Yeah, it's ridiculous. I'm seriously getting the impression that they're getting paid to delay it so much.

It amazes me that they aren't able to code it in just a matter of minutes.

Absolutely agree with everything. It is highly unlikely that Stars can do anything which will cost them money short term, because there's no real alternative for most of us right now. But they lost a ton of loyalty points with this giant mess which will cost them big time once the American market is regulated and new major competitors come into play.

I'm one of those guys who is pretty much in the middle really. Have tons of good experience with stars, always liked their customer support, software etc etc. Liked the fact that they proposed meetings, they clearly are a smart organization who puts thought into their business and are trying to be proactive but somewhere along the line there has been a screwup and some fundamental **** needs to change yo.

The market today is very different from what it has been years earlier. Every player from 10nl and higher has a hud, looks at graphs, rake figures, think about equity etc. at the uNL 6max forum (maybe elsewhere too but that's where I've seen it) there is a sick % of players who are playing on euro sites and putting a ****load of volume there just because they don't feel like seeing crumbs on their way to supernova and then fearing for losing it when they can get 60% rb right off the bat.

moreover, the days of the fish going "wowww I am a goldstar vip.. let's display this at teh tablezz.. ballaaaa" are really really gone. Most of the players at those levels today are like "hmm nice.. how much rb% can I get on ipoker/merge/wateva again?".

I might be a sucker. But even when I play elsewhere (and I have a good deal on a eurosite, and before that had a stint of leaving stars for FTP- because of rb% and nothing else) I want to come back. Even though I know that by the time I get back I'm going to look at bronzestar again and god knows when I'll see a bonus instead of srs dime given to me by other sites on a weekly basis.

Reading this thread (and the others) might hurt many players who are used like me to stars and like playing there. Others who are regs there and will start checking out deals but mostly this will hurt the bulk of stars players who are at the moment are like "umm... nothing's TOO attractive out there since I really like software and support so I'll just stay here for a while (untill something will happen to make me think otherwise)". And it will. There is a reason why there are so many casinos in vegas or around the world, or why there aren't true monopolies in any business especially those catering to different addictions or why for that matter there are no tables with 5 fish and an empty seat. because when a shark smells blood he goes for the kill.

I seriously and honestly root for stars to build a system that would be superior and would make it ****hard for competitors to think they can beat them out of their own customers. sadly, this and other previous threads might not convey this idea.

edit/afterthought : The reason the rake is so high at uNL is that there is a huge player pool there that can not afford to play higher (and ofc take shots due to rake), what stars need to figure in their VIP program is what incentive to give those players to stay and not jump ship to all the rb sites. stellar rewards were cool but not really a deal breaker. What I'm saying is that atm stars have software, support and regular withdrawals going for them. once someone is able to compete in those areas (as well as giving out rb) there's going to be a ****storm. IF stars can keep the player base happy beforehand, they will profit less now but discourage competition and not only keep their player base but also grow it (ppl will be recommending it to their peers, just ask around 2+2 where u should play if you're a 25nl player and count how many ppl response stars btw). And still make a very good dime.

It should also be remebered that fullring tables at 5 or 6 handed receive higher rakeback than 6-max tables at 5 or 6 handed. About 8-9% more rakeback iirc. Referring to the 5.5x vs 6x VPP thing which is just as ridiculous now as it always has been.

Why should fullring get 8% better rakeback...while 6max pays worse rake per player pre-rakeback? It's crazy.

Yes, a lot of the more risk taking/talented $15+1 players basically jumped up to the high stakes, since going up a level or two didn't make much sense.

I think what happened with SNGs is what's happening with cash now. The ecosystem supports a larger number of regs who can win (say pre-RB), then the masses become more competent/the bad players $$ starts to dry up, and the ecosystem doesn't support nearly the number of good players as before. It gets ugly, people fight it out, and eventually a good number get frustrated and quit/switch games. At that point, it may become profitable again for the best players in that game/buyin, although it's still worse than before.

It would have been awesome if Stars based their rake structure off the $15+1, but at least when they raised the rake at the $15+1 Sweet Spot, they lowered rake at $60+, and more than a tiny amount.

The Hyper SNGs are very promising rake-wise (they charge almost 50% less for Hypers) and can support a larger ecosystem. Apples to oranges a bit since it's different structures, but I believe strongly that Stars will make more $$ at certain buyins (where SNGs don't run often - in part because it's hard to support a big ecosystem with the rake charged) by offering the lower-raked Hyper SNG alternative. All factors considered, etc.

Absolutely, there's people who win pre-RB at higher stakes in large part because of the rake reduction there. And at least for the $15+1 players who had their cozy pond yanked out from under them, many made the successful transition to MTT SNGs. It's probably even less comfortable for the cash game players affected by the rake/WC changes, since I imagine it's going to be more difficult for many to switch to something of similar/close-to-similar profitability?

Klaric, increasing the traffic and not overraking the games is not taking a loss. It would likely be more profitable for them.

You keep referring to them taking a loss by reducing the rake. So why don't that just double the rake to make more profits?

You aren't getting it at all. It's not like they are currently at the perfect point and then reducing that. They are currently way above the point where they should be and thus should attempt to find that point.

Moreover, you should simply stop referring so automatically to them takig a loss because by your reasoning they should increase evetything massively right now.

DISCLAIMER: In no way does this post provide an accurate answer, but I was curious about what the maths would say in terms of reducing rake vs. Stars' bottom line. I think I made a decent amount of progress by looking at some of the statistics available. There's a lot of unknown variables obviously, a lot of which have been mentioned ITT by micrbob, chezlaw and others, and these unknowns are pretty big hurdles for concluding anything with much confidence. If nothing else this might help others decide what kind of questions need answering if we truly want lower rake.

RE: Would Poker Stars Reducing Rake by 10% be good for their bottom line?

• According to buyhands.com, Poker Stars raked $48,143,773.38 for the month of January with 279,310,743 hands played. Buyhands claims 99.99% accuracy from November 2011 and forward.
  
• 10% less rake would result in a $4,814,377.34 loss of revenue for the month of January. Therefore, that is the amount the positive effects of lower rake would need to mitigate in order for Poker Stars to break even on the new rake structure.
  
• The main way this rake change would generate revenue is by getting a bigger share of the market. According to pokerscout.com, Poker Stars has a 7day average of 30,000 cash players playing at any one time. The other non-US sites have ~15,000 7day averages, 50% of Poker Stars' total and accounting for 33% of the market. Pokerscout claims to track 98% of all online poker traffic.
  
• To find out how the competitions market share relates to Poker Stars' potential revenue, we need to make some assumptions. One, players on other sites play hands at the same rate as players on Poker Stars (probably reasonable). Therefore, # of cash players has a linear relationship with # of hands played. Second assumption that must be made, the average player on Poker Stars plays the same stakes as the average player on other sites. Unfortunately, this assumption will very likely skew the numbers because it is very unlikely that other sites have the same stakes average. If the average player plays higher stakes on other sites, then Pokerstars would need to capture less of a market share to maintain profit. If the average player plays higher stakes on Poker Stars, Pokerstars would need to capture more of the market.
  
• With those assumptions, if EVERYBODY from other sites migrated over to Poker Stars, that would result in $21,664,698.02 extra rake for the month of January. To cover the $4,814,377.34 loss from reducing the rake, Poker Stars would need to take 22.22% of the competitions market share in order to break even on revenue with the new rake structure.
  
• There are other benefits that a rake reduction would have on Poker Stars' revenue. Reducing rake by 10% has a positive effect on the # of hands played for existing players on Poker Stars. Losing players would lose less and therefore would run out of money at a slower rate. Winning players would win more, and therefore would be encouraged to play more hands. If the rake change increases the hands played for the month of January by 2% - this would result in an increase in revenue of $866,588 with the lower rake structure. Instead of 22.22%, Poker Stars would only need 18.22% of the competition's market share. Obviously 2% is just my own guess, it is impossible to tell what the actual increase would be, but I believe it is provable that an increase would occur.

Questions

There are a ton of questions that still need answering before this kind of data can provide a real case for lower rake. Questions like:

What's the difference between Poker Star's rake/hand and other non-US sites rake/hand? Remember, it's not about their rake structures, it's about what kind of stakes the average players are playing at each site relative to Poker Stars.

15k cash players on other sites was a rough estimate based on the top 5 non-us sites. What's the true market share split look like?

What would the true relationship be, between less rake and # of hands played for existing Poker Stars players? Would a figure like 10% less rake have an insubstantial effect on the players volume, or a profound one?

What other effects, short term and long, would lower rake have on the poker economy and Poker Star's revenue?

How much of the market could Poker Stars capture from competing sites with less rake? How much less rake would it take?

---

Some people might think there's no point in presenting a case like this because Poker Stars won't listen. To me, the risk of wasting an hour of my time on deaf ears is worth it when the potential rewards are so high. For others who want to contribute, I think the last question in particular has an answer the 2p2 community could pursue. A ton of players that play on other sites post here - asking them some questions could lead to more interesting answers.

Give us a real rake reduction.
Scrap the "we are poker" ads.
Make "we have the best rake in all of poker" ads.
Watch all other sites crumble as all of their regs flock to stars.

Side effect: make more money and ensure good will for a long long time.

Of course everything we're all saying is a simplification. You think they're way above the "perfect point", and maybe they are. I don't know. I don't think you can know they're way above it though either.

IMO, the only real evidence you need that they haven't achieved the most optimal rake structure is their lack of experimentation.

Only problem is they need the recreational players flock to stars not the regs (unless they are net depositing).


To get more regular players targetted rewards (like supernova UK) would be more cost effective way of competing. Give the rewards to the players who care, and let the ones they don't play in bliss.

To the more serious recreational player, it doesn't matter if you have the best rake by a little bit, if you have the worst rewards by a long way.

Just a general observation from my time at Stars:

If you want to get them to change things, your best way of going about that is to look at things that are truly going to make better games. They will not easily listen if they think you're just trying to make things a bit better for yourself. The negativity a lot of you guys project can sabotage your goals even if it's justified because it stops you from seeing all angles. (eg. TheMetetrown)

remove rake at split pots. fish usually dont care about rake, they dont even notice but when they put in their whole stack 5$ a gets back 4,5$ after splitting pot they get angry sometimes in chat

You do have a point there. And I too am guilty of conveying my thoughts in the wrong tone.

Because people like Klairic go to IOM and conveniently ignore that a rake cap is shared by more people at FR vs. 6max.

2.80/7 or 2.80/8 or 2.80/9 < 2.80/5 every day of the week.

Hell, 2.80/6 < 2.00/4, even, so FR with 6 players is better to play than 6-max with 4 players in terms of rake paid per player per table.

For many low level stakes affected by these caps, I thought the 1.5/2/2.5/3 rake cap for 3/4/5/6+ players that was proposed here (I forgot by who) was a great idea, but the reps and Stars conveniently ignored it. It probably cut into Stars' profit too much anyway.

Sadly I think he has been deluded into thinking FR pays more rake per player per table than 6 max does.

I personally don't think FR should be getting kickbacks for playing in a format that lets people more easily play 10 tables or more. This is the crap we need to avoid to help maintain long term stability of the game.

I wonder how much money they waste on TeamOnline members. Besides some well know pro names like Negreanu and Greenstein for advertising value they really don't need anymore. Drop the rest and drop the rake.

I don't see how it fails, and I see no argument from you as to why it fails. I also disagree with your assumption that the money will be used in a risky manner.

I've seen you write B now twice, and I thought you were correct the first time but I realized that you are wrong. Rake reduction for a fish makes a much bigger difference considering their low tier. Fish matter, regs not as much.


All poker is overraked. But FR is LAST IN LINE right now. PLO at 20bb/100 rake in micro seems more pertinent.



Sounds like you are a non table starting bumhunter.




I know you don't reply to me because you think I am 'just trolling' but you are truly delusional. I don't know of ONE other person making this argument ANYWHERE. It's almost like you are trolling us!


Oh, and Great post MikeGotNuts! This needs to be its own topic, its own thread.

+1

I always joke we should have FR tables that are restricted to 6 players to be treated fairly!

I have to agree here. For the most part team online hasn't really resulted in lots of recreational players etc. I don't know if it is a waste because I don't know what they are paid, but if it is anything signifcant they are overpaid.

They changed:
200+15 to 187.70+12.20
100+9 to 92.80+7.20
55+5 to 55.56+4.44
35+3 to *** level eliminated ***
25+2 to 27.78+2.22
15+1 to 13.89+1.11
6+.5 to 6.39+.61

Small sngs, which are the vast majority of the games that got played, got owned. ABIs got torched across the board, which kind of sucks for highend players. Kinda crappy overall. The structure changes were nice, and a needed improvement, but I'm pretty convinced that overall rake made from SNGs by Stars increased as a result of the "fixing" of the rake.

team online gets 100% rb, right?

I play 99% six max. I am saying that if you take 2011 rake structure vs the rake structure now on the hands you are playing, the rake will be lower on the new one. Because of WC change and other factors, games may be looser now, which makes larger average pots, which makes rake higher in bb/100. Rake in bb/100 is not static. It changes based on your style and the state of the games.

However, I still think the rake is too high in certain games, and I 100% think we need separate structures for each game type.

Also people can lay off Klairic. He didn't somehow take from 6m to give to FR. We tried to make a design that would work well across all game types, because we were told that is what Stars wanted. We obviously failed. I think that failure mostly comes from the fact that different game types need different rake structures.

@Mike Nice Post

FYP.

Has to be a level.

This. Even as a CAP player i'd rather PLO get rake reduced before CAP because PLO rake is beyond stupid. Even with 50%+ rakeback on other sites PLO is still terrible value and not worth playing which is annoying because it much more fun than NLHE.

The negativity is due to stars own BS, and is well deserved.
It is clear the rake is too high, and thus any suggestion made is going to make things better for the players.

I kind of get the idea of what things are like at stars by listening to the reps, and what MicroBob had to say about being on the stars panel where decreases in rake ALWAYS had to be countered by increases somewhere.
Seemingly they are a bit arrogant and stubborn in their ways.

The fact that Pokerstars Steve avoids relevant questions in the thread, but snap pm's reps when they say something he doesn't like.

I am not surprised things turned out like this.

I'm 100% convinced future meetings are a waste of time, 2+2 are better of trying to arrange a meeting with FTP2 bosses and pitching all the ideas mentioned here to them instead.

Especially since they're brand has always been about 'By poker players, for poker players' (i'm paraphrasing here).
Why not just ask poker players what they want to see in a site.. (besides the obvious lower rake )
Seems insane that companies in this industry don't care about customers at all... or just be more direct with them... with so much money to be made.

I am genuinely curious what a massive rake decrease would do for Pokerstars. From their perspective the negatives from day 1 are -10% profit and it would be difficult to make a switch back. On the positive more players would flock to the site and existing players would put in more volume plus players regard for Pokerstars would def. improve.

I haven't personally experienced any site that made a drastic reduction but I believe Entraction tried a big drop last Dec. with US tables going to $1 max. Does anyone know the end result?

I do recall when UIGEA came and Paradise lost their US customers and they tried to increase rake drastically to make up for lost customers and it turned out they ended up losing the remaining players on the site. In that case half rake was better than none.

That was everleaf.

Not sure how that ended, haven't been there in weeks. But i heard it was extended to January. It was hardly promoted or advertised. Also the majority of the traffic on everleaf is on the HUGELY over raked eurotables and the majority of the skins block the USD tables so their players cannot even see them, so an already tiny network is further segregated. Traffic on the US table increased as a result but basically it was doomed to not succeed due to the segregation not enough games ran at stakes on the USD tables where the $1 max cap really mattered.

Also the network started to introduce BS feature like if u win more than $750 a week you get blocked from playing with fish. Also warning fish that certain players are better than them when they sit at a table etc... at that point I just decided i'm not supporting a network that pulls crap like that so i withdrew and never looked back.