Quote:
Originally Posted by JonIrenicus
Even though I agree with limiting software use, the argument above is an argument for the opposite.
Stars is the biggest poker site by far, you want it to copy stuff from sites that have less than 1/10 their traffic?
No. I want Stars to stick with the status quo so that online poker dies as quickly as possible. /sarc
Bovada and Unibet are growing their customer bases by employing more rec-friendly policies. A stated aim of Unibet Poker (which is run by a former Stars employee) is to "keep new players alive for longer". I think it's no coincidence that Bovada and Unibet currently have the softest games among well known sites, whilst Stars has the toughest. For me, the only positive thing about Stars doing nothing is that I get to laugh at the regs that choose to keep playing there with lolbad winrates.
Stars is, of course, perfectly entitled to compete against the "
recreational player model" used by other sites. The "Stars grinder model" certainly helped drive company growth for a decade, and Stars still has a monstrous lead on the field.
I don't know what kind of "churn rate" Stars has at the moment, but it appears the "grinder model" isn't working so well any more (as evinced by so many angry threads about the company) and it seems as if Stars has been very slow to change its culture. Huge monopolistic companies often suffer from a culture of complacency and the inability to react rapidly to changes in the industry. (FWIW, players are like this too. They are slow to realise when they are no longer beating a game, but are reluctant to do anything about it.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDefiniteArticle
"Some tables" is not an option unless there is a way for regs to multitable and to have software working on some tables but not others, and for Stars to ensure that this is the case. The second you ban software on 'some tables' on a single network, you effectively ban it on all tables.
This is not true. On MPN, 40% of the action is on anonymous tables. I'm pretty sure you can calculate that 60% is not. It's a small thing called "customer choice". Pokerstars in its infinite wisdom decided that players shouldn't have a choice between tables full of HUDbots and tables full of "fun players". The only choice for players is to quit the site or go busto. I chose the former, because I'm pretty good at making +EV decisions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by centgas
So has Stars given up on sorting ring games?
It's not just ring games that are dying. To some extent, I think Stars itself started to die when Isai and Mark left the building.