Looks cool but I mean how many profitable regs are excited to hop into this "challenge" vs only other regs, have all their hands shared ( as per article ) for stars to make media around.

I would assume almost all of the people who fit these specific demographics of 10k+ profit and 25k+ profit at certain stakes would make the same amount of money just beating up their regular games that have fish left in them?

Why jump in a pool with OTB , ike , sauce to battle for the 100% rakeback instead of game selecting to play vs negreanu, mid tier shot taking reg, and a random macau account that is -2m lifetime (or similar scenario with the nl200-400, why hop in a pool with the best of the best mid stakes players who you know are better than you instead of playing vs random donks in zoom pool?)

Unless stars new VIP rewards system makes rakeback even worse than it already is? OR what if they decide to up rake in all games and say "well if you are looking to make money just join in our rake free promotion where you can battle other regs for your profits and prove your skill!!"


Obviously if this turns out awesome give Amaya props but with their track record anything they do def deserves a good amount of speculation imo

This promo is really interesting. Fascinating if you think about it from a biz-dev perspective, but also the incentives for the players involved.

First, consider the ramifications for players. Suppose for simplicity 50 players are invited to this rake-free promo. The worst player in the pool should consider his incentives. Even though the game is rake-free he is the worst so he should not play. Recursively, the 49th best player should think the same. This "should" continue until you're down to the best player in the pool who sits alone and the game "should" never run. However, in reality the lure of "free-poker" (0 rake) and ego will definitely drive these games to run. I'm very curious how much the worst regs are going lose to the best regs and what winrates look like over this sample.

Next from Stars biz-dev. While this seems like Stars is offering something, the raked games won't disappear. I believe they'll face no revenue loss due to this promo. In fact, I suspect winrates for most pros will be much much higher in the raked games. And since it's just winners passing money back and forth 0-rake, there is 0-rake-loss capture for Stars as a business. As for PR, initially this seems really praise-worthy since Stars is offering "free-poker" to the pros. But in reality, this just distracts from their incremental rake-increase over the last few years which remains catastrophic. To me this is a distracting side-show (albeit a pretty fun one!)

As for rake-free 2kNL+, this is awesome and I hope it drives some really fun action at the higher stakes. Can't deny this is great for poker, recs and pros alike. That said, part of what makes poker great is that anybody (not just the best) can plop down their money and play, and you lose that spirit in this kind of thing.

really cool idea

Are these 6max or 3-4max?? The latter is way better.



Also, does only stars profit count?







PLS for something in the middle, 2k too high, 200 too low. 1k plzzzz

are you seriously asking this?

in before WCG accepts challenge

meh

if we're going to bash stars when they **** the bed (seemingly every other month lately), let's atleast give them some props when they come up with something cool, and likely positive for the games.

really cool idea, interested to see how it pans out.

I think alot of people are underestimating the positive effect this will have on standard ring games, removing some of the top regs from many tables across all limits.

Does anyone have a ballpark number for how many people actually meet the criteria at each level?
Inb4 "about 350".

Also, how they determine profit?

Since the link to the Stars corporate blog doesn't seem to have been posted ITT, it's here: https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/c...l-165367.shtml

The leaderboards should be interesting. I wonder if Ben86 will finally get some volume in. Last I heard, he was up $100k in just 700 hands this year.

In theory, perhaps it should never run if the only incentive is zero rake. But Pokerstars is adding prizes, so in reality there is a negative rake. This will turn some players who would otherwise be losers against the field into +EV players.

this is mostly how ive thought of it. most if not all of these winning regs are presumably under the assumption they need to win to survive at life. so if they start losing, they'll exit the thunder dome. soon enough it'll operate king of the hill style with very few people remaining or attempting to rakeback grind w/ the promotion.

There has been running 10+ 10/20 regular 6max tables in PLO for some time now with mostly just regs battling, clearly some regs are over-estimating their skill level and if it was rake-free and with leaderboard prizes more regs would try to test their skill level and shot take for sure.

I hope they do it for omaha too, wonder if it will be zoom or not. I dont mind the handhistory sharing part, stars will just do what 2+2 high stakes thread is doing atm.

"Having zero rake is terrible for the players!"
--- DNEGS

he really said that?

you just got bluffed

i would not be surprised at all, he has become a total amaya shill so it would fit the picture.

There's a huge difference between fenced off ring games that are rake free and free for all ring games that just have substantially lower rake. Part of the incentive for low rake games is to start tables and hope a rec player joins. The lack of incentive for that here makes me believe that when the egos have subsided these tables just won't really run (unless the prize money for playing hands here is absurdly high).

after a long time we will have something to rail a nice move from stars...i think that this is what poker needs...the upcoming seasons will be sick!!

As an American who doesn't play anywhere near these stakes, I can't wait to rail this!

After a long time we will have something great to rail

Will probably incite some action at the lower stakes. Wouldn't hold my breath for high stakes, rake isn't even that big a factor there. Don't think it's enough of an incentive for regs to start battling at 10k. Depends how the 100k prize pool is distributed I guess.

disagree

This should be sick and i can't wait to rail.