Matthew,

I get the feeling that you're taking my word "segregate" literally which is obviously not what I meant. Segregate means one or the other and I never suggested that this new phone app "innovation" was a players sole choice over the regular client. What I meant is this app will have the same effect as Spin and Go's did to the rest of Pstars' offerings... taking recs out of other game formats to play a nearly unwinnable format in Spins (no wonder players are losing 20% faster).

My concern is this "innovation" will have the exact same effect... but it will go one step further in that no "winning" player will even get a portion of the depositors money because the new product is solely for mobile users. Pro's don't play on phones as you know.

You might counter that what about the people that sign up to this new phone app and then convert over to the regular client? That's the same bs we heard when Spins came out and we all know what ratio of new players 1st joined spins and then transitioned over to poker compared to how many former poker players converted to Spins.

On a personal note I couldn't care in the least as I've found a new passion for poker on a site called Unibet which is trying to grow their brand organically and not monetize it, using any and all, underhanded tricks and then spin it like they are doing players a favour. Sorry for my attempt to bring real transparency over issues.

(Please pardon any transcription errors.)

Thanks for the link. I did not understand how explicitly PokerStars are trying to force some high-volume players out. It seems to essentially boil down to jacking up the rake for high-volume players (via VIP reductions) to a level where some will be forced to quit, thereby making the games softer. In that light, the decision to not fully honor the continuation benefits for SNE earned in 2015 makes a little more sense to me. Not saying I agree with the stated strategy or that I feel the SNE bait-and-switch is justified, only that I now see the possible motivation, whereas I was pretty baffled before.

There's more in the interview and people should give the podcast a listen.

Always with this "predatory environment"... The whole point of playing poker and not the lottery is that there's a skill element.

They're turning online poker into a friggin slotmachine.

And why does he say poker should be able to be played professionally and then explain how they are trying to get the multitablers out?

I think that as players in general become more skilled and there are fewer fish and the gap between good players and the bad players become more narrow, a site like PokerStars is going to take in more rake since the rake is passed back and forth more. I think that that's just the natural evolution of online poker.

To compensate for that, I think that the logical solution would be for sites to lower the rake. I think that that should also be part of the natural evolution of online poker. Lowering the rake would solve many of the problems that PokerStars says exists.

Once a company becomes very large, it wants ever increasing profits. Just try convincing PokerStars that it should be content with a steady half billion dollar yearly profit from its poker assets.

But realistically those profits can only come from an ever increasing player pool. To try to obtain those profits in any other way, like playing around with the promotions or curtailing software in order to further narrow the skill gap, has no real future.

If the PokerStars wants to keep recreational players, it should first acknowledge that the Spin and Gos are burning through rec player deposits at record speed. It should also acknowledge that the cash games have decreased by over 20% since Amaya took over. PokerStars needs to make the rec players' deposits last longer by acknowledging that PokerStars themselves are taking in more of the rec players' money than ever before and by not just blaming the regs for the changing environment.

They have been under lots of pressure from their investors to make money and make money NOW! I'ts the only reason all these poor decisions are being made

So there are 2 hours left of this strike right? Or was it extended?

Next step guys?

There will be some announcements pretty soon. Stay tuned.

if you are gonna start another topic. at least put a link here for some.

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The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.[1] The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks.[2] The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s marks the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet,[3] and generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the network.

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Best regards,

cbt

Would be good to soon have some kind of cliffs on this 3-day strike.

+1

Players went on strike for 3 days and pokerstars didn't care, and it had minimal effect on the games.

And douchebags like LexVeldhuis and nanonoko played more than ever.

https://twitter.com/erichollreiser/s...09506439958528

The responses he gave here...

Not quite.

We as a poker community of players proved that we can consolidate and act as a united organized entity and can mobilize pretty quickly. High stakes lobbies were half empty (3 empty seats in a game with candela is at least something, don't you think?)



Also, Amaya allegedly lost tons of rake because more than 2500 multitablers who could play during those 3 days haven't been playing. More precise numbers of harm caused (in dollars) should be revealed by our Russian coordinators pretty soon.

As for what do we do next. As I mentioned above, a dedicated website will be up pretty soon so there will be more information about our future actions in one place.

Finally, the closest action will be 100 special T-Shirts on EPT Prague (Dec. 6-16). For example, Kurganov will wear something like this:



There will be more colors:



In the meantime, I encourage you guys to join our planned January protest.

So don't give up just yet. We'll get them.

I think it's great what you are doing, and I hope it works. Stars has been disgraceful.

Protesting against them at a tournament that they own and run and which many of the protesters have qualified for in a Pokerstars on line sat is well, strange to say the least.

I think this boycott is an unwinnable exercise unfortunately. I have posted my solution as to how to stop Pokerstars "Killing The Game" on this thread in NVG http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29.../#post48807204

Good post. I'm in Prague. Who can I get those t-shirts from, just Igor? And I guess that they're not free?
I wonder how Liv feels about this too, with both being his girlfriend, and being a Stars team pro.

Although surely this is a much better "Don't give up video":


. I love it!

T-Shirts will be distributed by our fellow GipsyTeam poster. I'm not sure about the details yet but Igor will only wear it I suppose (at least he agreed to do so, if I'm not mistaken). The stock of said T-Shirts will be held by another person. Just to clarify.

P.S.: Check your PM.

So the game still runs but there are more hands per hour so Stars is raking more $$$ per hour, yet it's "something". Naw.

^ Way to completely miss it.

Why? Because stakes that are usually empty are still empty? Success! Or is it because you kept high stakes players from playing a plus ev game? Seriously, it's not an accomplishment. An accomplishment is no game running around Candela.

Who is that an accomplishment for?

Stars? No rake
Pros? No profit
Candela? No poker
Micro stake railbirds? No dream