The only way for recreational player to stop losing too fast is simply to stop playing NL and start playing limit ( Tourney is obv. not included)...
We all know that.

All the absurd thing PS trying to do is gibberish beside trying to get more profit under false claim.

Just hope other site will start thinking straight and offers what PS taking out.

http://www.byebyestars.com/

while I may understand platinum players, I really don't get why players from gold status and below are joining the strike.

Anyone can explain it please?

About those steps, i understand that an un-achieved step will be released at 50% of the Starscoins but what happen next month ?

ex: a PlatinumStar makes 10400 VPP in january. He'll receive the starscoins for the first 10 steps (let's just assume those are 1k vpp steps) and 50% of the value of his 400 out of 1000 vpp in the eleventh step.
In february, He'll start:
-at the 11th step from 0 ?
-at the 11th step from 400 ?
-at the 12th step ?

yeah its called black chip poker

But does it have 600-700k on sundays?

Not yet, wait a month

I'm not convinced that a "strike" (sit-out) will achieve much, but that's a different line of conversation. The reason Gold Status and below are partaking is because these changes are bad for EVERYONE, even if not directly.

i saw pokerscout graph few month ago and the line was 20K players and stars below at 17k.

see them under 15K line is shocking.

they lose money at a less alarming rate, current winning players wont stop playing, but they will optimize their hourly by focusing less on volume, this will in turn reduce the amount of reg per table.

professional poker players are an example of the tragedy of the commons, where if we restricted ourselves, we could organize ourselves to win bigger hourly and pokerstars make nearly no money.

SNE was designed to make this tragedy worst, do you think pokerstars put this in place to give free money to the players and not create players who massacre everyone's winrate by becoming rake machines?

xposting in the strike thread and nvg:

One of the arguments I keep seeing against a strike, and against our position in general as players, is that the sites do not want winners at all. The suggestion is that only net depositors bring value to a site, an idea which I’d like to put to bed.

1) The suggestion that the rake paid by net winners is unimportant to the site’s bottom line, is without question false. In games that run with only pros, the site is strictly taking rake from only winning pros, and they are not depleting recreational players accounts. These games happen all the time. At medium to high stakes sit and goes, and cash games, reg only games happen constantly. At 6 max and heads up sit and goes, pros fight for lobby space. At 6 max cash games, pros start shorthanded games all the time. The idea that the rake that they pay during this process is not valued by the site is preposterous.

1a: The ZOOM model is a really good example of the value that net winners bring to the rake. Suppose a recreational player starts a regular table at 5/10 PLO, and 5 winning regulars join him. The player will, in theory at least, play for some time, lose all his money and move on. In the meantime Stars has raked somewhere in the vicinity of 5bb/100 from all players involved. Now consider what happens if that player started a ZOOM pool? He sits in, and now maybe 10-15 pros join the pool. The recreational player will on average lose his money over the same number of hands most likely (unless for some reason the ZOOM players are tougher, or softer, but there is no need to consider that now). In the meantime, regs have now played many more hands against one another in the fight to play at tables with that same rec. Stars has made significantly more from the ZOOM table, and its coming directly from the pros, and not the recrational player. The recreational player is a catalyst for the game to start, but once it does the sites profit tremendously from the pros.

2) The notion that there is a clear divide between a “depositor” and "withdrawer” is without any understanding of what is actually happening in online poker from year to year. Many games run around players who consider themselves pros but are worse than the regulars at a given stake, or around pros who used to play at a high level and the game has since passed them by. People need to understand that for every example of a winning and successful pro, there are probably many times more wannabe pros that are struggling to make it, and are either kept afloat by rakeback, or simply don’t make it at all. A strategy that aims to attack the high volume and successful pro, is likely attacking many more losers. I lost around 400k last year playing HSPLO, much of which was in my most common game (25/50). How do I figure into this model where the depositors are so valued and pros not? I have a close friend who decided to try to get SNE this year by playing SNGs. He has lost several hundred thousand in his attempt (after rakeback). Guys like him who think they are winning, and either aren’t or are running bad, will not even attempt a year like he did. Under any model, someone like him is of tremendous value to the site, providing liquidity in volume, redistributing money that he deposited, and generating enormous amounts rake. I sincerely doubt his story is unique either, you hear many stories of pros trying and failing to reach SNE goals, or getting absolutely crushed in the process of achieving it.

3) Pros provide a valuable form of liquidity to the site. A recreational player who deposits on Stars and gives it a go, will have a vastly superior experience than on another site. Aside from the software, they will have their choice of game, almost regardless of what it is. 4 AM on a saturday, and you want to play 2/5 zoom PLO? Sure. You want to play a 50 dollar sit and go? Sure. 100/200 LHE? The list goes on. At everything at mid stakes and higher, games will not run without pros. There is nothing resembling the liquidity needed for games to run. Even at low stakes the volume would be tremendously low. At MTTs Stars proudly celebrates the size of their prize pools. The presence of huge prize pools at Stars over other sites is instant marketing. You cannot have one without the other. If you want to entice new players with the massive size of the site and it’s games, you must have pros driving the volume.

4) This one is a bit vague, but I think addresses the big picture that many are failing to see. The idea that the recreational players and net depositors are just gambling addicts who don’t care about anything is plainly false. A huge % of recreational players are seeking to become a pro, or are at least inspired by stories of pros. At the very least they are attempting to win. Stars clearly celebrates the idea of winning at poker, when it is convenient for them to do so. They love the idea of marketing on twitch to gamers. We have all heard Jason Somerville tell his listeners that in poker you can make way more than at any video games. How many of the people who deposit upon hearing that will actually win? Very few surely, but in selling that dream you are attracting new players. And that dream isn’t a lie, at least it didn’t used to be. Marketing and catering games to recreational players is one thing, but a policy that seeks to eliminate winners while at the same time promoting the idea of winning is doomed for failure. New players want to become winners, and winners have to exist for them to have any expectation of that. The marketing of poker practically writes itself. It’s a game of gambling, but one where the best players consistently win. That is the allure of poker, not just the gambling aspect. All of this ties into the clearly absurd idea that Stars has no need for pros. The prospect of winning at poker is what justifies it’s existence, and justifies the obsession people have for it. Take away the ability to win, and you undermine the essence of what makes poker special.

that's a pretty glorious post ansky.

does stars rep even check this thread anymore?

haven't logged on stars for 3 weeks now after withdrawing 90% of roll. and it feels good

Well said ansky

Sharkscope has around 30% of players as being winning players.

That's nearly a third of the player pool who already care about winning

Also:


Break even players who care about winning enough to learn how to be better than their peers, but can't quite beat the rake.

People who are just starting on the journey of learning the game. (There s a huge industry of training sites and books that is built on these players. They aren't a small subset of the player pool).

The idea that poker has the same appeal as something like sports betting where there are maybe 5-10% of long term winners and most are happy just gambling for lolz is misguided.

Poker is competetive and people measure their success in bankroll growth i.e. by beating their fellow players AND the rake.

Take away that and its not merely 5-10% of players that are affected

Ansky +1, this post brings it to the point. Thanks!

this
Ansky = the Last Battalion

And 95% as whining.

Wp

ansky for president !

Hey pokerstars! You're doing it wrong.

I wrote a long message in customer support but it didn't go through for some reason so I'll just summarize my thoughts here.

- I'm a recreational player with 60k VPP this year
- You guys are liars, your PR is horrible, the message you are giving out is horrible
- Your policies are stupid and will lose you business in the longrun
- Getting rid of rakeback at highstakes is stupid. If you do that at least reduce rake paid to compensate?! Enjoy your trickle down effect where it will become much harder to move up stakes (which are already tough enough to beat).
- Marketing more and including spin n gos etc, to get more recreationals is all fine and dandy, but getting new deposits only lasts a short time period. What you need is to keep those new depositers so they redeposit and keep playing on your site. What you are doing is only getting depositors fast, but they will lose money faster and hence quit playing on your site faster.
- Getting rid of SNE is fine, but doing it in the way you did is unethical. The players who grinded SNE deserve the full rewards next year and be given at least an extra year to prepare for the changes. And there should be some sort of upside?! Giving 30c extra to chromestar is not an upside, spread out rakeback more evenly amongst the different VIP levels perhaps?! Some people say that you will use this extra money you gain from your robbery for extra marketing and/or extra million dollar promotions or whatever. Well so far, every year your promotions have gotten worse and worse, for example, there's not even a micromillions this year and your prizes for this December are much worse than last year too.
- You want to get rid of the masstablers? That's fine and good for the ecosystem, but you're doing it in the wrong way. There's many other ways to do this that are much more effective, such as simply limiting the number of tables an account can play.
- Your highstakes games will stop running as often (or perhaps completely), this attracts many recreational players such as myself. Could you explain your thought process behind completely removing rakeback from 5/10+?
- Poker may or may not be gambling, that is another discussion. But most poker players aren't complete idiots and realize that there is an element of skill involved in poker. Even us recreational players want the hope of winning and moving up stakes. Thanks for killing the dream *******s.
- You lied to us and fail to communicate to us throughout the year. Your message is wrong. You say you want to help recreational players and that's great, but really where is the upside? I do not see any. All your market research and business analysis may be top notch, but clearly your new management does not know the intricate details of the poker ecology. If you do not listen to the professional poker players here who have been complaining then you WILL lose out on your business. There is no doubt that people will move from your site, and you will lose hold of your marketshare. You may believe you have monopoly power at the moment, but if you go through with these ridiculous changes you will lose out on that monopoly power and other sites will grow and take the opportunity to compete with you.

Sincerely,
a pissed off recreational player who thinks you're killing your own site.

edit: I know everything I said has already been mentioned multiple times, but maybe just letting them know how I feel could make a small difference.
edit 2: This isn't just us poker players complaining. It seems all your shareholders realize how horrible your decision is. Pokerstars is the name that made you Amaya, and you are going to kill it, this is reflected by your shareprice collapse since your lies have been unveiled.

Amaya you acquired a respectable company and poker players hoped you would improve it. Everybody was optimistic at first. Now everybody is pessimistic, not only poker players, but your own shareholders.

Good post! Disagree with this though:

It is actually very good for pokerstars to have heavy multitabler winning either very little or even making loss, because money is earned in rake. Like many posters already said, the pool of players is not only split in winners and losers its dynamically changing all the time. There are enough guys setting their goals too high and thus becoming losers. Also no representative mentioned this as a goal.

So this is one reason pokerstars will keep allowing 24-tabling but remove SNE and lower rakeback? Makes sense, another lie.

I just made this account to give my opinion about this matter, and no, its not a troll post, just an honest opinion and I don't care if I recieve hate or support for it.

I like the changes PS made.

I am just a recreational player with a full time job, who just makes a few bucks on the side playing poker in my spare time. I love the game of poker and PS is now finally getting rid of those people (and apps/scripts) who were destroying the game since it went online. I mean this 20-tabling-button-mashing-BS and making decisions based on the stats the HUD provides for you, that just isn't poker for me. I am glad PS wants to return poker to the roots.

To all the guys whining about the changes : how about getting a real job and actually contributing something to society? But I guess being a professional couch potato for the past 5 years made you unable to function among people.

Its funny that so many of you post something like "RIP Stars". Stars won't die yet for sure. They will actually make more money than before. The only ones who will be gone are the rakeback grinders and all those who depend on third party software for their income. RIP those guys.

So whats the solution for this problem? Stop playing on pokerstars? Well that won't work for two reasons :

1) 90% of those who said they will leave PS are just bluffing and won't leave in the first place.
2) Even if you leave, Pokerstars wants to get rid of you anyway, so they won't mind if you leave rather sooner than later.

^^ Total Amaya Bro

...My frustration