long time lurker, no stakes in the game...

ignoring everything else for now...

i'm waiting for the "strategic consultant" to weigh in on the "justification" for "demanding" that you receive two spots on the board (with veto power, no less)... i'm really curious as to what type of contorted logic leads to this...

For reasons mostly stated by others already, I'm not joining this latest protest group. I am however doing what I believe all conscious consumers ought to do more often, and simply taking my business elsewhere as I'm unhappy with the overall service from Stars.

Dear Colleagues,

l_gravas asked me to join this topic.
First of all sorry for possible mistakes, English is not my native.

I see some objections here and I really hope you'll listen and consider before your final judgement.
What I would say first is that calling me 'amateurish' is completely wrong.
I have over 15years of experience at stock market as analyst, researcher, sales and trader, with a few corporate conflicts I took part and coordinated as a Team Leader. So the basics of our protest don't arise from Hollywood or business-books - they are based on real business cases and my experience of real corporate conflicts.
As l_gravas has told we planned to announce our site on Wednesday and I was preparing my reasons for that day. Now I will have to accelerate, but as you might understand this is quite serious so I can't just start immediately talking back to your blames - that would lead us nowhere. First I will need to explain the basics of our position, the cornerstones because our discord with most of our opponents lay there but not in the conclusions you -and we- make.
So please do not hurry to blame us, you won't miss this chance later.
I will publish a detailed post here not later than Wednesday but will do my best to do it tomorrow.
BTW what would you prefer: one really huge post containing all theses or several smaller one-thesis-posts? Second one is easier to dispute but harder to read.

I'd like to add that although Khishtaki is a noname here, in russian poker community he has an untarnished reputation. Misha is so respected by everyone in the community that he is usually the first person who is called when two people need an independent arbitrator in financial poker disputes.

You make it sound like you're a terrorist organisation in the middle of a hostage situation, when you're actually a bunch of boy scouts with ideas above their station.
There is clearly a need for the voices of players to be heard, but this second protest doesn't seem to be the best way of achieving that aim. You're starting to make yourselves look foolish.

Why do I feel that there will soon be links to alternatives for Pokerstars on the we are poker players site..

There won't be, not any time soon at least.
Though i also would be suspicious.

First thing PokerStars should do to show they are serious about this cluster****, is to fire the guy that is responsible for the bad communication.

A reasonable and logical compromise here and an olive branch to send out from PokerStars would to remove VPPs from noosebleeds, 50/100+, and keep it on mid-highstakes (5/10, 10/20 and 25/50).

I think changing the VIP freerolls to all players are totally reasonable fine compromise if you honest about the change. Regarding moving rewards from high level VIPS to new players. Letting people sign up or old players to rediscover PokerStars for the change playing in a one million dollar price tournament is cool and good marketing.

Removing/Cutting the 50/100+ rake and SNE/SN rewards from 2017 (not 2016) should be followed up with a promise on lower micro rake. Stealing those rewards in 2016 is not an option.

Any thing they cut in rewards one place should be shown dollar for dollar where its moved for the benefit of the game.

Micro players should anyway be smart enough to join in on this discussion cause they might very well be next. And its a trickle down effect. These changes hurt every player.

Who is on the board to decide demands and the overall message on the site? Hopefully at least two of these people are onboard: - Ansky - MeleaB - ZeeJustin - Galfond.

Unfortunately, it's a war.

You're going to be pretty disappointed when you apply for veteran benefits.

Expecting poker players on the board seems amateurish (sorry to be confrontational). Typically boards for publicly listed companies are made up of executive directors who work at Pokerstars and non executive directors - people who have experience in other industries and can bring that experience to the board eg for Pokerstars non exec board members could be people with experience at other gambling companies, other companies with high regulatory obligations, people connected to the government,etc.
I've never seen a Board consist of the company's major customers and would suspect that including large customers would be a major conflict of interest. An example, I've seen CEOs of major banks not actually use their bank for their private funds because of conflict of issues concerns.

You exacerbate the board demand by asking for 2 representatives- it's lol bad.

This is the correct attitude, and the attitude that is needed.

Yes bc that's how price increases work in the real world.

that sound you hear is people jumping off the ship...

you and your narrative have officially moved to the 'crazy' side of the fence...

Yes, a war AMAYA won before it even started.

lol, losers are very strong in this forum, i suggest we just ignore them.

[QUOTE=sandr1x;48883266]Unfortunately, it's a war.[/QUOTE


Lol
You are the one who licked out the site before time and now using term war to get SNE and SN their RB %, sounding like using the small players as pawns

"small players" are not losers with the new changes in monetary sense, however, a lot of them will feel that they are robbed of their dream, of achieving this dream and would stand with us on that premise alone. I was once goldstar dreaming of becoming platinum, then i achieved platinum for several month in a year. Now i am SN and was looking forward to becoming SNE next year. Just to give my personal example. Its the shift in startegy we think is the wrong one, but even so, had that been communicated in say January 2015 we would have to accept it without claims, but the way it was communicated is outrageous and straight out theft.

HU seems to be portrayed as cancer in the poker rooms. If this is true, why not remove highstakes HU poker instead of removing rewards for highstakes ring games?

I would even be fine with removing all HU games if it reverse most of the other changes. Alternatively just remove all rewards on them.

I think this is the wrong attitude and will likely be counter-productive. You're free to do what you like, of course, but be aware that you're in danger of isolating yourselves as a bunch of nutters, instead of getting the wide support your cause really needs.

P.S. It's a basic tactical error to post your battle plan in public where the 'enemy' can read it. Some of the Pokerstars staff will be literally laughing out loud at some of your plans, and if your cards are face up, you're gonna get superused.

not always, Arty. Publicity is a double-edged weapon...

As promised first I try to explain the basics and the reasons why we think it is crucial to oppose Amaya. And why we are sure that this affects not only ‘stupid grinders unable to increase winrates thus concentrating on volumes of play instead’.

Main thesis:
This changes as well as previous actions of Amaya are not about fixing poker ecosystem. It is fully reversed only about increasing the rate of money extraction out of poker ecosystem.
And moreover today’s action is not a separate one. It is yet another step on the way Amaya is pushing PokerStars – from poker as game of skill toward casino.
This thesis is naturally impossible to prove in mathematical or juridical sense because it concerns the intentions of a person but as it happens sometimes in poker this time Baazov’s hand is face-up (see the Spoiler for our reasons).

the story is not about redistributing resource between different groups of players.
The story is about: the largest (and probably I could say the only) poker room now is consciously turning poker into game of luck instead of game of skill. They started it far earlier, but now we see it clear and try to sound alarm until it is not too late.
That is why we say “it is a war”. Because it is their clear intention and because their values are fully incompatible with ours.
That’s why we say “it concerns everybody”. Because this is not against SN/SNE. This is against poker as a game of skill.

There is a popular position ‘this is their business and we shouldn’t interfere’. I can understand this doubt, but after all I think it is inapplicable in this particular case. There are two separate paradigms we could consider this matter. And it is important to consider them separately because it is senseless to oppose ethical reasons against EV-ones or efficiency reasons against social responsibility.
In the paradigm of business logic and Service/customer relations Amaya definitely has the ultimate right to do anything they want to the terms of service. But we also have the ultimate right to do anything we want. In this case we suppose we should want to:
a. Demonstrate Amaya that they underestimate our (regular poker community) importance
b. Form some analogue of ‘labour union’ to secure our values in future
So it’s a kind of formal Game: they have their strategy, we have ours and we try to influence the situation. In this paradigm everyone sharing values of poker as a game of skill should oppose Amaya and the question is just how to do it in a most efficient way.

In the ethical paradigm there are more limits to the actions of a person (most ethical things are legal, but not all legal things are ethical). But from ethical point of view it is generally doubtful that Amaya and Baazov have ultimate right to be the only person influencing the development of PokerStars. Poker is common heritage of mankind and the fact of owning several shares in the company that became a monopoly in world poker doesn’t give anybody the right to destroy it as well as even if I purchase Gioconda I can’t burn it (can’t – in ethical sense of course).
Moreover don’t forget that Baazov is not the sole shareholder of Amaya: there are investors and creditors. And as I am sure that his actions are generally very doubtful for PokerStars long-term prospects, it is absolutely normal for me to interfere at least to try to explain this to investors who are not as deeply involved in the matter. (under the spoiler I share some thoughts on why I think the strategy of Baazov is doubtful – very briefly)


Ok if this is war, then what are we fighting for? And what could be the solution?
As I mentioned above the rake itself is not crucial. In fact this is both their right and their ethical duty to keep balance in poker and protect the ecosystem. All we want is they really do it. We discussed much internally on what should be the general criteria: when we could say “this poker is still game of skill – but this one is already a game of luck”. What we finally came is the principle that every game at every single stakes must be possible to ‘beat’. It means that skilled player must be able to earn money there at a reasonable distance (not 10 years, but one-two months). And it is obvious that current changes contradict this rule. This principle is hard to formalize and easy to angleshoot, that’s why we placed the requirements that shocked many of you – the one regarding PokerStars (btw – not Amaya!) board. In fact this requirement is not a goal – it is just a way to secure the status quo in case we reach our main goal – that poker remains game of skill.

I suppose for a start I leave the text like this – let us first discuss the basics, conclusions and general goals. Should we come to a consensus – I will prepare a detailed post on how do I think we should fight and why we will win.
In other words, strategy comes first and tactics will follow. So I ask you to be positive and discuss only the general conception at this stage.

Oops, sorry, I didn't know the spoilers here work in this manner...
Next time I will try hyperlinks

I did what I suspect very few others will do - I actually read it all. Not sure what to tell you other than what was presented is the definition of how not to try to organize a movement.

You know what worked the first time? It was nice and simple. A 3 day strike on these days - with a countdown to 1,000 participants - you in or out?

Know what the sequel reads like? A crazy 9/11 style manifesto, complete with all sorts of making factoids fit a need to believe something, such as the following:

"c. Dilute the reputation of Professional Poker Player by hiring celebrities that do not play poker at all"

Dilute the reputation of Pros? Seriously? Know why they hired some of the celebrities? Because they appeal more to the masses than a disposable "poker celebrity." The era of the poker celebrity being an effective marketing tool was long gone (except for a very small few) before Amaya was even in the picture.

Anyway, the whole things reads like all of these changes were a secret conspiracy to just screw poker pros, when in fact the changes are more likely due to the changing environment of the industry, and also the changing needs of consumers. Stars did not create Spin and Gos or Zoom to screw a SNE - they did it to appeal to the casual players who use mobile devices and want to have fun playing poker for a few minutes. A regular speed 9 man sit and go can take an hour to finish. A spin and go takes 5 minutes. Which will appeal more to a casual player looking for quick fun?


A proper follow up to the "strike" (regardless of how much impact it actually had) would be to have a simple follow up strike, with a few very simple, specific demands (better communication, SNE benefits as promised, what levels to remove VPPs etc). That would have likely gotten some decent support, perhaps with a few better known players leading the charge.

The emotional, dramatic, chaotic stuff posted above (which had the word "slots" so many times I lost count along with "war" and "greedy" - it just needed fatcats and backroom boys and sheeple in the mix) - I will be genuinely shocked if it gets mass support.

I am not sure it will be a war if one side ignores the other, but I guess we will see how it plays out.

There were 2500 participants actually, and 3-day strike can not achieve anything except showing that poker players can unite. Also Amaya lost some money but clearly not nearly critical amount. But bigger and longer strike will make amaya loose more money than they make by removing those rewards.
Also, there's extremely important point that Amaya have already run Ongame and FTP down, they basically have no idea what they are doing. Incompetent as definition of the word.

Oh my. Please find a sympathetic person who speaks English before you post any more massive manifestos. Pages of drivel won't help your cause.

Monteroy, I also read it. You're a saint for being willing to sift through the incoherence in order to extract the flawed logic hidden underneath the word jumble.

My point was that the simple approach (3 day strike) with an inadvertently clever method of progress (the countdown to 1,000 participants) is a lot of what gave it appeal and made it successful. People felt like they were part of something, especially as they saw a count of those joining, and it was easy for them to make their voice heard as a group.

Your latest stuff is quite a bit different from that, and much of it reads like a paranoid jumble (even if some elements within it have some accuracy at times), and the personal agenda crusade approach is always a tougher sell for getting followers.

Anyway, you seem to believe your approach is smart and effective, so time will tell who was correct in this. Perhaps someone else will, in conjunction, attempt to talk to Amaya to suggest better communication with some selected player representatives, and if that happens then there can be two "fronts," one in which Amaya participates and one which they ignore.

My last suggestion to you would be to have an open mind if you find others are suggesting similar feedback to mine with regard to your message and approach. Unfortunately, my experience with those who post like your latest post is that an open mind is not something that can be expected.