Pokerstars Player Representative Meetings May 2014 – Trip Report

I arrived at the Isle of Man on Tuesday the 20th , killed some time at my hotel room, and met up with 3 other reps for dinner to discuss our agendas. This was very important to me, previous reps had told me there had been some problems with reps having significant differences on issues that had come up during the actual meetings, leading to arguments between them and making it hard to make progress. Everyone of us had their own specialty, so we agreed to respect each other's expertise when appropriate. There were couple things we didn't agree on, but we also agreed to not let them hurt the discussions. The other reps were:

”yackooPL” representing Pokerstrategy Poland, mid-high stakes NLHE cash player
”batovs” representing Intellipoker Brazil, small-medium stakes MTTs and SNGs
”BusTim” representing Pokerstrategy Germany, midstakes FLHE


The agenda was based on our requests, and what Stars wanted our feedback on:


Wednesday, May 21, 2014
9:30 Telecabs taxi meets players at Sefton hotel for transport to Skandia House
9:45 Welcome and NDA signing
10:00 Office tour
10:30 Introductions
11:15 Purpose of Meetings: Discussion
12:00 Lunch (Players’ private time)
12:30 Ring Game and Sit & Go offering
1:30 Pokerstars 7 and Mobile (with 15 min break when appropriate)
5:00 Sneak Peak: Upcoming Promotion
6:00 Players return to Sefton hotel
6:55 Meet in Sefton lobby to go to dinner
7:00 Dinner at JAR

Thursday, May 22, 2014
8:45 Telecabs taxi meets players at Sefton hotel for transport to Skandia House
9:00 Promotions
11:00 Break
11:15 Ring Game Rake, part 1
12:30 Lunch (Players’ private time)
1:15 Ring Game Rake, part 2
2:00 Game Integrity
3:30 Break
3:45 Scheduled MTT & Satellites
6:00 Players return to Sefton hotel
6:55 Meet in Sefton lobby to go to dinner
7:00 Dinner at Regency

Friday, May 23, 2014
9:15 Telecabs taxi meets players at Sefton hotel for transport to Skandia House
9:30 Ring Game Seating Issues
11:30 PR & Forum Presence
12:30 Lunch (Players’ private time)
1:15 VIP Store Merchandise
1:45 VIP Club
3:15 Break
3:30 Follow-up on topic of players’ choosing
4:30 Wrap-up
6:30 Players return to Sefton hotel


Wednesday morning was a kind of preliminary hearing, if you will, we got to meet a lot of people, introduce ourselves to the staff primarily taking part at the meetings, and explain what we wanted to achieve. I naturally told them about my strong mandate from the PLO-community to improve their playing conditions, and my desire to make the poker economy grow through new recreational players.

In the afternoon, the meetings started with a short discussion on ”ring game and SNG offering”. Batovs and BusTim had some input on new types of SNGs, the latter a few suggestions on mixed games by his community as well. I brought no list with me, as my plan was to discuss more general topics rather than be a mailman for the individual strat forums. 2+2 obviously works a bit different than the other forums present, and has a more active Stars presence. We also talked about all ring games becoming Zoom-only, and expressed our opposition.

We then moved on to PokerStars 7 and the mobile client, going through individual features, the outlook, and purpose of the design. I have to say I was very impressed, and also happy to see that the general theme appeared to be recreational-friendly. I had a couple minor suggestions, but no major problems were revealed during the lengthy presentation. The wednesday meetings were concluded with a preview of an upcoming promotion, of which Stars wanted our feedback. I naturally can't announce it in my report, but I found it very positive as well.

Thursday started off with a discussion on promotions. Here's a list of the topics covered according to my notes:

-top-heavy vs flat prize pool promotional tournies
-365/iron man type promotions
-FTP-action
-milestone promotions
-promotional emails
-facebook client
-TV-shows
-country-specific promos
-targeted reload-bonuses
-game-specific promos

Stars wanted to know how we felt about different types, and what new ones we would like to see. Us reps had a clear consensus that we wanted to see more promotions for the less popular games. Stars seemed open to this in general, but they also explained why it was problematic from their stand point. My feelings were somewhat mixed afterwards.

We also discussed the more general theme of recs vs regs in promotions. All the reps agreed that they should be focused on recreationals. For my part, I told them a promo like a 100$ reload bonus is wasted on midstakes grinders such as myself, and those resources could be used more wisely.

Then came the rake discussions. The original schedule had been modified a little to split ring game rake sessions over two days, and I was happy with this. I was not alone with my complaints about PLO-rake, so that understandably dominated the discussion. I obviously had no plans of educating Stars on rake, but I wanted to know why they felt PLO was raked appropriately. I told them that serious players new to PLO, not to mention the grinders, find the rake conditions like 15bb/100 at PLO10 to be overwhelming and unfair compared to half that in NLHE. This anxiety about the rake at small stakes has always made very sad as it seems to discourage people from building their bankrolls through PLO.

We were then presented with a few sheets of data comparing PLO and NLHE. I skimmed through them, and said I wanted to study them further before going deeper into the numbers. PSSteve kindly agreed that I could take the data to my hotel room for the night, and that we would continue the discussion after proper preparation on Friday. I made a couple requests for more data by tomorrow as well.

After lunch, we continued with a discussion on PR and forum presence. For my part, I told them I was unhappy with the 2+2 PLO-forums interaction with Stars reps. We agreed that a new Q&A thread would be created on SSPLO with PSNick committing to weekly interaction. We also agreed that they would try to be more frequent in their participation on HSPLO discussion threads, and that the mods could notify them when any Stars-related topic required their attention.

The session on game integrity was very re-assuring. The standards we were presented made quite an impression. I asked how they felt about the evolution of bots and the danger they presented to online poker, and was happy with the answer I got. Topics covered according to my notes:

-multi-accounting detection
-bot-detection
-Russian PTR
-US-access
-ghosting

The finale for Thursday was scheduled MTTs and satellites. We discussed a bunch of suggestions by the reps, here are the major ones according to my notes:

-15-minute synchro break every 4 hours discussed
-increasing tournament participation via raising guarantees discussed
-PLO/O8 Sunday MTTs
-guarantees for all scheduled MTTs
-caps in shoot-outs
-late registration in zoom MTTs problem?

My main goal was to push for the Sunday majors for PLO and O8. I was very excited about the discussion and especially Batovs was very helpful in working out what format would be the most popular to help promote the games for new players. For my part, I told them that while the 2+2 PLO-community clearly prefers a certain format (as shown in this thread), it would be more important to go for the most popular one for the Sunday player pool at large. The same was obviously true of Omaha 8. Stars was clearly committed to the discussion, and I felt very optimistic afterwards.

The discussions continued at dinner, and I brought up the midstakes PLO HU lobby. As the PLO-guys are already aware, we agreed to cap the lobby with gradually decreasing number of tables:

30 tables at 2/4
25 tables at 3/6
20 tables at 5/10

Friday was an important day for me, as the agenda shows. We started with a discussion on ring game seating issues, and seating scripts naturally dominated the discussion. I was happy to find out that Stars was well aware of the poll I created just before the meetings, as well as its results. I was explained their position on the scripts and what they planned to do with them. What I heard surprised me, and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it at first. I'd say 65% positive, 35% reserved. I told them I can give my personal blessing for trying it, but it could be a tough sell for the community at large. They did seem pretty adamant about going forward with it at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Buttoning was also discussed, and I was happy to find out what they had in the works. I brought up the ”sit out one, sit out all” -policy too, but felt a little bad about my level of preparation as I couldn't make very good counter-arguments to the issues I was told the change would create.

The main rake discussion was up next, and I was expected to begin by presenting my findings on the rake data I was given. I had spent a few hours looking at it the night before, and the message was been clear: PLO-grinders were doing just fine compared to their NLHE-counterparts. There were a couple spots with specific player groups where I detected potential inequality, and made suggestions for restructuring the VIP-program to eliminate them, but overall there seemed to be little cause for complaint.

I asked about their preferred methods of comparing rake conditions between games, and the answer I got made perfect sense from their stand point. I don't blame them for using it. While the current PLO-rake – double that of NLHE – seems unfair to PLO-players, it's important to understand that the keyword isn't ”fair”, it's ”healthy”. Stars clearly considers small stakes PLO to be healthy and sustainable in it's current condition. I sincerely hope they are correct in that assessment. Last summer there was enough outrage to leverage Stars to make concessions and lower the rake for some stakes, but that no longer appeared to be the case.

There's always a chance the data I was given was flawed or deficient, but if that was the case, the games at SSPLO would undoubtedly dry up relatively fast. I also suggested rake relief as an investment to make the game grow, but failed to convince them. Apparently PLO is growing nicely under the current conditions. Nonetheless, it's important to follow up on this topic at the next meeting, and see if we're still heading in the right direction.

We then had a similar conversation about Omaha 8 rake. PLO8 was very comparable to PLO according to the afore-mentioned Stars method of observation, but NLO8 was falling behind. They had some ideas as to why that was, and promised to keep monitoring the situation.

I also asked about zoom-winrates compared to those at regular tables, and wasn't surprised by the answer. That's definitely an interesting aspect to keep an eye on going forward. I suggested the possibility of zoom-pools remembering your 100bb+ stacks for couple hours even after getting booted to make the games run deeper to offer an indirect rake reduction.

We wrapped up the meetings with sessions on the VIP-store and the VIP-club. I almost never use the VIP-store for anything other than cash-bonuses, so I had little to contribute to the discussion. Few notes:

-shipping faster now
-ability to buy products with a combination of FPPs and cash discussed
-more books coming up

The general discussion on the structuring of the VIP club was interesting. We talked about the possiblity of ”Robin Hooding”, taking money from the Supernovas and SNEs to give to the lower levels and promotions. For my part, I said I could certainly give up 5k of my ~45k in rewards from last year to make the games softer, but that I'd have to be pretty damn convinced that it was a worthy investment. All parties agreed, however, that SNEs on average give up so much EV with their overkill volume that they need to be rewarded for it. We didn't go into specifics or discuss schedule for such changes.

There wasn't much left to be discussed for the wrap up session at the end, we were more or less satisfied with the topics covered. While I felt a little dissappointed about failing to get a rake reduction for PLO, my general mood was optimistic and felt like there was progress made on several issues. I urge the community to keep taking part in these meetings and not feel cynical about them. I clearly wasn't there just to make a list of demands, Stars wanted the reps contribution on a number of topics for changes they couldn't yet announce, and being able to discuss the current state of online poker in confidence was certainly a good thing for both parties.

Thanks for giving me the honor of being your representative

P.S.

PokerStarsSteve will be posting his version very soon. I may also provide links to the other reps' reports.

"Robin Hooding" sounds absolutely horrible. And the crew of you thinking it was somehow acceptable is scary. You saying, "I could certainly give up 5k of my ~45k in rewards from last year to make the games softer, but that I'd have to be pretty damn convinced that it was a worthy investment" is naive and too loose an atttitude to take as my rep. This one issue is enough to declare these meeting a horrible idea.

#1 There doesn't seem to be much proof that the past increase in rake at $50/100+ to $5.00 ever trickled down to lower level VIPs.

#2 Your trip report seems to say Pokerstars isn't making any concessions.

So why the hell should players give up even more?!?!?

True Robin Hooding is taking from the rich. The ricshest freaking group is Pokerstars. D'oh.

Two things I cannot wait to hear more about:

1) Russian PTR

2) Their solution to the seat script problems where you say we may be a tough sell. Pretty concerned over this statement truth be told.

Side Note: I am not Supernova or Elite and have never been. That being said, I honestly think it is foolishness that anyone who has put in the time and hours to achieve this accomplishment should ever have to think about giving up ANYTHING for those players just under/way under who cannot make it to that status.

The poster above me is right. If anything POKERSTARS and Pokerstars alone should make the concessions there. NOT any of the players.

Great write up though, I (most of us here) really appreciate the time and thought that goes into these meetings.

I just want to see some more action being put into it but from the sounds of things I have seen mentioned here and a couple other posts, it should be coming soon.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the report GGARJ and your effort in this. I'm especially curious for the seating scrips solutions...

Good job.

Thanks

I understand perfectly why you feel the rake/rewards concessions should come from Stars. I can't really talk about their position on this, so I suggest you take it to Steve.

I was simply making a general point that I, as a Supernova reg, am willing to make concessions to make the games softer and gain more recreationals.

Russian PTR and seating scripts I'll also let Steve address for obvious reasons.

Nice write up.

Thanks for attending and good write up.

Peace.

Was there any discussions on reducing the rake specifically for zoom?, i mean clearly stars see a big decline in winrates for zoom, really would love to see this happen.

How did I know this would happen

Im tilted now.

Stars has players reps come check out their kingdom, Player reps are in awe, Pokerstars feeds them some sandwiches, shows them some numbers, and then the rake issue is swept under the rug?

What specifically has been said and told about changing rake in the future? better VIP program? supernova's/SNE's getting more RB? multipliers? Please dont tell me NDA prohibits you from saying anything, I'll shoot myself.

Seat scripting, what is going to be done? will players police it? Is stars handling it? Again, what are the details?

Your TR is great and all, but where are the specifics? Im pretty sure no one gives a **** about pokerstars 7 (which has been out for years and still isnt released ) and mixed game sng promo's (is that even real?)

I hope my tone isnt bad, I like u alot tappi, but im sick of these player meetings, because **** all gets done afterwards

Also- LOL at giving up 5k in rewards to see the economy grow. I know what you mean by wanting to see softer games and more spots, etc. but come on now

robin hooding =

Speak for yourself.

Not the first time Stars invites Reps and they are in awe of whatever is shown.Their jaws are dropped for such a long time that by the time they close it, everything stars want to feed is given to the reps and they comeback and try to be more balanced in their views in these reports.

That said, thanks for getting my personal recommendation of sit out one = sitout all tables.
Though am not greatly into sunday majors, i like the idea of PLO O8 tourneys in the line up. Much awaited I would say.
What solution did stars say for seating scripts. You only made a generic mention of it.
Do they have anything better than the age old changing the tables and moving the cards in bot hunting? Chinese Australians and some russian players are much advanced than these methods.
You seem to be a nice man though OP, you dont completely deserve the flak you may get here but thanks for doing what you could do best. Hope you still have a long role to play in this entire endeavor.

GGARJ,

Did the data you saw show that there was no PLO stake at which a significant number of players were not winning pre-rakeback (corrected for the typical number of heaters one expects to see in such a high variance game)?

OP signed an NDA and although I posted what I wanted to hear more about, I knew that the information was not going to be coming from him.

I am sorry but I am pretty sure OP posted everything that he could say and the rest is up to Pokerstars to lay out for us.

I do not think OP needs any guff from anyone here. The man cannot go into FULL detail and that should be pretty damn obvious to anyone.

TY GGaRJ. To clarify, Zoom winrates are significantly smaller?

The rake discussion is incredibly frustrating, it's impossible to make any serious arguments without the measures and data Stars are using being available to the wider community, and with the NDA that's never going to happen.

GGARJ:

well done.
Nice detailed report.

So if i understand correctly there will be a new sunday major plo mtt?

And the rake will stay the same?

You call it healthy now But if so then lower rake is more healthy. Can you explain more why they did not change that point of view on rake?

I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth when you mentioned the robin hood part..

Awaiting the seating script solution..

From reading previous post by Pokerstars i'm pretty sure they want to remove table selection, which is a horrible plan imo.
They just want to reduce winning players winrates so losing players lose a bit slower and generate more rake before they bust.

Also WRT "Robin Hooding" (I hate that term already), I could only possibly support that if it was combined with a serious discussion / reduction of the rake.

Was this FTP as in Full Tilt? If so, what was said?

Nice write up op ty

hmm scary to hear things like that, I would like scripts to disappear too, but all solutions I've ever heard are so much worse then then the current state of games with scripting going on. ( All zoom being the most common ) But I trust stars is smarter then that, but still unsettling to read.

That was discussed. My impression was that the laws of supply and demand will determine the outcome.

NDA is what it is. Please don't shoot yourself

I can also assure you that they didn't feed me a single sandwich during my stay

Well, I said I was impressed by the new software and game integrity. I thought some promos were positive. I said I understood their position on rake. Does this mean I'm so in awe that I can't write a balanced report?

I also mentioned I had mixed feelings and felt reserved about some of their suggestions.

NDA

Pretty much this. I was actually pleasantly surprised I could post this much detail, such as how PLO/PLO8/NLO8 compare.

Also, having been a mod for 3 years has made my skin quite thick, so I don't mind harsh words too much. This is an internet forum after all, and I can't blame people for feeling disappointed. I'm obv more likely to comment on criticism that's constructive

NDA

I can't announce anything wrt MTTs, unfortunately, hopefully Steve will address them. As to their position on rake, I can't explain Stars position in any more detail.

Haha, I made up the term for the report. I'm well aware such a change isn't popular here, and so does Stars.

Yes, it was Full Tilt. We were just thinking about ways to increase traffic there, can't really say more.

Did you guys talk at all about Sharkystrator and the cartels at HU SnG's? That seems like one of the most unfortunate situations on PS right now.

No, that never came up. I must confess I'm not sufficiently familiar with the situation to discuss it either, I've only read about it a little on NVG or Zoo.

Serious question, what's the point of the PS meetings if no information from them can be discussed with the community?

Hey GoGetaRealJob

just wanted to drop in and say thanks for all the extra curricular activity you put in on behalf of this forum. Really refreshing to see someone who is clearly a very forward thinking individual that cares about the state of the poker economy and actively gets off his backside to do something about it. Your posts are very interesting to read and diligently constructed. I'm just sorry that after you post them you seem to have to face a barrage of negativity.

I'm sure there are others who deserve credit but I only really visit the SSPLO forum so you are the rep I have the most exposure to.

To all those moaning about the rake: Get better at poker, play deeper to help cap the rake or stop playing PLO Zoom like volume zombies.

Thanks again dude, take care.

You can't think of anything positive that has resulted from the meetings over the years? And no discussion generated?

Thanks for your kind words

The negativity is inevitable when we're discussing changes into a system that people's livelihoods depend on. They have the right to feel scared, disappointed, or even angry at the discussions referred to in this thread. I sure was. But I did leave Isle of Man feeling optimistic about the future.