haven't gotten through all these pages yet but has negreanu or any other ps pros commented on this??

Also for the people saying "this is a great opportunity for a new site", if you look at the history of online poker up till now, and the complicated country based regulations that come with it, I don't think anyone will want to suddenly invest billions of dollars trying to top the #1 site in a dying industry.

I was gonna say buying Poker Stars by Amaya is the worst, but then I remember... well actually this is the worst

I think you missed the point, friend.

He is hopeful that one of the ~20% market-share networks step up and offer the games as they are meant to be raked.

<3

does this apply to fultiillllllt???????????

Raidalot should open a site. I don't care if you play there aswell

There has been some contention lately in the thread regarding this.

However, this statement is exactly correct. RB grinders are not only a liability to poker sites, they are detrimental cost. Essentially, Pokerstars is paying these players to play on their site, and not really getting their monies worth for it.

Some simple math, with some simple assumptions;

We assume all SNE's are break even players, and that they only grind out 1m VPP per year. PS has to pay out $125,000 per year to these players in rake back(assuming they all maximize their cash rewards).

There was 371 SNE's in 2013 x 125,000$ = 46,375,000$

What did these 371 players bring back to PS worth 46 million dollars? Keep in mind this is only counting the players who made SNE, not all the rest of the RB grinders who can't put in near that volume. I'm guessing (purely bouncing a number) that the actual amount paid out in RB is well over 100 million$ per year. I absolutely agree that loyalty programs are required to keep your player base, but having people be able to earn an effective 125,000$ while brining you back very little for that money is a BROKEN system.

You can argue that these players are driving the games, and while they do bring some action, they also drive some away. I'm guessing that Amaya has figured that losing the action these players bring isn't going to hurt them. (Essentially, if they can increase it from 5reg/1rec to 3reg/3rec per game, it's going to nearly triple their rake profit vs rakeback payout).

Now, to further enrage people - if you are a break even SNE player - you are not beating poker. You are beating a rake back promotion scheme. I do commend you on the volume, it's impressive.

Now, for my thoughts on the "this turns poker into a lottery" - No it doesn't. The game itself hasn't changed. It's still poker, and it's still a skill based game. They could charge 100% rake, and it wouldn't change the core of how the game is played. A person being able to make a long term profit from something isn't the only requirement to deem it a skill vs a gamble.

I'm purely playing the Devil's Advocate here because it's something I love to do. I don't want to pay more rake. No one does. I just come from a business family, so I see a side that very few people are going to understand. I also understand that decisions need to be made for logical reasons, and while the majority of posters here don't see the logic, Amaya made these choices for some reason(right or wrong remains to be seen). I'd like to figure out that before I jump on board the entire "world is going to implode now that pokers costs more money" ship.

Also of note - I'm a rec player. So while I dislike paying more rake, it's not going to stop me from playing. I'm here for entertainment, and if I happen to smash a big tournament in the process, awesome.

We need a pokersite that accepts bitcoins in a way that you can deposit any currency and you get BTC (or a chip-amount) in your cashier which you can withdraw in $ to your bank/skrill or send to any wallet.

Mainly making it a "play money" site where you have to pay for the chips, as odd as this sounds

Amaya Gaming were making operating losses in each of the 4 Quarters prior to purchasing Stars. Cashflow from operations was a little positive like 3m for the year.

Their equity is pretty much all intangible assets 76%.

Looks like they need to quickly increase their revenues to support whatever debt they have taken onboard to buy Stars.

IMO they have increased fees/rake without too much thought about anything else, they will get 2 months where SNE's will have to keep playing and pay the higher rake. They will be hoping that after 2months people will work out there is no where else better to play.

I don't think they are working against regs deliberately but are just trying to find ways to support their new balance sheet.

Be intresting to see what their numbers are like for Q3

Heads Up NL50 and NL100 with 1$ cap rake ????
Your VIP Program doesnt give same returns for low volume players as other sites that have 1$ rake cap in HU.

this should be mass posted everywhere u can, another really good post by raidalot

Would it have any impact if we change our image on pokerstars to something like STOP AMAYA? Maybe even some recreational players would google this and see where is pokerstars going to. On the other hand can pokerstars ban you for such image?

do you understand how rakeback works? you get less than what you raked...

if SNE is 60% RB, then 125k is 60% of rake they made

No he doesnt, but the people who understand the least feel qualified to have the strongest opinions usually, nothing new.

Well they have to approve it first so that may present a hurdle

What PS did right now on the Hyper Sats for example is an increase of rake in 300% meaning it will impossible to grind out a larger hourly than a busboy for the best pros. Hence they killed a whole subgenre of games.

It is worth noting that if you play smaller hypers the rake almost doubles, which probably makes those games games unbeatable. Something like sunday storm sats go from +0.07 to +0.15

A lot of the RB players are breakeven players. But generally mass-tabling breakeven players are, in fact, excellant winning players when they are only playing a few tables. Take away the VIP program and those breakeven players will now be doing some serious damage to Rec players by playing their "A" game.

It certainly isn't the original intent of the VIP program, but it is a result of the VIP program that otherwise good players play a simple ABC game creating a more benign environment for Rec players. To some degree a VIP program acts like the government paying farmers not to grow corn for the greater sake of the farming economy. So once the VIP program is gone there is a new problem to address: What do we do with all these aggressive pro players?

On the Merge Network, which got rid of it's VIP program entirely, they started table restricting players to 4, 2 or even 0 tables. The problem though is restricting or banning players is simply not something a poker site wants to get labeled with. Not only does it piss off the winning players but also all the many losing but hopeful players become reluctant to play on the site. PokerStars banning winning players would have such a negative impact on the site that I doubt that it would ever be a realistic option.

Please stop offering Poker if a site banns winning players.. in a SKILLGAME which is played User vs User theres always a Winner AND a Looser.
If i want only loosers longterm then just offer Casino games.

sry for my bad english

they can start HU tables at nl200 from now on.

i mean 1$ cap at nl50 WTF???

I understand how rake back works. I'm understanding what you are saying, and my initial thought process on this was slightly off. Or at the very least, my wording is slightly off.

I think we could look at it this way - If there was no SNE program, and nothing else changed, it would be 46m$ more in the bank accounts of Amaya. I'm not saying that Amaya is paying this money out of pocket - I understand where the money is coming from.

I'm just looking at it from a business point, and I'm not seeing where a Board of Directors is going to justify giving away this kind of money for very little perceived gain. This is what bean counters see. They see all this rake money going back out the door, and they are going to come up with ways to keep it in the company. Raking everyone more would be the first solution I'd come to as well. The by-product of making games "impossible" to beat is not their concern.

It would be interesting to know how many SNE players turn actual profit vs how many are slightly winning/slightly losing. It's fully possible to be a slightly losing player, yet still make upwards of 80K a year from "rake back".

An interesting question to ask - if they reduced rake, how many people would be crying about how much more volume they have to put in?

The purpose of these games isn't so people can grind out an hourly rate to support themselves. It's to funnel players into tournaments that they can't normally afford. Poker sites aren't here to employ you, they are here to take your money for entertainment.

A key thing to always remember - the purpose of an online poker company is to make money, not give it away. They do not owe you anything. They do not employ you to play on their site.

I fully agree that these top level players will do more damage to rec players when they are playing less tables. Which means rec players deposit more money. PS gets more rake in the end, and that's what they are after. More money on their bottom line. There is little doubt that, at this point, the worst thing to have happened to Pokerstars was it getting bought by a publicly traded company.

We also have to remember that there are costs involved with running this company now that weren't there before. There are more people to answer to, and more people to pay.

Going into more markets is going to require them to spend more money upfront. Getting a license in a lot of markets is going to require them to kickback a % to charities or tribes or whoever else figures they can get their hands in. This money will always be passed on to the customer, and the only way to do that efficiently is rake. I really did like the idea of ads though. I think I could tolerate that, since they are everywhere else anyhow.

Alright as this hasnt been discussed I would like to know about the BOP change.

Im currently grinding microstakes 9max hypers. That means the BOP change doesnt affect me much since is quite hard to make top 10 there.

But lets say somene is 7/15 like average reg. Can someone do the math how much will he lose /year?. Atleast approximately.

Just watch what happened to Party

after killing 20 seconds of my life reading this post i'm pretty sure the one who is addicted to drugs must be you.