They aren't taking a loss, and never were. Right off the bat Stars were better off than before the changes. Initial posts quoted the additional approximate percentage of net revenue that Stars were retaining.

I hadn't heard that claim about attracting recreational players more aggressively, and besides, the changes have a negligible effect at best at attracting recreational players who have virtually no idea how it impacts them, and that's even if they're aware of the changes.

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It was never part of our discussion, but my theory is that there is a optimal ratio of regs:fish as far as a pokersite's profit goes. Too few regs leads to too few games running. whereas too many regs leads to less income for the site. I hypothesize that Stars figured they were at a saturation point with regs, hence the reduction in rewards for the grinders. (I may be miles away though.)

no vast majority 1/2

Don't really give a ****, since people have already presented all of my good points, and many, many more to Stars and while I couldn't say whether or not Stars took them seriously, you're still getting 0.33vpp at 200 and the number of tables running is reminiscent of full tilt on a bad day.

Also, don't really give a **** because if the people who actually play on this site aren't as angry as myself, then why would I concern myself with them or their opinions wrt this matter? Forget the money, forget a little less FPPs here, a little less rake paid there. Stars lied through their teeth, the way they brought about the changes was a disgrace, and the way they handled the backlash was outrageous.

When they came out with the changes, among all the terrible **** there was a good change. I forget exactly what it was at this point, perhaps something to do with slightly lower rake. Then the community got up in arms about everything bad (the change to WC without providing compensation for the $$$ stars pockets from the regs, the 5 handed rake cap increase, etc) and Stars' answer, is to scrap everything but WC, including the good stuff and say that this was done because we, the community, asked for it to be done.

Sheeeeeeeeeet, take our money, treat us like ****, lie to our faces and then on top of all of that treat us like we're a bunch of braindead ****ing morons? Well, if someone isn't angry about that, they clearly don't give a **** so why would I care about what they think and how seriously they take the way I present things?

And Stars' viewpoint isn't? Not sure what your point is. The term "fair" is inherently subjective

Hah. I find this pretty amusing as someone who took their business elsewhere. Yeah, Stars said they estimated they were gonna lose money by changing to WC. Pretty much no-one (except you?) bought it, and sure enough when they reviewed the numbers they drew the shocking conclusion they were actually making money from the changes. Go figure.

This was before the larger rake decrease. And altho Stars will be telling you players on average are paying less rake, the fact remains that Stars' tiered VIP system means if you pay less rake you get a smaller RB %. So while you might be paying less rake, those 1MM vpps you might have made even after WC changes, they gonna be 900k VPPs now, so say goodbye to a couple tens of Ks.

Again, shockingly, when asked to talk about effective rake paid (rake paid - rakeback) Stars and Lee Jones do their best impersonation of the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys.


I think the only (non-braindead) people whose opinion of Stars is a positive one after this year's debacle are those who have been taken to IOM. I sorta wish I could go there, if only to see what it is they do to you people that you come back from there either praising Stars as the new messiah or just not giving a **** about anything stars related anymore.

I'm curious about this one... when we left in January, Stars was taking a 2% hit to their rake, changed from a 1% gain before we went. The numbers were based on a small sample size that was supposed to be looked at again when your group went. If Stars was gaining from the new rake, they were supposed to lower it again.

So you're saying Stars is gaining now, and they didn't do anything to fix it at the second set of meetings?

From my recollection, it was made public after the initial meeting that Stars were seeing a gain of approx 1.5% of net revenue. I think it was posted by that nutcase from Peru. If someone can find that thread then we can check if I recall correctly or not. This was also the figure that we were told at our meeting in March.

yea 1.5% sounds about right

Here's the thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28.../#post31203003

Rake Revenue
The change from dealt to weighted contributed rake gave PokerStars an increase in cash game revenue of about 1.5%.

PokerStars originally reduced rake to the extent that only 1% of the 1.5% revenue was returned to the players. They have now agreed to reduce rake by about 2%, resulting in a net revenue loss for PokerStars and net revenue gain to the players.

OK, here's the quote (which backs up what Klairic said.) However, without wanting to recover old ground, I don't see that Stars are in a worse position. (For one, a 2% reduction in rake isn't a whole 2% because rakeback was given on that 2%. E.g. if an average players earns 25% rakeback, then that 2% reduction is only actually 1.5%. And secondly, there was loads of discussion about whether rake actually was reduced at all, give the change regarding incremental rake, etc.)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28.../#post31203003

From that initial post:

Stars then made additional rake reductions after we got back which brought the total from 2% up to around 2.95% (link here). We were very concerned about the small sample size being used and were told repeatedly that the next player meetings would involve going over the numbers again to make sure it was in the same ballpark.

Originally Stars was giving back about 1% in rake reduction, which is where the idea came from that they were making money from the changes (they were). Taking 1.5% away in VIP, and giving back just under 3% should be a significant loss on their part - all other things being equal.

I don't have any info on updated numbers, since I wasn't at the second round of meetings. I am a little worried that MeleaB is saying this wasn't mentioned at the meetings.

ZOOOOOMIN TO A TABLE NEAR YOUUUUUUUU

All things regarding rake were taken into account when checking the rake reduction numbers such as the change to incremental. The overall reduction was 2.95% at the end, but some games got bigger reductions, and some saw an increase in rake. Full ring got the highest reductions in rake because we weren't hit by the change to full rake at 5 handed play.

Well, I'll be somewhere around $40k worse off this year, possibly more, and other pros will be affected significantly too. I don't see those accumalated losses being matched by the fishes' gains.

In addition, and not to be discounted, is the point I brought up before regarding the saturation of grinders on the site. Many have stopped playing now, and that leads to a more profitable ratio of reg:fish for the Stars.

(I'm not questioning your work Klairic, as I made clear previously, it's just my opinion that we- the collective player pool- are worse off.)

!

I wouldn't be upset if you found holes in our work... that would just mean we can go back to Stars and say we found something that says they should be giving back more. I think it's pretty unlikely, but I'm not going to say it's out of the question either.

You're right in that there are some people taking big hits to their bottom line this year. Stars told us what they claim the numbers are in different VIP levels, and for the most part we just have to take what they say as right. We questioned everything we reasonably could, but at the end of the day, there's never any way to completely rule out the possibility that we were lied to.

If Stars' numbers are right, then the lower VIP levels are getting back almost as much as what was taken away from the highest levels (overall -1.5%).

We wanted to have our own data to go to Stars with, but the big problem we saw when trying to get our own player info to use was that the only people that cared enough to step forward were the ones taking the biggest hit. We did hear from some that were gaining, but they wanted to remain anonymous because they expected a lot of anger to be directed towards them.

As far as the player pool being worse off - generally the 2+2 population will be as it's a site with a lot of serious players. High volume players took a hit, that's for sure. They made a lot of people upset for a bunch of different reasons. I guess time will tell if their decisions are in the best interest of the game like they seem to hope.

Jah - we tried to take into account how people wouldn't get to the same VIP levels as before. These were guesses, but we tried making reasonable, optimistic, and pessimistic ones. It made a difference, but not as much as we thought.

As far as effective rake paid - do you have anything you can link to?

What's your vpp per hand roughly? Seems like you 3b so much that you wouldn't get as high a rate as someone who plays more post flop. I really don't know though, could be totally wrong.

I don't doubt the truthfulness on Stars' behalf, however it is possible to present information in a slightly deceptive, yet completely truthful, manner. I felt this was the case regarding the financial statements we were shown, and I mentioned it briefly at the meeting.

nah man, I've already spent way more time than I should have on this ****, can't be bothered anymore

Yeah, I agree, and I think the group I went with all had the same concerns. We didn't really fight for it though since there was so much more to talk about, and we weren't going to be reporting on it.

So, how will we lobby to get SNE and other such benefits back for high volume players? It seems completely illogical for this business to not cater to the players making the site the most money. I don't pretend to be as knowledgeable as some of the other more seasoned regs, or our player rep Klairic, I just see this as a purely business-motivated move by Stars. I'm not saying the changes need to be revoked, but something needs to be done on behalf of the high volume players.

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just something i noticed; wtf is up with the wellknown slapnuts3?

he pretty much always denied HU action with all regs and played like a total nit
all of a sudden he plays every reg HU playing a whole different way more agressive style (he does this 9max as well)..
are 10/8 players adjusting nowadays (dont believe slapnuts is capable of this)?
or is this just an other guy playing his account?

he is not playing all regs.
he is hit and running as soon as he doubles (nl400) or gets his midstack to 100bb (600). sometimes he opens a new table and gives more action on other after this, occasionally he just plain hit and runs
he is still horrible, its the same guy playing I think, just loosening it up

are you on a downswing mike? you seem to pawning off a lot of stuff....

i doubled him up yesterday and he didnt even leave..
and he wasnt horrible..
could be coincidence, lets keep it at that
cus if players like slapnuts are getting better im at macdonalds next year

That's why we organized a massive sitout protest back in January and u know how Stars handled that..