Of course they did: they want to motivate the Bronzestar recreational Player to go for Silverstar.

They want to encourage bronzestar players to reach silverstar status by reducing the VPP earning rate to pratically zero? That makes sense.

I do agree that justification for changes can not be "our competitors do it" as the reason we all play on Pokerstars in the first place is because they are not their competitors. They have treated us fairly, have good customer support, and a good player base. Don't change the reasons we all commit our business to you.

In regards to the changes, I do feel dealt method is unfair. I am still undecided between WC and WTA, but I don't think that even matters as Stars is most likely going with WC no matter what. I feel like the major problem I have and most others have is that we want to make sure of a few things:

1. The games remain beatable. No one wants to play on a site where no one is winning. People play poker for the competition and the money.

2. The money taken from the winning players in this change is redistributed to the player pool or ways to increase the player pool (advertising, bonuses, etc)

3. There won't be further changes or updates which hurt winning players more this year. Other sites have openly made it clear that they do not want winning players on their site. I do not want to feel like Stars has the same view. People love Stars for their vip program and consistency. We make year long plans based on this.


I think this situation can definitely be handled to where both sides are happy, but the only way this can happen is through open dialogue, which I feel is not currently happening on 2p2 or anywhere. I want to be a part of this discussion and have no problem going to the Isle of Man to figure this out.

It is time for the multipliers at SH and FR to both be at least 6x. $1 rake is $1 rake, no matter which game you play.

agree with everything

+1

clear inconsistency from stars here

Not in my store they didnt

Why are 6max games given 5.5vpps/$1 and FR 6vpps/$1? This made sense under dealt as vpps were given out to each player equally. Under the WC system, your reward of vpps is based upon your contribution to the hand. So why should a 6max player be rewarded less for an equal amount of rake? Also if you're in the blinds in 6max and fold, you are rewarded less than the same in FR. Why?

I'd like to know stars reasoning for this, because they've also changed the euro multiplier and kept the same disparity (7x for tourneys and 6max, 8x for FR).

Essentially 6max players (and mtts) are given less rake back for contributing more rake than full ring.

It is ironic that PS has been arguing about balancing things (when talking about rake structure or about the calculation method change from dealt to weighted contributed) but the VPP multiplier is the one thing they insist in not balancing!

This is a point where I cant understand PS stance, why $1 is not counted as the same for everyone, specially now that Pokerstars argue so much about "balancing". If it made little sense before, it makes none now...

I confess I have a hard time to believe it wasnt included finally in the 2012 changes (and I am speaking the truth when I say that I had to look a couple of times at the OP to check that it was really ignored once again or it was I that was missing it in the wall of text).

It wasn't there last night, im sure someone else (starvingwriter?) can confirm.

With the proposed system…
The total amount of awarded VPPs stays the same.
The total amount of rakeback is decreased.
It annoys me that PS, even on 2+2, seems to focus on the first statement when it is the second statement (i.e. $) that matters.

Many pokersites have in recent years began to offer decent rb. Now may be a good time for PS to introduce 6 vpps per dollar in rake across all games. That may help resolve this issue for your most loyal and important cash-game players, and also help you keep your position as the number one tournament-site out there.

FT introduced multi-entry-mtts and put big guarantees on them. It was tempting to play (especially if there had been an overlay). PS, maybe feeling they can exploit their present half-monopoly-status, now decrease the total amount of rakeback given back to their players. The bottom line is that they are taking money out of the poker economy, which is bad for the players as a whole.

Even if most players like a change, that doesn’t make it good. To take an exaggerated example, suppose that PS had 4 recreational players with 10 % rb and 2 high-volume players with 50 % rb. Obviously the majority would like the ridiculous idea of a flat 11 % rb for everyone.

Well said. Stars believe in "balancing" when it's in their advantage. When it's not, then Stars throw balancing out the window.

Stars reasoning is hypocritcal as hell.

As was said most sne grinders are breakeven or losing players meaning they take no money out of the poker environment or stars.

In fact compared to a game selecting player who might have a positive winrate and withdraw sne act like housebots grinding and grinding taking money from fish and turning it over playing other regs. ALL the money goes to stars. They love it.

Thats why the system was created the way it is and thats why theyre highly rewarded. Its not a loophole they did overlookand are now taking measures to prevent lol .

And again the reward system isnt changed at ALL in is essence of how it rewards certain styles of play. Yes loosers now get more and sne less but there is still a huge difference between sne and silver and gold star.

And look at the difference between what I can get for playing 200k hands a year on stars and what i can get for 3 million hands a year.

Now we can easyly see what kind of player stars loves and wants to reward most.

If they were concerned about the health of the games like they say they would completely stop to highly reward sne over any other grinder who puts in 20 - 30 k hands a month.

Im just pointing out how hypocritical their reasoning is and how little they think of the 2p2 community.

It seems they only keep their rep up but alot of steves reasoning is a big pile of BS.

To be fair to Pokerstars on the 5/6x VPP FR/6max discrepancy, the VIP panel, which was made up of player from here, agreed to that setup. Unfortunately, if my memory is accurate, the first VIP player's panel was made up of mostly FR players, and their inherent bias lead to this unfortunately change being adopted.

It made sense under dealt as the vpp were being split evenly between the players. Now the vpp is split between the players that contribute to the rake, there is no reason to have a seperate multiplier.

Oh and before you start getting any ideas Pokerstars, the multiplier has to go up, not down.