Fwiw Stars didn't make me edit anything in this report.
Also I wrote it before the OP was posted but was flying in the last couple of days.

Please feel free to lmk if you have any questions either via PM or just here.

Hi everyone, thanks for your patience. I'm actually going to try keep this trip report fairly “short” since my last one was particularly long and I know most people prefer a summary-length. As such this will be written in a cliff-note type structure.

*Any opinions expressed or implied are that of my own and do not necessarily represent those of PokerStars or its employees.


For promotions we came to the general conclusion that recreational player focused type promotions would be better for poker long term. Promotions that attract new players, or encourage old players to perhaps return or play more have more desire in almost every aspect.


For BOP we discussed potential replacements or ways to make it better as it is very clear that at the moment it just isn't money well spent. Either it needs to be changed or promoted so that people actually appreciate and enjoy the promotion more (or at least are aware of it!) or it could be replaced. Once again we made it clear that obviously if it were to be replaced, we would expect the money 'taken away' to be returned in other forms.

The players all agreed that more merchandise for recreational players would be a good idea because it's what they like. It's also a good way of promoting the brand as many players will wear their caps or T-Shirts to casinos, home games, live tournaments etc. Overall these items are fairly low in expense too, and it gives players a tangible reward that is 'special' and they can't get elsewhere. A monetary deposit bonus for example doesn't meet this criteria, although it was certainly acknowledged that many recreational players also like/appreciate monetary rewards.


Something we can't talk about for now was discussed which we all thought was a really good idea. It's not a financial reward incentive. I would hope this would be in action sometime next year, and I think it has massive potential. I believe recreational players and regulars alike would really like it and it should encourage play from everyone.


For MTTs we discussed a bit about Steps, and there was some difference in opinions amongst the players. Personally, I think the exit points, especially at the higher buy-ins are a good idea and will basically help ensure some of these games even run. I think if a low-stakes grinder or recreational player builds up to a 215 or 700 ticket, s/he should be able to have the -choice- to exit freely, without being forced to put such a big percentage of his/her bankroll on one single SNG. The counter argument is that the system was perhaps designed to fill the target events. Similarly it was suggested that people with tickets/packages in the target events should not be able to play, but this would just mean the higher/highest Steps would almost never run. I don't believe any change is intended. I think the additional exit points for some of the COOP tournaments and satellites is great.


We talked about the schedule a bit as well and in particular Miikka expressed concerns that for a typical mid stakes grinder who doesn't want to play too many tough tournaments doesn't have that many good value tournaments to choose from. We talked about a couple possible tournaments to add, although the point was also raised that if you make too many 'red' tournaments, it makes the current ones less special, even though I feel that a lot of players just play anything/everything that is red and nothing else. I think there are some potential changes planned for the schedule, not necessarily as a direct result of our discussions. We suggested and encouraged some ideas of new weekly or potentially even monthly majors.


We brought up the low edges in turbos again, particularly high stakes and it seems unlikely something will be changed in the near future. The point was made again that the structures on Stars' turbos have been improved over the last few months and years, and has comparably better structures than competing sites.


We discussed the importance to the players about having potential 'opt-out' options for hotels, as the status quo of winning a package and having a hotel which is often perceived as overpriced is just inconvenient and takes up a huge percentage of the prize pool. Whilst it's true that the convenience of winning a package appeals to many players; both recreational and professionals, often players are forced to 'waste' a room or sell it at a huge discount/loss since many friends will often win multiple packages etc. A major barrier of this is that Stars often has to book a fixed amount of rooms well in advance, but we hope there will be a solution to this and that changes will be introduced in the near future.


A major issue that has been discussed amongst the MTT community recently is ghosting. I would personally define it as any help one player gives another during a hand, although I realise there are different ways to define it and draw lines. For example I know that a lot of people only consider it wrong if is is systematic, i.e. planned and pre-meditated and usually this means the 'ghoster' has financial incentive. Such as a backer helping his horses.

Personally I think it is very difficult to draw the line, as said in the MTT community thread I think it is hard to say if a recreational player telling his friend “you should fold here, the pay jumps are so big!” (whether it is correct or not) is equal to that of one strong player telling another “this is an ICM fold”. How good the help is shouldn't be relevant, nor could you define that whilst writing a rule. The main conclusion was the Stars should be stricter with enforcing these rules although it should also be acknowledged that there are a fair amount of people who have been caught, 'punished' with fund deductions etc. For legal reasons these are never publicised. There are a number of investigaions going on as I write. This issue is really unfortunately, and in my opinion difficulty of detection (how can you 'prove' player A gave player B advice if they are rooming together) and enforcement is a barrier which hopefully Stars can overcome. I think this issue is obviously far from closed.


In general the community vastly agrees that it is important that games are realistically beatable (and not just for the absolute elite etc) and there are many understandable reasons for this. We were shown data that suggests PLO is raked at roughly equal proportion in terms of what % of money is distributed to winning players and Stars to NLHE, with a couple exceptions. To be honest, I am not totally convinced if this actually means that the rake is 'fair'. The players made it very clear just how big of an issue this is, and how commonly expressed it is. It is a huge problem, in my opinion, that so many players who don't even play PLO know or think that low-stakes PLO is unbeatable, or that the rake is too high. Whether this is true or not isn't even necessarily the main problem, the perception is. I would still highly recommend a PLO specialist to attend the meetings in the future, the PLO-specific meeting is a good start. As much as we try, not playing the games just makes it tough to argue or understand some of the issues.

There were a few lower-traffic games' rake which were also looked at, and I hope that in the near future some appropriate changes will be made. I also hope Stars continues to consider PLO rake.


One area I have to be a bit critical is the length of time some changes have taken/are taking to implement. The ratholing issues were arguably the biggest amongst players since the last meeting I attended in October last year and the solution still hasn't been introduced. I fully acknowledge however that thinking of a perfect solution is extremely difficult because there are for sure many positives and negatives of almost every solution. Also, there are many changes which can take up developmental resources so it's to be expected not every single change we want can be made immediately.

I hope that the ratholing solution, as well as HU lobby changes will be implemented soon.


The main issue with banning seating scripts was that the motivation for doing so is mainly that it 'targets' recreational players to a ridiculous level. Some issues of fairness are also important. Banning the script doesn't help with fairness too much since without them it becomes a competition of who clicks the fastest/watches the lobby etc which in an ideal world none of would be a necessary component of winning (in my opinion). More importantly it doesn't stop the recreational players being targetted, although a couple seconds vs. INSTANTLY would probably help. We discussed a few different potential solutions and as expected all have drawbacks and benefits. I expect Stars to continue considering this issue, which I strongly emphasised is a huge priority for the majority of the ring game community, and hopefully communicate with us during the process.


Some discussion about the new software was had and we contributed some feedback and ideas. A few small things such as hopefully making it easier to request bulk Hhs in the future were also brought up.


As far as I remember, and based on my notes, these are the most important points. If anyone has any questions or comments, obviously feel free to do so. I would also encourage you to write in the appropriate threads if you have suggestions or feedback as I am positive Stars reads (and often responds) to such posts.


I have written this in my last trip report but I really do think Stars does a good job as listening and communicating with the players (not just twoplustwo, but other communities and customers). Obviously there are always going to be issues or concerns, which is why the meetings a good idea to discuss such issues. I think the employees are great at what they do, and like I said last time I think many of you would be surprised just how much they understand the issues. A lot of the team were professional players in the past, and talking to them is just the same as talking to another “reg”! Both in terms of their understanding and being able to use the slang and lingo we players like to use.


Thank you to both Stars and the community for this opportunity.

Any specific info on planned changes to HU lobby?

Is it going to be Koth or some other form of change?
How many planned slots per stake etc?

Ty

Will the anti-ratholing measures apply to regular tables only or will zoom tables be affected too?

i am not reading this unstructured wall of text. this is how far i got:

how exactly did you figure to make sure the promos are not snapped away by regs or bots?

Was a cloud based HUD discussed? That is a HUD that uses the players lifetime data only, the data cloud hosted by Stars.

Yes I suggested something along those lines or possibly co-operating with hem or pt etc for the same effect but banning or further enforcing should take that into consideration too.

Mme why don't you read the part you're interested in? Bots? Short answer to what you asked is you can't make sure no regs get benefits obviously, but making promos that benefit or appeal to recreational players more (at least relatively) was a general goal.

no global pstars chatroom discussion in these meetings?. Cant tell me that the recreationals aren't bored with a bunch of quiet guys on the tables, would be cool if there was a chatroom & every now & again some pros even come & speak or something of that nature.

Get the f out of here w/ that. Awful idea.

Amazing stuff in the OP. I <3 stars.

ctrl-f'ed "bots" on the last page. only hit was richas. as said, i am not reading this. but keyword search will do :-) so there is a goal. a general one. you agreed on.

interesting.

and those promos should "appeal" more to X than Y. is this to be understood as being different from "actually profit" more X than Y?

damn, these NDAs make me start reading in between line as if i was in some communist country where a term that gets omitted may be the important piece of information.

Nice idea!

if you're not capable of reading his report, try not asking stupid questions. Go watch the X Files or something?

I like you ClayDol, voted for you, and would vote for you again. I know you're a good rep and I trust that you did at least an above average job at the meetings, but tbh, your report pretty much blows. Personally, I would rather have the long version than this here short one.

There's just a very low amount of information given in the report, most of which is already common knowledge among the players...

...Or just pure common sense among the human race in general...

I do appreciate, and agree 100%, with this part...

But anyways, thanks for going, the time and work is much appreciated. Any chance on you running again for the April meeting?

------

@ mme...

How long ago did you suggest the ratholing solution to Stars?

Any chance of you running, Natis?

how would watching X files help me understand better what he was posting? where is these X files located at? are we still talking the terms of the NDA may not be published? what is your credit card number? did OMGClayDol remove the part of his report where he mentions the NDA? haha, that sure was funny LostOstrich.

There's quite an extensive discussion about the Heads Up Lobby change located here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/58...ested-1364689/

The anti-ratholing measure ("Buy-In Obligations") will be applied to both regular and Zoom games.

Why would you even consider heads up zoom? It takes away one of the main aspects of heads up play. The thread for discussion of the heads up lobby created plenty of viable alternatives. and I am sure you can see that since limiting the number of tables at 25/50 and 50/100, action has dramatically increased.

Think this would have a lot of issues, if you think about any typical global chat you've ever seen or been part of you should know what I mean? On a related note perhaps a Q/A with pros like FTP used to have would be cool.

I was just saying I have no idea what you are talking about when you refer to bots.. I didn't hide anything because of the NDA when answering you I just don't get what you're asking..

Hey thanks for the support and also apologies for the unstructured trip report. Like I wrote I just thought a really long and detailed one tends to be difficult to read and follow for most, but perhaps cliffs in addition to a "normal" report would have been better. Nonetheless anyone is still welcome to ask any questions if they want something more specific.
If I am free during the time, there is a decent chance I will run again, but we will see.


This wasn't something the players suggested. A lot of questions like this I am just leaving for Stars to answer but I'll point out that the plan is for it to be offered alongside zoom as an alternative, so those who want to play it can.. Personally I agree that dynamics and gameflow are a huge part of the appeal of HU, but also don't see any downside to offering it.

+1 think the intentions are good but it definitely depurifys the game. So much of hu is game flow/dynamic/accumulating reads etc. Zoom would make the most exciting form of poker robotic and boring imo.

Downside to offering it would be segregating the playerbase. 20bb cap, 40bb cap, 100bb normal tables, however many options they have for zoom... seems like a bit of a cluster****. Pretty sure a 100bb normal game is gonna be the last option in a recreational players mind and it's a bit of a shame because it's the best form of poker there is. Not sure how long it's going to last if 99.9999% of action is reg vs reg with the way the rake is at the lower levels.

+1 Would def prefer the longer, 'full' version, I find the subject very interesting, but esp the perspective from a player rep.


Good post about PLO.

Did you discuss multi accounting and other cheating in cashgames as well, particularly in PLO games?

there is free money on the internet. if there is any way to get at it in a systematic way, someone will organize this. is stars prepped to be measured on what they give out as incentives by these standards? or is it still the give-away-$50-for-free-and-pray mindset?

and please refrain from posting that you don't understand what i mean. i am not buying this.

We talked about multi accounting and cheating a lot in general, not specifically to high stakes though. General conclusion is perhaps more can be done with regards to making it clearer what potential punishments are/could be, since a lot of detection etc is already being done but many aren't aware of this. If you have any specific examples with proof e-mail support if you haven't already, if there is actual proof beyond a public consensus etc. I think the chances of something being done are rather high.

Anyone who has a good enough grasp on the poker world, and/or a reputation that puts them in a position to have someone 'ghost' them, be informed/aware of how to VPN from the U.S. in order to bypass the Stars VPN detection method, realizes the advantage to multi-accounting and the means to move money around in order to do so, etc., would also more than likely not only be aware of what the terms of service they are in breach of by doing any of these, but also most likely know a few people who have been punished/banned by Stars for doing the same thing. In fact, I would guess regulars who breach the ToS probably know the specifics of the potential punishments in great detail.

I think what could be made more clear is the investigation process done by PokerStars Security Team. Providing the players with some basic details to the steps taken, or a simple 'timeline' of what takes place would probably be pretty beneficial and also remove a lot of frustration among the players. The reasoning behind why it might take 4-5 weeks to here back from Stars after reporting potential collusion, and what players can/need to do in order to properly report any sort of suspicious play they witness would also help. A lot of players don't like the fact that they are 'expected to police the games' and why PokerStars 'a zillion dollar company' can't pay someone to do it, so informing the players on why this is sometimes the case regarding certain types of collusion could also be helpful and remove some tension among the players.

So I don't really think what should be made clearer isn't the potential punishment for colluding. I think instead providing the players with the information/reasoning needed in order to have a basic understanding of collusion, how to report it, and the investigation process could do a lot of good for the games, and I think the majority of regulars on Stars are unaware/uninformed on this type of information. Maybe some sort of email sent out to all Supernova + players with some information would be a good place to start.

sounds like you where reading the ghosting thread recently, just as me. i am still puking from taking a peek a few hours ago. but well ..this had to happen. what can get exploited will get exploited.

big question is: does it make any sense at all to keep the whole process in the dark, when one side effect is that it makes it harder to go public with the details? in my opinion this has failed and will fail harder in the time to come. the problem can not be solved without a strong community pulling on the same end of the rope.

I'm sorry that I've taken a while with my TR, I've had an extremely busy week and had to edit my draft quite a bit. I am sending my full TR to Steve right now to make sure I'm not breaking any terms, and once he approves I will instantly post it here.

There are two responses to this idea ITT, both of which are just "awful, don't do it." Why is it awful?