I'd join the strike but I have already closed my Pokerstars and Full Tilt accounts.

What is this 3 or 7 days strike non-sense?

This.

ill join the strike even though it benefits stars

The strike won't affect me personally as I took the vast majority of my business elsewhere about 18 months ago (DeLorean time machines ftw) but I'll be avoiding Stars in January 2016 and will cash out at least half of my remaining funds as a gesture of support for the players who were trapped in a deceitful 'loyalty scheme'.

I don't agree with all of the strikers' demands or strategy, but support the general ideas, especially the need for dialogue between the company and its customers. I wish you good luck with that.

The success of the strike shouldn't be measured in how much it costs PokerStars in rake; it should be measured by how much attention is drawn to the fact that PokerStars stole players' money.

PokerStars claims that they have a right to end the VIP program any time they want, and they do have that right. What they don't have a right to do, though, is to enact such a change retroactively. And that is essentially what they are doing when they don't give players rewards already won.

PokerStars can't change the awards after players have already earned them or are on the cusp of earning them. It would be like reducing a tournament prize, for no reason other than they feel they can, after a tournament is over or while the players are on the final table.

People are commonly grandfathered in when there are changes in contracts and leases; that is because contracts, leases and TOS' generally have limitations on changes that can be unilaterally made to them. Despite what PokerStars' lawyers claim, I think that the players involved could easily win any type of hearing or court trial that addressed the 2016 rewards.

Hey guys. Unfortunately the other thread has now been closed, or I would have posted it there, but I feel that this is relevant.
I just got this e-mail today from Stars, and it was actually a nice one for once:

Dear ......,

We recently announced changes to our VIP Club for 2016 that included the removal of VPPs from high-stakes games. Specifically, we announced, “Players will not earn VPPs for pot-limit and no-limit games with blinds of $5-$10 or higher, 8-game $10-$20 or higher, and other limit games with blinds of $10-$15 or higher (limit hold’em of stakes $15-$30 and higher).”

You are receiving this email as you have played in the past limit or mixed games with stakes of either $10-$20 or $15-$30.

After further consideration, we have decided to reward VPPs for limit and mixed games with stakes up to $15-$30. This includes all limit games of Hold’em, HORSE, 8-game, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, 5-card Omaha, Courchevel, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, Razz, Stud, and Stud Hi-Lo. Stakes higher than $15-$30 will not reward VPPs beginning in 2016.

Regards,

The PokerStars VIP Club.

So I am actually very happy with this change, as it will make quite a big difference for me personally.
Some of you might think that this isn't much, but I think that it is at least a step in the right direction, and it shows that they can indeed amend their changes.
Who knows whether it came as a result of the boycott, or something similar. And hopefully this won't be the only thing like this.

That concession is welcome.

Pokerstars played it cool last strike saying "traffic was actually up and the ecosystem was way healthier then normal". Seems suspect though and could almost certainly be bluffing? If they really want to get rid of regs why not stop multi tabling or limit to 2 as most recreational players will not play more then that!

I think it really comes down to what recreational players want. I think Amaya is trying really hard through marketing to change that want away from regular poker, towards spin and goes and blackjack. This is of course at the detriment of the regular poker games.

One of the obvious effects of moving recreational players from regular pools, to casino games, is to reduce the quality of the regular games. This in turn means the games are tougher for new recreational players looking to join. If the poker games are tougher Amaya is in large part to blame, not the players.

At the end of the day, Amaya will continue make big claims about "The poker ecology", and how screwing over their world class players is necessary to keep games sustainable. I think it is fair to say that their their credibility in talking about poker sustainability well gearing all their marketing efforts towards virtually unbeatable games such as blackjack and spin and goes is really poor, and also shows how little thought was actually put into any of this. As well virtually unwinnable games such as spin and goes and black jack will be unsustainable in all circumstances.

On a final note, if a 5/10 whale deposits 10k, losing it over 5k hands, and then goes to order a card protector with their vpps, they will probably be pretty pissed when they find out that their vpp counter is "broken". When said whale reports the "defect" and receive a response back from pokerstars, that because they are playing high stakes, they are not entitled to any rewards points, they would probably rage just as much as the SNEs if not more so.

Marketing unsustainable games under the Pokerstars brand will likely damage the long term value of the brand.

This is a very important point that I think a lot of people (as well as Amaya) don't understand. Losers and winners is not something that is binary in an absolute context, rather it's on a continuum relative to the current game environment.

It's true that when the best winning players are taken off a poker site that other players will take their place as winning players. But as less skilled players move up into the winning catagory, the skill gap between the new regulars and the rec players narrows.

That narrowed gap has the effect of creating a situation where the players as a whole will find it more difficult to beat the rake; more of that rake will end up in the hands of the poker site. That's how a site like PokerStars benefits from chasing off the most skilled players.

With the abundance of poker education material available, the skill levels will only continue to increase and nothing will change this. Any plan to make the games sustainable by reducing edges is doomed.

Yes, although I'm not sure if it's accurate to say "...as less skilled players move up into the winning catagory..." (but I know what you mean.) All else is not equal so with the changes effectively just increasing the rake across the board, some regs will leave but it will still get tougher for everyone who remains. Players will move down stakes and make less. There is zero chance that what Pokerstars are publicly forecasting will happen, and Pokerstars know this of course (as does every* Stars employee who echoes the tale that game quality will improve.)

I'll be withdrawing my roll on Monday. MeleaB, SSFR.

------

*Renegreanu may actually think it, but it's really, really hard to believe that it's simply a coincidence that the only pro to share that view just happens to receive a seven-figure salary from Stars.

i support it even after the last one was somewhat of a failure from what i've read, but nonetheless i still side with you guys who are still able to play on stars

Hey op are you the guy in the video?

in, napsu, PLO

Last strike gathered around 2500 players and together we managed to reduce Amaya's profits by at least 500k in that period. It is true that due to promo cash traffic increased significally, but only at low stakes, while plummeting at higher stakes and tournaments.

Yep only regs are "striking"

Oh wait no, its not just regs plenty of net depositors like myself too

I look forward to reading more lazy greedy nonsense from morons who dont get the bigger picture

Oh wait, no I won't, these threads are a good ignore list fattener though

Damn straight most of us will leave Amayastars forever if they dont buck up their ideas

In Dan******o, 25nl cash and Tourneys ave buy in $10ish, already reged on that site and once again **** you Amaya

LOL, this strike is just pointless.....

In, PrsHarlequin, MTT.

I was chromestar each month this year...

In, Zsipali, PLO

No protest is ever 'futile'. Phenomena of Rational Ltd. was made on a promise to millions of people worldwide that if they deposit and if they are really good at it they can win big from -Poker. Facing profits declining from easy $Billions most operators are just trying to force as many players to Casino and so they will be-a pond of few survived Casino sites. Google investing in DFS, other IT mammoths also showing they will make $ on any product they can offer the world... Amaya facing pretty much only the beginning of a disaster these days, it will be interesting to see the new repositioning amongst those that offer the best chance to -play competitive poker. Gotta love the 888 'Come home baby' troll, even though i do not like their antics either and never played a raked poker hand on whole Pacific...

Wouldn't this technically be called a boycott, rather than a strike?

You guys aren't professionals employed by Amaya - you're customers of their online poker room.

i am in aswell.

Signed up at tiltbook.com, but I'm not showing up on the list for some reason. I'm in (tomsOn, HU PLO).