Great work guys!!! Thanks a bunch and I'll be back to the grind in Feb.

Who are you? I'm curious how anyone can look at this and be like, ya that's enough to make me come back to Stars. I'm just curious the demographic of people excited by these changes.

LHE definitely got the Jesus representation. High stakes LHE went from 5% rake to 1% WTF is that a typo?

I just noticed the bloody sneaky rake increase 3 and 5 handed is back again... this screws over 6max MSNL games that often play short and I like playing short handed, I guess it is sit out time when table breaks then.

Is there any confirmation anywhere of CAP and PLO changes??? Because i'm seeing nothing of interest so far.

Maybe it's like taking a bone away from a dog then giving it back again.
He thinks he's getting a new bone and is excited each time.

Felt like it has to be posted here.

These are more or less the same changes Stars first proposed that everyone flipped out about with something extra thrown to Full-Ring and a useless 6nl limit added.

PLO/CAP/6max all are still getting the major shaft and are raked to death and yet got nothing.

FR LHE made out like a bandit.

I get the feeling the representation was **** because PLO is raked just as bad as LHE is and the discouraging of 3-4 handed play is out of control mind boggling.

These changes are pretty much no different for most people I'd guess and very advantageous for a select few.

All in all, extremely disappointed with the results of this. Klairic sure did appear to steer the group his direction though. Oh and xPeru who plays micros for a living sure did decrease his rake paid, but still failed to provide a good path through SS to the midstakes.

aah, you have to love these grumps. i for one would change the games every month just to hear them moan.

There was a way to do this right, but the end outcome just reeks of certain people helping their games out a lot while doing nothing for anyone else. 3 and 5 handed rake increases are back, just wtf. Oh I guess it paid for a FR LHE decrease, that's cool.... gfy.

I was pretty "meh" they got nothing really done there at first which is what I expected. Taking a closer look, it's pretty infuriating to see how unbalanced the rake got at some games compared to others. And how some of the most heavily raked games were just totally ignored.

Not sure what jesus reprentation means but there is an increase in high stakes LHE rake and a decrease in low stakes HU games (which also now affects games at ring, so will aid in game creation), and some key midstakes, like a significant reduction at 5/10.

I only made two small alternations in reducing the rake at 1/2 and 2/4 for ring games. In total I believe there is ~2.85% reduction in LHE rake overall.

It's all written up in my LHE trip report, I suggest you read that.

Yeah I 'd like to hear some explanation to the 1%, I just want a clear and concise explanation to why rake seems to have been reduced more for 1/2,2/4,3/6,5/10 etc etc than it is for 0.50/1 , 0.25/0.50, 0.10/0.20. I thought the whole idea was to give the rake reductions to the lowest levels and not as you move. Please someone tell me I have this wrong

Can u tell us why CAP NL 50-100 got nothing?

+1 to everything

im kinda annoyed that most people are so easily fooled

Stars proposed a 1% rake reduction. As of a result of the meetings, it is now a 2% rake reduction. Along with twice the rake reduction originally proffered, there are permanent improvements to SN/SNE retention and concessions this year for existing high-tier players.

Maybe your specific stake didn't benefit, and maybe you had hoped for more. But let's try and keep the discussion within the parameters of the facts.

Sorry if i missed the post that explains this but will there be a rundown comparing old average rake taken/100 hands to the expected rake taken/100 in the future for each stake and game type?

i play FL SH (3/6 5/T) and on first glance changes seem fine, but i am not sure how this will affect the stakes i play

FACT: PLO/6max/CAP are the most heavily raked games and got more or less nothing.

Explain?

There better be, but I get the feeling it will piss people off more.

I agree with you Cashy, it was an opportunity to address some serious rake traps at the lower limits and for the most part these rake traps remain and wont encourage players to move up whilst players at higher levels are rewarded, such a shame

This please. I can't believe that most raked games got nothing and low raked FR with extra special multiplier got bigger reduction. So tilted.

Ok, I think i see the confusion re. FLHE rake. The way it is presented in the report, for the existing/2011 rake it shows it as %, but really the rake is incremental and at 1/2 up to 100/200, it's in non-banded stepped increments.

The result is you simply cannot compare old to new rake at the eyeball. It may be "5% to 1%" but due to the nature of the difference in rake calculations, the two simply are not comparable. [edit: actually that seems just an error in the chart; it's an equiv. of 1% in the 2011 rake tables too]

As I've stated, for FLHE overall it is 2.85% decrease in rake overall. Slight *increases* at 15/30+, reductions at 5/10 and below at most stakes. Please FLHE players, read my FLHE specific trip report rather than eye-ball the rake charts.

For prosperity, here is the 2011 FLHE rake table:

And it's not like you can try to use the "just be happy you didn't get screwed and don't be angry someone else got a really good deal because it doesn't affect you" crap, because you can see it already that they are using this "2% reduction overall, stop complaining" **** already.

I'm sorry, but if FR LHE got a 4-5% reduction and 6max PLO got a 0% reduction, clearly that could've been distributed better and it DID cost me something.

Special interests gonna special interest. This is why I seriously considered trying to go as someone who has played a huge range of game types and understands this. Starting to think I should've tried harder.



The two big failures:

1. The rake decreases weren't equitable and favored the most vocal reps and their chosen game types at the expense of other games.

2. There was no fix on the clear path from micros -> mid-stakes. The $50 BI to $200 BI levels didn't get the reduction they needed to make that possible.

Can u tell us why CAP NL 50-100 got nothing? and again. you know i lost 1month? i got the same from 1st jan.

why dont care of the begginer stakes from CAP?

So FR LHE could get a 5% reduction.

seems like everything was covered except the vpp disparity

Some of these changes are similar to what PokerStars.fr offered and put in place (mostly the SN/SNE concessions).

I have some troubles understand the point of adding NL6 and NL16. If anything, putting NL20/30 instead of NL25 would have been better.

Oddly enough, this does feel extremely similar to the french situation. Aka, PokerStars announces some astonishing changes that are incredibly harsh on everyone, people complain as expected, they send reps, negotiations go through and PokerStars delivers a slightly smoother deal.

It is no reason for the community to show massive amounts of ungratefulness though... The reps did get some things done, they put in the work and I doubt PokerStars would have been willing to give more back, even if you had sent the best haggler in the world to negotiate. Let's not forget PokerStars did say they were willing to modify the rake further if necessary along the year, and that they will keep communication open with the community.

On the other hand, looking at how this all turned out and comparing the situations of PokerStars.com and PokerStars.fr, I can't help but feel like this was all carefully planned, because there is definitely a pattern. Now that could just be how they decided it was best to manage the "crisis", I could be paranoid.

LHE games $0.50/$1.00 and below are raked to death and received no help at all, what were the reasons? Was it discussed?

Thanks for all the work you guys put in, the result is definitely more than I was expecting.

I do have a question though about the new micro levels at 6NL and 16NL.

I make the following assumptions:
1) Deposit money in a given time frame is finite.
2) We want money starting at the bottom to be able to move up to soften games in trickle up fashion.
3) We want winners starting at the bottom to be able to move up.

Are #2 and #3 not accomplished with rake reduction alone?
Because of #1, I'm thinking that #2 is negated to some degree because money moving from 2NL-->25NL is now being raked at 5 stakes rather than 3 stakes, with the two new stakes taking more rake out of the economy than letting those players play with reduced rake at only 5NL and 10NL, thus removing that influx of new money at 25NL+.

Old:
2NL --> small relative rake in $
5NL --> medium rake
10NL --> highest rake

New:
2NL --> small relative rake in $
5NL --> medium rake
6NL --> medium-high rake
10NL --> old highest rake
16NL --> higher rake

So it would seem intuitive to me if you have someone depositing $100-$500 and starting anywhere within the micros planning on taking it one step at a time, much less of that money is now left once it gets to 25NL+ since they are making a stop at 6NL with larger pots and more $ in rake on their way to 10NL than they would have paid at 5NL, and likewise with 16NL vs staying at 10NL.

What exactly is the logic behind this? I always thought the barrier to moving up was that rake was simply too high, not that the jumps were too big.

Yep please respond to this