Those who have once believed in the power of collaboration between PokerStars and TwoPlusTwo have grown incredibly weary of effort involves to put the meetings together, given the results they are (not) producing. With PokerStars making it very clear that when push comes to shove, the players have little voice (except by voting with their feet), I propose a new direction to take the investment in player representatives from TwoPlusTwo:


Rather than fighting the changes at PokerStars, let's start investing our energy in developing relationships with other sites, so that we can HELP a competitor to PokerStars emerge.


The sites will gain traffic and business, and we will gain a place to play that demonstrates the attitude which PokerStars once had.

It is my opinion most people reacting to the changes at PokerStars are asking the wrong question:

The question IS:
Who is the next PokerStars?
Let's help them get there.

+1

Nice and good idea.......but find someone to talk to.

The incompetence of all other sites is mind-boggling.

Not entirely fair as they've been trying to operate under the shadow of a huge monopoly. Hardly surprising they have been nervous to invest too much time and money into creating a true competitor. However, the tide is turning and hopefully one or more of them will grasp this opportunity.

Great idea OP!

The point here is that we must start immediately -- the sooner we start organizing NOT in protest towards Pokerstars but in productive collaboration with OTHER sites, the sooner that the poker community we will able to make a successful transition out of the current eco-system.


What we need now is to understand the architecture of the past collaboration methods between Pokerstars and TwoPlusTwo, and then start replicating them with alternative clients.

Creating viable alternatives to PokerStars is not only possible, it is INEVITABLE IF we collaborate with other poker sites in DEVELOPING A SITE FOR THE PLAYERS -- as PokerStars once did.

Developing these alternatives is not only possible, they are INEVITABLE if we go about creating them in a rational, proper way. However, we MUST understand IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CREATE THE ALTERNATIVES WHICH WE ARE SEEKING -- they are not going to be magically placed in our laps.

All of those people who are even remotely interested in developing some sort of collective representation of the TwoPlusTwo in order to work with other sites on becoming a viable alternative to PokerStars:

Feel free to PM.

Consider forming a union, and within that union you can better organize who starts the 100th variation of this type of thread that tends to get 1-10 replies before it fades away.

This isn't a call for a union.

It is a call for a few very motivated individuals who are willing to take the bull by the horns and help accomplish a very specific objective.

We are not in a position to make demands, but we can certainly collaborate with sites which want to gain market share but need our help to do so and replace the energy that is currently being spent on complaining about the days which we can help create again by changing who we trust with our business.

I think you would need to get a few hundred people at least behind you before the sites started to listen and your objective would need to be clear. eg do you want to make the games easier by getting rid of the regs (not good idea when broken down)

or do you want to make sure that games are beatable and fight it out with whoever comes at you? which is much more realistic attitude to take if you ever want to make a bit from poker.

Wont work. Most people just want to rant on a forum while likely grinding on Stars anyway lol

PokerStars has the grinders by the short and curlies, suck it up

alot of people started migrating away from stars over the past couple years and quite happily, and this before stars flipped them the bird monday

it might be even easier numbers wise to get the attention of other networks and have them take note that stars has slipped up and there is market share to be won and they should be investing agressively to do so now

i think just been a nay sayer and a dommsday supporter is counter productive an old saying in sales "weather you think you can or you think you can't your right."

if we are all going to be nay Sayers then yeah we will not get anywhere but get enough supporters behind you and it might just work.

you need to establish though what are your goals? what is it that you want to achieve what is the prime motivation behind that.

then you need to establish how are you going to go about achieving that?

i think ARJ bet have shown promise but they need to expand beyond Georgia and have international licences an English client etc.

This is a good idea, OP you should post in the other official site threads

That would just split the traffic to even less across the board at all sites. Smaller guarantee tourneys and less games running.

You're right and that would lead to Stars offering good promos in an attempt to reclaim their monopoly like they actively did until 2010.

+1

+1

Very little of what Stars have done in the past has exclusively been for the benefit of players. Some of their policies may have had the knock-on effect of benefitting the players but these would only have been introduced if they satisfied the main aim of benefitting themselves. Obviously this is every business's right and there is nothing wrong with it.

Its cringeworthy and almost embarrassing to read some of what has been posted recently about how they were almost Santa Claus doing everything in their power to do what the customer wanted but now big bad Amaya has come in and they're now the Grinch wanting to cancel Christmas.

They don't care now and they didn't care before. The major difference is that, previously, they were better at the PR end of things by convincing players that they were somehow knights in shining armour who put the players interests on a par with their own.

I certainly respect your opinion, and you sound pretty insightful.

With that said, I believe that most of what you have posted is pretty irrelevant (to the thread).

The idea behind mobilizing in this way is not to protest PokerStars or try and "punish" them in any way -- it's to simply accept the reality that they will most likely continue to cut benefits for the players, and to deal with that accordingly.

Furthermore, I don't think anybody (intelligent) is faulting PokerStars for pursuing their own self-interest. In fact, most of the comments that I see are from people who believe that PokerStars is not only acting against the player's best interest, but against their own long-term health as well.

I can see how (who was probably) the target audience of your post would do well to consider what you're saying, though.

Exactly. What needs to happen is a renewal of interest in online poker. Not splitting the dying overall player pool into smaller clumps.