Good for you - that's what it means to be a poker professional. That's the way it's always been. But not everybody has the ability to adapt in this manner, hence the angst we see here.

In sharp contrast, look at all these Pokerstars/rakeback pros who can't even beat their games - their options are limited. Where do you go to make your living from a loyalty program?

One idea (and some of you guys should definitely google this) - Here in the US, we have the concept of professional "sweepers" - folks who grind every day at entering various sweepstakes contests. Some of them do quite well. It requires a similar skill set to the mass multi-tabling breakeven semi-automated man/HUD grinder: contest scouting and selection, then lots of time, discipline and repetitive actions.

That is misrepresentation. An "asset" like Core Yahoo! can be worth less than $0 to shareholders in theory but not less than $0 as a business.

I am glad you understand because Goldman, Deutsche and Barclays (the 3 main underwriters of Amaya) have turned this into an art-form. I cannot show the exact share price because if it exists it is proprietary information but these deals are common. An investment bank has to manage collective risk - a threshold share price is the pre-agreed maximum loss the bank can accept.

With Amaya technically it is not the underwriters but the institutional shareholders (the 46.1%) who may have this power. If you think Amaya is a "big" company, it is not. These criminals will spend millions per second to manipulate stocks on the last day of every quarter as a normal day at work

So he has 18%. A group of investment banks own 46.1%.

You will see you do not have to "own" or borrow shares to "own", control or profit from them, especially if you are underwriter Goldman Sachs. You make synthetic securities, profit by selling these and profit again from movement in the real stock. The implied value and gross number of these phantom shares can be greater than the total issuance of real shares.

Yes if Amaya is bankrupt Baazov loses $350 million in paper wealth but money has already been made. Baazov will be the Patsy for the banksters along with unprotected shareholders but that is not the real story.

Their stock didn't tank because Stars lost money.

Stars is still monster profit machine even if badly run but this is not the point. With the debt structure Stars needs to make more money than ever before for Amaya to make money. The share price crashed because analysts can see Stars is not making the record profits Amaya need.

Amaya stole from us (FX/VIP) and restructured debt to buy more time to make more money. If they do not make more money, Amaya is worth less than $0 (-$3 billion) but Stars is still worth $5 billion. That is why share price is $2 billion (5-3) and why player strikes could **** Amaya hard.

Can we agree the player strikes have power because of Baazov's greed and vulnerability of Amaya to these bigger monsters?

We never said that we know more than Amaya, we said that we know much more than they state publicly.
Also, we have around 35% supernovas+ on our site, rest are the guys with lower statuses who are concerned about amaya's decisions and the future of poker.

KomodoDragonJesus, results are currently published in russian, it will take some time to translate them.

A lot of this is speculative. Let's say Amaya doesn't budge and the strike causes pokerstars to fail, and it get hostile takeovered by some megabank... then what? Said megabank would prob just put a Baazov the 2nd in charge.

At least it would set a precedent for don't **** with poker players...

the stock took another drop and its now closed at 16$ CAD. i know players funds are supposed to be in a segregate accounts but i'm still scared to lose or wait a lot of time to get my bankroll so i have cashout all my money yesterday.

i'm not finance pro so i dont know if i just made a stupid move. i want to play on stars at the moment but i dont and i'm presently bored. other poker sites suck tho, so i dont deposit on them.

can i know at which stock price i'm supposed to be happy to have cashout my bankroll cuz its begin to be dangerous for a bankrupt or stuff?

im not a supernova but i'm a withdrawer and its almost like i dont pay rake because to this day i made more money from their promos than the amount i rake.

You do not need to worry about this.

Your bankroll and any future withdrawals are ring-fenced from the rest of PokerStars and insured, so even if Amaya goes bankrupt, you will still get your money

Just after Black Friday there was a bit of a rush of people cashing out their money (non Americans), and as they clenched their 50 bucks or whatever - they were able to tell themselves that their money was now safe as they sat in the fetal position clutching it to their chests, and those people then missed out on playing some of the softest games for weeks (with several overlays).

Obviously you should do whatever you feel comfortable doing, but to cash out entirely based on an artificial belief on the share price is a tad irrational, especially if you actually want to play there. If you want to play there then do so with a bankroll you are comfortable keeping online, which is pretty much always the correct advice.

I could possibly understand a nl20k player being careful w his money but somebody grinding NL2 cashing out his roll bc shareprice dropped bit is a special kind of comedy

Physical assets can absolutely be worth less than $0 as a business. Take a look at Arch Coal. Their coal mines, which were worth billions, are now worth less than $0 because their cost of producing and selling that coal is higher than what buyers are willing to pay now. Go to a bankruptcy auction of a large company. They will literally pay you to remove assets. I have seen huge industrial machines that were worth millions lie there and auctioneers implore people to take them for free, and even the salvagers refused.

I understand i-banking quite well, my brother is a banker for RBC and many friends and family members work in finance. I also have a securities dealer license, even though I do not work in the industry.

According to the documents, the underwriters were not GS, DB, and Barclays as you stated. They were Canaccord, Cormark, and Desjardins, three tiny Canadian banks.

Furthermore, investment banks typically sell the shares when doing an IPO or a secondary. They get an allocation and they flip it for a profit. What you are writing makes no sense. They don't keep all the shares on their books and then have a stop loss on them.

Some investment banks have trading operations. Have you ever been on the trading floor of a large bank? I have. Do you know traders? I do. They do not take long term positions. It is in and out, in and out. Bonuses are based on actualized profits, not paper ones. Further, proprietary trading is being phased out of traditional investment banks and going towards specialized shops.

The link you posted shows different funds that hold Amaya shares and most have relatively small positions.

I think you are a bit paranoid about how capitalism and markets in general work. There is no giant conspiracy and markets are not as corrupt as you think they are. There is simply too much competition for it to be as opaque and dirty as you think it is. When scandals happen, they usually come to light fairly quickly.
I know what synthetic securities are and I know you do not need to own or borrow shares to make profits from them. What exactly does that have to do with Amaya? Are you implying that the shares are being manipulated by a cabal of investment banks? I think the more likely conclusion is that the shares tanked after they lowered their earnings estimate. Follow the charts, the shares were doing very well until 3 months ago when their earnings came out. They tanked 50% in 3 days after that.


I have no idea what you are saying.


Management had very rosy estimates on growth and profits and they didn't meet those expectations (due to the EUR/USD and the delayed Sportsbook launch) which is why the stock got killed. It is all public record and the decline in the stock matches perfectly with the earnings release.

Here I agree with you. They are making a ton of money, but because they had to reduce earnings estimates, their debt/earnings multiple became high, which caused concern.

I agree that they should not have taken the SNE money, but the VPP is completely their perogative. It is their program and they can devalue the currency as they see fit.

Here you stop making sense again. Amaya's debt is $2.9 billion. If Stars is worth $5 billion as you say, Amaya's market capitalization should be $2.1 billion right now. Right now, it is $1.5, so Stars is valued at $4.4 billion right now. How is Amaya worth less than $0?

I also don't think the (primarily) Russian players strike will make much, if any difference to them. A company cannot get bullied by a small but vocal customer base. It would show to the world that they have no pricing power, which would be a bad thing for them and the industry. In my view, they should extend the SNE benefits for one year, and that's it. I doubt they will do that though since I think they determined that SNE are not worth as much to them as recs are.

You may call it greed, others may call it ambition. Tomato, tomahto.

slr940 you seem to know a lot about this

a question...

Is the stocks and shares system in such a way that, figuratively speaking and purely hypothetically, of a few Russians having an axe to grind with stars, sorting a mass boycott, waiting for stock to drop, buying shares then waiting for price to rise once boycott is over and selling up for a profit?

thanks nice read

I'm not sure I completely understand your question. Are you asking whether a group of Russians can organize a boycott, which results in the stock dropping, and then buy shares on weakness, only to call off the boycott and see their shares rise in value?

If so, that that is completely plausible. However, a number of stars would have to align in order for it to be a profitable trade:

1) The boycott would actually have to be large enough to cause material losses, or at least give the impression to the market that it would, otherwise the stock would not drop ceteris paribus.
2) The stock isn't that heavily traded, so large chunks of volume buying would alert the market that something is going on and a big buyer is gobbling up shares, so the stock would start to go up as soon as it started going down. The trading would have to be done in smaller chunks and over many days in order to fly under the radar.
3) Calling off the strike would have to have a materially positive effect on the stock. It might not even go up after the strike because market participants could think that Amaya had no pricing power and their customers could strike at any time, thus resulting in a lower multiple and share price.

So to answer your question, yes it could be done and a lot of money could be made, but it would have to be well planned out and plenty of capital allocated. Also, it would be illegal to do this - just thought I would throw that in - as it is considered market manipulation.

Thank you, yes that's exactly what I meant and you answered well

http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/192...ker-liquidity/

interesting reading

Copy and pasted from the link but it leaves out that alot of the striking players could have been from the low/mid stakes so the high stakes games would have a bigger % on the lobby overall.

Is there a record of what stakes these striking players play. I know most have said what games they play but has anyone kept tally of this data?

The report reveals that from January 1 – 6, the prevalence of high stakes games on PokerStars was at its highest point in the past two months.

During that span, high stakes games accounted for 1.3 percent of all cash games played on the site. Comparatively, high stakes prevalence averaged 1.0 percent in November and just 0.7 percent – 0.8 percent throughout December.

What’s confounding about these statistics is that high stakes games comprised a greater segment of the cash game lobby despite the presence of the strike, and perhaps more importantly, despite the fact that most high stakes games ($5/$10+ pot-limit and no-limit, $20/$40+ 8-game and limit) no longer offer loyalty points (VPPs).

The Scouting Report logically infers two possible explanations for what it deems this “particularly fascinating turn of events”:

In the aftermath of PokerStars’ holiday promotions, “microstakes volume decreased, causing the market share of other stakes to grow.”
Middle stakes players took advantage of the absence of high-profile pros by temporarily jumping up to the high stakes.

If the latter is true, it effectually means that the strike backfired, driving traffic to games where PokerStars does not incur any costs via loyalty benefits, and possibly setting off a domino effect whereby games at other stakes were temporarily softer, resulting in a marginally healthier poker ecosystem.


Also from the link it said a strike for feb was planned from 2-11 feb. Most people get paid towards the end of the month so i think it shoud be done a week or 2 later to get better results. 9th-18th or 18th-27th i think are better dates.

It also might be better to do a longer strike to see if these strikes actually make a diff. Do like a 3 week one from beg of march to really put pressure on. It will cost stars a ton, with only a week they can counter the strike with promos.

He knows how to make many mistakes, that is all

My sister is Anna Kournikova. Would you like a blind date?

Please say you are joking. You have never heard of a share price threshold for managing risk, then you say the only type of trader is a day trader? Let me ask if it is not the investment banks taking long positions, then who is? Are you saying derivatives, commodities and equities are all in and out?Share your knowledge with me, Graham and Dodds - tell me your best day trading strategies. Mine would fill a book but my brother does not work for RBC

You do not know about underwriting. The companies charge a premium for underwriting to compensate them for the risk they take. The direct risk is that they sell the shares on behalf of the client - if they do not sell the shares, they keep them. They do not profit by trading the shares, they profit from transactions fees. OK not Goldman Sachs but that is only because they undervalue their portfolio on purpose then sell to partners and split the profit. Or do similar strategy on the opposite side. Have you ever heard of FaceBook?

More joking. All commercial banks, never mind investment banks, have "trading" operations because they must hedge their own risks, even if they never speculate. To say an investment bank has trading operations is like saying a supermarket sells food.

You mean the defunct 2014 documents? When Amaya refinanced in 2015 they took on these 4 firms (GS, DBK, BARC, MQG) as current underwriters and advisers - or so it says in DBK, GS, BARC and MQG reports. In your world Lloyd's of London must still underwrite the United States

I know that you have no knowledge because you are much too sure of yourself. You just Google random, out of date, incorrect nonsense. I chose my examples carefully and leave all possibilities open, as happens in real life. If you read the links I gave you would understand better.

I cannot have energy to reply as this it too naive.

Or BS, Chush’ sobach’ya, comrade. Please no more Google of things you know nothing about, thank you

You should start a blog so that all of those interested can read what you have to offer in all of its glory. Consider adding a picture of your sister, as that tends to be a frequent request (particularly in BBV) in this industry.

All the best.

read that not derail

Another day Baazov loses $millions sounds like a good day to me

In 2013 pokerstars made a profit of $422 million with the most generous VIP rewards to date. There was no casino, sports or US presence. No 8 or 9 figure interest payments or restructuring fees either.

Amaya add more profit with casino and sportsbook then steal from players. Nothing but thieves

No, that's not what I said. I merely disputed your ridiculous claim of a Goldman conspiracy that if Amaya stock falls to $x, they get to take over Amaya. It makes no sense and there is no evidence whatsoever.

Do you think nobody in the world invests? What about institutional investors like insurance companies or pension funds? Retail investors? Family offices? Hedge funds? Should I go on?

No, I didn't say that. You made the claim that there is a conspiracy by big banks in regards to Amaya and its shares without submitting any evidence or even any logical thesis whatsoever. You've been watching too many anti-capitalist YouTube videos comrade.

Actually, I do know about underwriting. Banks charge a fee for selling a company's stock when it wants to sell shares from the treasury. The fee ranges from 5-8% usually, but banks can make even more if they price it right (i.e. slightly under the demand so it pops on opening day and they can exercise their over allotment). The underwriters absolutely do not like to hold shares on their books indefinitely, which is what you are insinuating. Again, show me the evidence, all the information is public.


We are specifically talking about proprietary trading, not hedging. Why would a bank hold Amaya shares to hedge? Hedge what? You make no sense. In regards to prop trading, I refer you to the Volker Rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcker_Rule
The proposed Volcker Rule has led to an exodus of top proprietary traders from large banks to form their own hedge funds or join existing hedge funds including Todd Edgar and Roger Jones from Barclays,[52] Sutesh Sharma from Citigroup,[53] George "Beau" Taylor and Trevor Woods from Credit Suisse, Pablo Calderini, Nelson Saiers and Boaz Weinstein from Deutsche Bank,[54] Pierre-Henri Flamand, Bob Howard,[55] and Morgan Sze from Goldman Sachs, Deepak Gulati and Mike Stewart from JP Morgan, Peter Muller from Morgan Stanley, and Jean Bourlet from UBS.[56][57] Critics of the rule have pointed to the subsequent brain drain of top talent, although strictly speaking the trading expertise thus lost would only relate to the activity to be curtailed by the new framework, and only would be lost to the banks, and not the economy as a whole, and may be understood as precisely the sort of cultural change within taxpayer-supported banks that the rule was intended to achieve.[58]

We were talking about the IPO, not the debt issue. The IPO is where the shares were issued. Again comrade, I advise you to take Corporate Finance 101 so you understand the difference between a debt and equity issue.

Don't be so cocky, your diatribe is riddled with errors, inconsistencies, and pure unfounded speculation. You clearly have a bone to pick with Amaya (and with capitalism in general it seems). Stick to playing micro stakes on 888.

By the way, this is my last post on this thread. I have no desire to argue with a brick wall. Прощай.

Almost every article from them has a pro amaya slant.

The fact they address just cash games which are hard to track (which they then use that reasoning to make logical leaps) and ignore SNGs/MTTs which are publicly tracked by sharkscope with all the data you could want is pretty lol

afaik, most of cash high stakes players ignored january boycott. also wonder how that guy noticed mid stakes players going up just by using pokerscout reports.

We published our report on the strike on our site, i don't post a link cause every previous link was deleted.

or just stop here

Read it.

Two questions
Are you happy with results?
Got some good response from ps or are you waiting for the meeting on the 18th?