That's all I'm hoping for. That stars recognize the parts where their interests align with ours and make some changes that benefit both. Everything I've argued for fits this criteria, I'm not going to waste my time begging stars to cut the total rake they take or anything.

Edit: to answer your 3 questions better:

1) their motivation to listen to the high stakes players over the rake changes are that they can set the rake up in a better way to not punish table starters and therefore have more games running and more rake total.

2)the phil galfond thread is aimed in large part at making playing online poker a more pleasurable experience for a recreational player which helps stars' bottom line.

3) none unless they help stars too, or keep a lot of players happy at very little expense to stars. A lot of the changes being asked for fit these criteria though.

What the reps went to IoM for didn't affect us so we didn't really try to interfere. If we were told that there will be possible rake structure changes for the games we play, we'd obviously be louder.

The vote was also a joke because:

1) posters can make many accounts and:
2) each player's vote shouldn't have the same weight, they should have as much weight as how much rake they pay monthly or yearly

I think you're going on a tangent there. What does being a HS player have to do with whether someone engages a troll or not. I don't expect anything from a HS player that I wouldn't expect from a busto. I don't speak to trolls either but I still manage to stay informed and still discuss things on the forums. If you don't go in the Zoo or wherever to read or participate in discussions because the scawwy twolls might get you then don't complain afterwards that you weren't included in those discussions or that you didn't know wth was going on.

Ben,

We need players like you, aaron, Justin, Isaac, PhilG et, al. to join us in lobbying PS for better rake conditions over all stakes and games.
We need players like you guys because we will get more attention to our cause and we need the analytical skills of talented players like yourself.
We need a united front.

Digger.

Digger,

I spent a lot of time after the meeting thinking about how we could set up a Players' Organisation that could expose all the dodgy practices of pokersites, lobby for changes in the players' interests, do the research to truly compare rake across sites and generally hold the sites to account.

I decided that it was a non-starter: First, to be credible, the organisation must not take money from the industry, but must be funded entirely by the players. Secondly, to get the large scale player funding necessary for the organisation to be effective it would need some top online players to publicly associate themselves with the site.

Since most high stakes regs are or want to be sponsored by the major sites (and I have no complaints about this legitimate aspiration) it would be hugely negative EV for them to associate with such an organisation.

Getting a united front is not a realistic aspiration

Sauce, I was the most vociferous opponent of the high stakes raise. I've said three times that I opposed it and only supported it because I was there explicitly to argue for lower rake at the micros to maintain and increase the viability of the whole poker economy.

I explicitly said that there would be complaints about this issue and made it clear that we should not be bringing home any rake increases.

I supported the proposals because it was the only way I could get the benefits that I believed were critical to the future of the game.

Lol I don't not read the zoo because I'm afraid of trolls, the noise to content ratio is ridiculous, I will obv never learn any poker strat and will rarely find anything worth reading. There's nothing wrong with reading and posting there if you want to but personally it would usually be a terrible use of my time. It is not the place I would expect stars to look for player reps and I didn't even know they were looking for reps! To imply that I should keep informed about poker by reading the zoo or low stakes forums seems a little crazy, I spend a lot of my time playing poker and of all poker related things I could do while not playing, reading the zoo is not high on the list of what it is beneficial for me to do.

I think you missed his point. He's saying that the percentage of well-spoken and educated posters in HSNL who are yet unknown to the community is extremely low. Many of these guys make it impossible to even have a discussion, therefore it becomes mostly a waste of time to engage them.

I'd really like to know how much money you guys are arguing over. I realize it's a substantial increase, but what kind of percentage of your overall profits are you expecting will now go into Stars' pockets?

A player like me... This past year I think I paid ~40% of my overall profit in rake, and that's with a very solid winrate too. I can't imagine you paid anywhere near that much before and would be surprised if it's that high now.

don't get me wrong, it makes perfect sense, most of the things asked for make perfect sense. my problem is that perfect sense, even for both parties, does not always seem to allure the decision makers within sites. if we say "this is a good idea." it may or may not happen, even if it gets to the right person, and it may or may not take 6 months or a year to happen. all im saying is that our time is not being used efficiently, and even if the entire crowd was saying something smart, they may or may not actually do it.

Kanu: I did see stuff about raising HS rake and figured it would be possible (and agree my 2 posts there are a bit contradictory), but I didn't expect to be given exactly the 1:1 tradeoff type situation. I also didn't actually think it would happen despite the chatter.

I think that idea you have is good, but that would take a while to get implemented. I think if we ask them to switch it to 1/2/6 there is a possibility that they'll do that if it means their average $$ will stay the same.

I play PLO and wanted to point out that krmont is not even close to being bumhunter or shortstacker.

Jeah, the player reps might have been no 25-50+ players, but that doesn't mean any of those above. I do believe they did good work in general.

Do we all agree on this? I def do. Maybe we can suggest to stars to adjust the rake increase?

Then it also seems reasonable that you too must have at least known it was a strong possibility. Did you make your opinion known to the reps before they went?

I tried to speak to 1 of the reps but i didn't even get past very basic conversation. It was a very frustrating experience and I didn't feel I could explain anything to him and expect him to take it in and do something about it.

Ok, fair enough. That doesn't say much for the quality of the reps chosen though. Hopefully, Stars will at least listen and amend the changes to something more suitable even if the net increase stays the same.

90% of winning players are no longer winning players above 2/4 anymore.
A Solid winrate at 2/4 was $0.2/hand prior to rake changes ($1-$2 max rake depending on number of players in pot).... now that same player is losing money long term now that rake has doubled ($2-$3 max rake depending on number of players in pot). A solid winrate at 5/10 was $0.5/hand... these players are now going to become rake back players IF they run neutral EV.....

Basically if you don't have a $0.75/hand winrate prior to changes don't even think about playing.... games have become like slot machines where you no longer have a long term expected positive return.

Every downswing is now magnified by a factor of 2... and prior break even stretches of 20k hands are now losses in neighborhood of 5k+ at 2/4 through 5/10.

maybe I'm reading all this wrong... what are the rake changes for games 2/4 - 10/20?

The never can do wrong PS has finally shown their true colors now that the competition has been thinned to zero. GG Stars

From what i can tell looking at HH from today and last year, the amount of rake is based on number of people playing at the table and not the number of people in the pot. Here is the 6max results for 2/4 - 10/20

OLD NEW
2 people $0.50 $0.50
3 People $1.00 $1.50
4 people $2.00 $1.50
5 people $2.00 $3.00
6 people $3.00 $3.00

Paper, I don't think the rake has changed at all for anything bellow 50/100 for HU players.

I played 2400 hands and paid $420 rake today in the Stars.FR smallstakes games...

Something needs to be done.

I compared hand histories from today and Dec 13/11. This is what i found the rakes are (this is 6max):

According to my HM rake changes have taken place. HU does look to be the same.