly without knowing how the online gambling industry works in terms of moving money. Hope that helps.

All the best.

Thanks pal

The currency conversion fee is just a phantom fee, for anyone who deposits and withdraws in the same currency, as there is no literal conversion. They omit to make it clear that the fee can be avoided if you can set up a wallet in your own currency. They also conveniently forgot to tell anyone about the fees when Baazov decided to introduce them. Pokerstars Michael was left in the uncomfortable and impossible position of trying to justify these extortionate charges. (Stars probably should have assigned that job to Negreanu as he warms to such tasks.)

However, you are incorrect to conclude a 2.5% fee equates to an extra 2.5% in rake.

Da****? I have had dealing with both Skrill and Neteller for 10+ years and never had any problems.

IIRC, in the not too distant past Skrill had a string of hacked accounts that was traced back to a rogue employee / rogue 3rd party.

Pokerstars being awful in terms of promotions for lower level players? That's been the case since the dawn of time, only thing that's changed is that they're now being awful for everyone including the 24 tabling hudbots

(Sorry if this is the wrong section, I just read "Internet Poker" and figured this is where I should post.)


I'm ready to move up from 12 to 24 tables.
I'm not making any big errors and I'm profitable at the stakes I'm playing.

Because I have a preference for the tile layout I will need another monitor.

I have a few questions:
How do 2 monitors work with the mouse?
One idea is; you would move your mouse to the edge of one monitor and it will travel through to the next?
If so, it does seem like too much mouse movement.

I'm looking for a monitor size that can comfortably fit 12 PokerStars tables.
At the moment I'm 12 tabling on a 1600-900 resolution monitor and it fits 12 tables fine.

Can anyone suggest the ideal resolution for a 12 table monitor for PS?
I'm guessing it would be <1600-900. That's because there's a chunk of space remaining on my monitor.

Thanks

Hi Cram,
When you have two screens is like an expansion of your main screen, if you move the mouse will continue to the other screen.
When you get used to this,you cannot live without 2 screens for sure.
Not sure about which resolution can fit 12 tables well, hope you got a good answer on this.
BR

how are you playing 12 pokerstars tables if you closed your account a week ago. Since you were moaning about the lack of any bonuses, have you opened a new account to get another set of first deposit bonuses? If you have you are likely to get your account closed and funds seized for bonus abuse.

I caved in about 24 hours after I closed the account.
I wrote an email apologising to support saying that it was a rash decision.
It was a decision based on principle until I realised Poker Stars was the only decent I've found to place at.

If there was a better place I would go there.

Pokerstars was too shrewd for their own good.

All the best.

In short: around ~2008 after consistently winning substantial amounts through online gambling, Skrill (Moneybookers back then) began to place restrictions on my account.
They began to lower my maximum withdrawal/deposit limits, and they took away my option to instantly upload funds.
I know it was due to being a winning player because the restrictions were put in place straight after large withdrawals from gambling sites.
The losing players I know, report no problems whatsoever with this company...

I tried to talk to Skrill about it but they told me they do not legally have to respond.

You can draw some conclusions:
1. Skrill must be sharing information with gambling sites.
2. Skrill do not value winning players. (They could be some kind of affiliate.)

Thanks buddy!

I consider myself a rational prostitute.
I'm willing to do it, to feed the kids.

Sounds like you are living the dream. Post in the goals or blog forum so people can follow your track to glory, as it certainly appears you have everything in control, and your path will serve as a great example to others when they choose it for themselves.

Sorry Skrill put those limits on you because you were a winning player. I admit that you are the first person I have ever heard of that happening to (and I signed many players to Skrill accounts), as for years Skrill loved winning players to deposit and cashout over and over (even offered 1-2% each time) as they made a killing with the processing fees. Still, it sounds as if they had a personal agenda vs you for some reason (that cost them money to carry out), so hopefully that will not be the case in 2017.

You crushed in 2008, and you seem to have a very logical thinking process about the industry in your mind so you are good to go. Make the best of it!

All the best.

Thanks for your encouraging words.

"I admit that you are the first person I have ever heard of that happening to..."
I've read on other forums about Skrill sharing information on players with gambling sites. There's information out there.

"(even offered 1-2% each time) as they made a killing with the processing fees."
Yes, it does look like an irrational business decision on the outside.
What it indicates (as I pointed out before) is that Skrill has some sort of stake in how well their partners are doing.
Partners, as in gambling websites, not players.

No doubt all of this makes perfect sense in your head, as you are the main character in your story. As you plan your sequel with your $50 bankroll, hopefully the world will not be so determined to work against specifically you, and you will be able to have one of the happy endings that you have created in your mind as well.

All the best.

Skrill is real greedy as of late with inflated xfer charges, the whole deal with online poker is just terrible for regular depositors

True. Exchange fees for different currencies and P2P transfers for non-VIP accounts are ridiculous.

Usually I enjoy your posts, but this time you are a ****ing idiot and simply rude to OP.

Skrill/NT have a long history of sharing information with gamblings sites. Just two areas where there is definitely information sharing going on:
-information exchange about people who bonuswhore the signup bonuses at sportsbooks and then do the same for their "friends" and relatives
(this saves the sportsbooks a lot of money as they identify these non-profitale customers earlier if Skrill/NT identify them as related to a person who previously took advantage of the signup bonus)
-information exchange regarding closed accounts
(lots of gambling sites operate a closed-loop system regarding deposits and withdrawals as you know and Skrill/NT exchange this information with the sites if the site contacts them)
...

The 2nd kind of information exchange is innocuous, but the first is definitely questionable / a money-grab from advantage gamblers.

Since the merger, things have been going really downhill at Skrill/NT.

Besides, I could elaborate on the recent ties of Skrill to Chinese gambling operations, but this is a story for another day.

Cliffs:
-don´t be so rude to Cram and get back to your usually high-quality posts

I am only being semi-rude actually, as he actually kind of likes this form of encouragement for his personal quest. Seriously. Hopefully he does fine, no real difference to me.

Understand that his point is years ago that Skrill limited him because he was a winning player at the poker tables, likely at the micro stakes. That has nothing to do with anything you mentioned. This guy did not bonus whore, and I doubt he had multiple gnome accounts. Who knows what happens years ago, but it certainly had nothing to do with whether he won a few hundred or not at a time where many players were depositing thousands each day and cashing them out (courtesy of Stars auto withdrawal for Skrill deposits) to earn 1-2% for every deposit (that Skrill really pushed players to do at the time).

The only thing I ever saw happen to players before all of the crazy Skrill cashback bonuses were removes was that Stars finally started limiting some of the abusers by reducing their deposit limits. His situation happened nearly a decade ago in 2008. I probably did on average 5-10 deposits and/or withdrawals a day at that time with all the money moving around for casino bonus whoring, and so did everyone else who did that at the time. We all won lots of money, but nothing happened to us.

All the changes you mentioned had nothing to do with the OP's situation. Something probably happened, who knows why, but it certainly was not because he won a few hundred on poker sites in the days where people were depositing and cashing out at times multiple times a day.

With Cram being a lunatic conspiracy theoriest and Monterroy being his dickish self we conclude yet another topic

You had to force your charming personality in first to complete the triangle. I admit I always find your personality type to be amusing. If you see someone in the bathroom 3 times in a row at work you will mock them and say "I always see you in the bathroom" without recognizing that the other person could say the same thing .

Thanks for following me around though like an excited puppy. See you in other threads I assume.

All the best.

Except for the fees. They have gone uphill. Unless you are some frequent trader it can now easily cost $10 to send money.

I stated this in the same post, but you started your quote after I complained about the ridiculous p2p transfer and currency exchange fees

But yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

But they can probably get away with it, because there is no real e-wallet competition (you could obviously make a case for Paypal, but it´s still not really gambling-friendly in most of the countries).