OK... let me preface by saying I have had beer and edibles so i might not be understanding everything ITT, but I just read again ... in a few bullet points could someone please summarize the salient point(s) ITT.

I would summarize by

1) I used to have a dream

2) Stars got greedy and took away my dream. Now I have to get an actual job and wear clothes and things

3) Stars sucks

lol this sounds an awful lot like Daniel's "more rake is better" argument. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense when you think about it. The only way to craft a game that skilled players will refuse to play is to make it literally unbeatable. Speaking of...

There is some data suggesting that Stars' recent offering, Beat The Clock, is in fact unbeatable. And as the OP indicates, we can only assume they will continue down this path. Cool chests though.

yup I'm finishing my law degree now after 7 years dedicated to the game

from boom to doom brothers

I don't know what's going on in Lou's life, he used to make coherent posts but lately he's come close to being the first person to make my ignore list. Even SageDonkey avoided that. =/

Who said anything about crafting a game the "skilled" players will refuse to play? It seems to me Stars is just ending the pampering and compensation of high-volume, and by assumption higher skilled, players. Stars isn't prohibiting "skilled" or winning players, they just aren't going to lavish them with rakeback, perks, and comps, etc. like the old days. Isn't this all we're really talking about?

Uh, you were talking about hypothetical games in which only (or mostly?) fish play. You just quoted yourself on it.

holy fuc. sage donky bad. me think me not bad. maybe me bad, dunno.

I am still not completely clear on what this thread is actually about.

could someone please summarize in 20 words or less?

As people are saying in this thread, PokerStars obviously think marketing winning players isn't as beneficial as turning the games into rake traps. Over the short term, they may be right.


Over the longer term, it makes regulation in Australia and I assume other countries much harder. Instead of telling politicians "make poker legal as it's a game of skill like other regulated games", what do we ask the government? Make some form of poker legal as some versions of it are a game of skill but put in controls so poker operators don't distort poker into glorified pokies/rake traps"

Yeah, it's gotten pretty bad.

Anyway, the summary: A major news organization covered what's known by players: PokerStars is actively discouraging winning regulars in favor of "fun" amateurs.

double thumbs up.

wasnt this all completely hashed out when Baazov ***'d the SNEs 2-3 years ago.

this thread still just freaking me out ... either best ever or worst ever... cant decide.

EDIT

thank you.

but is that really bad.

Doesn't Stars have right to market their products to whoever they want ? dont they have the right to determine what their products are ranging from 4BB uber hyper turbo Spin n Go lottery ticket luck fests upto 400BB rake free 6 max NLHE?

Why does Stars have to be the First of His Name, King of the Flush Draws and the First Men, Lord of the 60/40s, and Protector of the Realm ?

Why do Stars shareholders have to be protector off all that was good and pure with poker. Why cant they just go rape and piillage like all other shareholders ?

No. It is not. It's more them making literally unbeatable games, for anyone. By increasing the rake (indirectly by removing rakeback), and deploying absurdly high raking unbeatable games such as Beat the Clock and Spin n Go Max, which are basically terrible for everyone in the poker economy, recs are also raked more, not just pros.

Lollll.

JFC it doesn't matter what "the dream" is . Poker is dying online the games suck far too much cheating far too many regs

Something has to happen to save it. You guys going on about why you got into poker like that matters at all

It's a free market guys. If Stars really are the thieves u make them out to be, then players can just flock to another site ....right? Cool
But what site is that? None... because no one in their right mind would start a poker site catering to regs




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I can do it in one word.

Entitlement.

This sounds a whole lot like what Bodog did several years ago. Not the same changes by any stretch, but they made a lot of changes recs didn't like, and made it very clear why they were doing so and basically that they didn't care that recs were upset.

https://calvinayre.com/2012/07/24/po...l-poker-model/

Still the number one site for US players according to PokerScout, although not far ahead of WPN now.

I'm not passing judgement, and not saying the comparison is apples to apples (not even close since Bodog was and is focused on the US market which has very limited choices) or that this is necessarily the road to success for Stars. But it's interesting to look back at how Bodog's changes were greeted back then, and what's happened to the site since.

Meanwhile Stars poker revenue down 5.9 percent year-over-year: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news...-percent-in-q2

Poker isn't cool anymore


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The 'really bad' comment was in reference to your: "holy fuc. sage donky bad. me think me not bad. maybe me bad, dunno."

But to answer your question, the issue is with message behind the headline, since the second part is pretty clearly false: "Poker Site Wants Card Sharks to Fold So the Rest of Us Can Win"

( i think this is true for most the world now)
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark


srsly has it right , its the light in which the article paints pros. its the only compition with stars rake system. they have to vilify the pros in the public eye so when they come with more games bad for the public the only people with the knowledge to tell them otherwise will have no credibility.

They overpaid for a industry they clearly know nothing about. **** them darwin prevail let em die i hope galfond gets filthy rich with roi. average people still love online poker in america i hear them talk about more than you'd think. they resigned to the fact that they cant play for cash and play zinga instead.
its nearly impossible to convince someone theyre bad at poker the game should be alive and well.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

also you gotta love the title with the " us vs them" bit

I don't think there is a longer term for Stars tbh. I feel like its hiding the fact that its just too drowned in debt to sustain itself for as long as it can keep the shareholders duped. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the impression I get from all their behaviour.

Popcorn.gif

This:
is quite different to this:

When the rewards structure was changed, PokerStars - quite reasonably - made the argument that most of a winning players' profit should come from winning at poker, and that a rewards/bonus program should be just a reward.

This article takes a very different point of view - that it is no longer the rewards program at fault, but rather, as the opening paragraph says to good poker players, "Quit winning so much."

That's a big change and difference, since it is no longer about rebalancing their own rewards program. The most positive interpretation is that the journalist went above and beyond what PokerStars actually said, because there aren't any direct quotes attributed to PokerStars which precisely say the same thing.

a) Of course the owners and management of any business have the legal right to market their product(s) as they wish.

b) This article isn't about marketing to new audiences, or reaching new customers, or introducing new products. This article - perhaps unfairly to PokerStars, I don't know - is talking about putting the company in direct competition to high-volume players.

c) I don't think that a poker site operator is (or should be!) in combat/conflict with high-volume, winning, players. They're both part of a economy, and both have the opportunity to prosper. The most obvious demonstration that both poker sites, and winning poker players can prosper is that they have in the past.

d) Even as late as January of this year, PokerStars used the word "prey" to only refer to those players who cheated by gaining an unfair advantage. Seeing a journalist - not PokerStars - use it in reference to players who have a fair advantage by studying and learning the game is very disconcerting. That said, Bloomberg isn't the official representative of PokerStars, so hopefully such word choice is by the individual writer, not PokerStars.

Couldn't agree more, well put