I actually can't see how this is correct. Surely when we talk about regs costing them money by withdrawing all the time we're missing one crucial point? Every deposit made has to be stored by the company in one huge fund, because they are legally required to hold that money separately and be able to pay it all out if every player on Pokerstars suddenly wanted to empty their accounts. I'm quite sure this is a requirement for their gaming license and a legal requirement too. This means that money is like a huge float being held in an account completely segregated from the company account. (The downfall of FullTilt as far as I remember revolved around this aspect and the fact they were dipping into this money.)

So with that in mind, all deposits go into this account, all withdraws come out of it. Amaya is legally not allowed to touch a single cent of that (to my knowledge). Therefore it makes absolutely no difference to their profit margins if they were to remove 70% of the regs who made regular withdrawals from it, right?

I can't see how there can be a logical agenda to attack regs which makes financial sense to them. I truly think they are just grossly incompetent at understanding how to run an online poker room.

Also lol'd at the quote by Amaya CEO trying to spoon feed us some corporate waffle about how important their customer base is, whilst picking our pocket. The poker community are an intelligent group of people, so please don't insult us by trying to talk us round with this meaningless 'soothe the dimwit customers' rhetoric.

While you are correct in that huge companies can and do tank other than the ones who are just outright frauds or ponzi schemes to start with they tank bc they sit on their ass count their money and refuse to adapt to changing market conditions.For example Blockbuster started out when a vhs movie cost 80-100 dollars to buy and then 15-20 years later thought they could still charge the same rental rates when vhs and eventually dvds became dirt cheap to buy and also ended up ignoring streaming videos.American car companies spent decades pushing their "buy american" propoganda while making ****ty unreliable cars while their foreign competitors were making superior cars that lasted longer.

Now what stars is doing may or may not be smart for THEM in the long run. But as it stands the online market place is drastically different than it was even just a few years ago. Unchanged online poker is not sustainable. The poker eco system is absolute trash. You can't have a 10 -1 reg to fish rate and super tight games and expect it to last.

I'll say this much- at least in this thread while almost every is angry at the money it's going to cost them, most are also saying it's going to cost stars in the long run. This is drastically different than almost every other thread whining about changes on stars that pretty much amount to people calling stars greedy pigs without even attempting to say the moves will be bad for stats in the long run.

Even if the people in this thread are correct and these moves end up destroying stars and dealing the final death blow to online poker regs need to look at themselves in the mirror. They have spent close to a decade doing everything possible to destroy online poker through their own short sighted greed.Now they want to complain about stars doing the same thing. Maybe next time you find a golden goose you won't be so determined to destroy it.

Cashed out. Cya

I'm staring at a pokerstars advertisement as I'm typing this at the top of this forum page... Considering how outraged a very large portion of this forum is at pokerstars, maybe we should suggest 2p2 take there pokerstars ads down.

I don't think that's going to happen.

and lots of 25 year olds who have spent their entire adult lives making way more money than they ever would have from a job wouldnt be where they are today if not for stars.

they owe you exactly nothing other than your account balance if you request it.

you know who else owes me nothing- my cable company, my electric company, my car insurance company, local restaurants I go to.They owe me nothing- other than to provide me with the good or services I pay for.

and THE PLAYERS would be nowhere without huge donks, espn, money maker, the internet being invented etc. so why not send some money to some donks, to espn,. to moneymaker, to nerds who invented computers and the internet.without them you wouldnt be where you are today.

oh wait i forgot you're just another self entitled whining hypocrite.

lol "officer my other weed guy charges way less than this greedy sob"

Guys who say things like "you don't even know me dog" tend to be complete idiots incapable of logical or intelligent thought. You are no exception.

Most sad thing though that pokerstars isnt pokerstars anymore. Amayadoomstars. Just kinda feels wrong to play there now.

Anyone else think it would be very sensible (from a business POV) for PS to decrease their zoom rake in relation to their reg table rake?

Well you pretty much could call the police and be like "yeah there is a guy selling drugs in my street". He probably would be removed, the downside would be that the would be a hole for a while and you wouldn`t get any drugs.

The option to go nuclear exists in our case as well, on a quiet day we prob could get something like "PokerstarsIsRigged" trending on twitter. But the nuclearwaste would hit us too in the form of less traffic.

Just LOL. I love how 3 or 4 idiots on this thread have the feeling that they know everything and begin to judge others. maybe I should get a job and start doing something good for this world right? my answer for you: you can all suck my d**k b*****s!

Also can OP or anyone else calculate how these new rake changes to ring games will effect the number of hands needed for SNE?

lolol yea bc other forms of gambling are so lucrative.

fish stay at a form of gambling when they have fun and win a decent amount of the time. this is why casino games are successful. constant action, math ensures the house with win but it also ensures players will have winning days and occasional hot streaks.

online poker currently has 0 action and fish win less often than they would at any casino game or sports betting.they don't play for the dream of being a winning player.

lol for whoever said it couldn't get any worse,

The guy who wrote those PLO books also sometimes writes poker articles for the Motley Fool website - he wrote one a couple of weeks ago saying what Speed Fanatic was saying ... that he felt like maybe what made things hard for NJ poker to take root was the fact that there were too many sharks in the pool and not enough fish (G2E 2014: Online Poker's Fundamental Problems)

Funny to hear that coming from him, because I read his intro PLO book, and it was fantastic. It just seems weird that his first thought wouldn't be that rake is too high, because that's usually how you increase customer demand - by lowering prices ... so why would he not first think of the most obvious solution?

With PS in the rest of the world it's different because they have a monopoly - am surprised they didn't lower rewards in addition to raising rake ...

right but people are saying stars is an illegal monopoly.
they clearly do have a monopoly but as they are not a us company I have no idea as to the legality of it.

lol where did i say get a job?I'm not judging you for playing online poker you clown.I am judging your parents for allowing you to eat lead paint as a baby. Learn how to ****ing read,you're even dumber than I thought. stars doesn't owe you a god damn thing.get over it.

I think game would not go away even if there is 100 : 1 reg fish ratio. Fish will play no matter if he looses or wins the same way as they play the casino games.

Lets say current player pool is 100 : 1 reg fish.

As long as fish is in the pool, there will be some top regs who win (lets assume 6 handed ) its possible to win with 5 regs and one fish.

So other 94 regs are just waiting or playing each other believing that they can beat some weak reg.

But they game is running.

Then some regs will see - aha this is too tough, I go playing forex or start another internet business. 50 regs go away of the pool.

Then there is left 50 : 1 ratio and remaining players are happy, game is beatable, 6 players playing and 44 players waiting or playing each other believing that they can win against weaker reg.

Just the worse are gone.

This example showed how the market automatically regulated.

I think this was not possible anything to do about greed. Unless poker sites would implement the feature to limit winnings per months. You won 1000 dollars, and thats it, you can take holidays.

But players themselves will not make it, if you start doing it - some will say - oh he stupid is leaving the gold mine for me alone, I am taking all the money if he is so stupid.

But sites would start to abuse this number. Actually they could even now. This would really make games softer. But the top regs would not be rewarded as much as they are worth. Only it would be easier money for bad regs. And also dream of making some serious money would be gone, which is big thing motivator of playing poker.

Otherwise I have no idea how this can be solved. For every busines (poker playing is a business also) the goal is to make us much money as posssible while it is possible.

If there is possible to make less now for making more in the long run, smart business take this oportunity. But for players there was no such oportunity, because if you take less now - some one else will take what could you.

the only thing they owe us is some ****ing competence

In before they add a 'Tip the dealer' option.

most common response?

All the bumhunters (you know who you are) who whine about the new situation, and talking about Amaya's greed. You should first look in the mirror, and you will same amounts of greed and incompetence. And you are indeed responsible for the new reality as much as Amaya is.

This guy speaks the truth.

How does this effect the 180 man turbos?