from the article link above:

“The reason we are focused on the highest status levels is because these rewards have become so enticing that we have inadvertently altered why some people play and how they play,” explained Eric Hollreiser, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Amaya and PokerStars. “We are introducing these changes to move towards a more balanced long-term poker economy and to return the game back to one that rewards skill via winning at the tables rather than playing primarily for volume.”

if this is a legitimate reason PS used to make the changes. you need an even bigger miracle to get them to give in to your demands especially so soon after it was enacted

Why is PokerStars so concerned about why high stakes players play? The high stakes players are the least likely players to be playing against rec players; so any changes made to those stakes has a negligible impact on the rec players and the overall ecology. As a matter of fact, raising the rake at the high stakes will only drive those players to lower stakes where they will negatively impact the rec players.

What we are hearing from PokerStars these days is a lot of nonsensical corporate speak designed to justify short sighted money grabs. I'm convinced that they will, in the near future, further slash the rewards system with an entirely new set of rationales for doing so.

It's not high stakes players, it's high status in the quote.

Regardless whether it is correct or not, their claim is that for example a player is winning at $200nl. Rather than move up to 400nl in search of increased winnings, instead the old VIP system distorts this process and while perhaps they could move to $400nl for an yearly increase of 25% with larger swings, they are instead move down to $100nl, increase tables to the max and grind out +75% yearly due to SNE rewards.

It's the high stakes players that have received the greatest reductions. And it is high stakes players that I made very clear that I was talking about.

Havent played on Stars this year and it feels good

Im not sure I'll ever go back

I thought they want to get rid of volume players to protect recreational players while this implies they want to improve players skills. Amaya, I don't believe you.

You made it very clear that you misread the article. You saw what you expected to see, and fired back accordingly.

As humans, we all do this. But we need to fight though our biases if we're going to learn.

Are you really not understanding this statement? They're saying that they want to run a poker site for poker players, but that they've inadvertently gotten into the business of running a site for loyalty program grinders - and furthermore, it's ruining the enjoyment of the games for the poker players.

This is really simple.

You mean loyalty program grinders are not poker players?
How is the ratio of SNE grinders to the rest?
Who sits at the table and plays poker and thinks poker is not fun because of some people play lots of tables?

I didn't misread the article whatsoever. Dave (and apparently you) misread my post. The highest status levels also includes the high stakes players. My point was that it's the high stakes players who PokerStars has most targeted to exclude from the VIP system. I made it very clear that I was referring only to the high stakes players in my post and not to other stakes, since the lower stakes weren't entirely applicable to the point I was making.

If you had actually bothered to read the entire article you would have seen that it also mentioned the "elimination of VIP benefits in high stakes games". I'm saying that PokerStars' only rationale for doing that seems to be to adjust how and why players play without any real explanation as to how the high stakes players, regardless of how they play, can possibly be creating a bad ecology for the rest of the games.

As far as your amateur psychology lesson goes, you need to take some classes. Then, when you graduate, maybe you can work on your own biases and leave the mind reading to others.

Let me say in short why Amaya must be taught a lesson:

1) It was the players who built PokerStars, give it real value and we feel like we have some ownership of the company. The players were happy to be partners because we got the most money, had best software, best customer support and no hidden charges

2) Amaya bought PokerStars and bought the players who built and maintained Stars along with it. They refuse to acknowledge that the players have any power. They treat us like we are all irrelevant because they don't even want us to play poker. They want us to play bingo poker or casino games only. They tell us they spend money on customer service, security. In real world the customer service is no longer Stars and we have bots, colluding, other cheaters and money laundering. They take from the business and give nothing back.

3) Amaya is making $400-500? million profit from Stars (posting EBITDA $290 million or whatever). This is amazing return for any company. If Apple or Google turned 10% of mkt cap into net profit every year that would be $50 billion +. With all this pure profit Amaya is not generous. They stole more from poker in FX, they stole in VIP, they stole with lotto poker and casino games.

These behaviours are disgusting. It is like a child being raised by a parent, given everything possible, then when parent needs help in return, child says "**** you, go to nursing home". It is not good for society and it is not good for poker that Amaya acts this way. They need to be taught lesson and the next owner of Stars needs to learn this lesson too - your players are the lifeblood, if you piss over the players they will bleed you dry

You may feel like you have some ownership, but you do not have any ownership, so your feelings are creating in you a false sense of entitlement.

Stop playing there permanently if you want to each them a lesson. That is your strongest option as a customer, and that is what you are - a customer, not an owner.

There is a program on the BBC in the UK called Watchdog. Im sure if every SNE was to email them and tell their story of how they were promised one thing only to be told with 2 months notice that they weren't going to get the rewards that stars advertised they would run a segment on it. Its also the last thing stars would want and they would have to respond and then the SNE's could respond. It seems like a slam dunk for the show to agree with the players that this is shady and maybe stars will be forced to give back the rewards for 2016.

That could end up being positive advertising for stars. When people realize there are players actually making money off online poker unhappy they are now making less money. General public see poker just like online casino gambling and don't think anyone actually profits long term.

I dont agree with this and it can be shown that the best players in the world are losing pre RB in some formats allready. I dont see how this could be good for stars in anyway. And by doing nothing stars are clearly going to do nothing. They would be forced to do the right thing if this gets on a TV show or have a scummy rep to a large portion on the public.

Anyway i hope i can post links. You can fill in a simple form here: https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/contact

Email to send a story for them to investigate is watchdog@bbc.co.uk

Address to send letter: Watchdog, W1 NBH 07C, BBC New Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1A 1AA.

when is the next boycott ?

Start of February.

If you wonder about timing, it is because of Stars advertise and promotion (A&P).

You may have heard January strike didn't do anything, Stars say, "healthiest ecosystem ever". This was of course lies. If you factor out the A&P, which was the biggest in history of Stars, then the figures tell a different story.

This record A&P drive is due to continue in all of January - for lotto poker, casino and sportsbook, not for "poker". The A&P is partly there to off-set the effect of strikes. So if we strike after the A&P ends (they cannot do it forever) then we will see what strike does to the "normal" business.

If you're planning on making new threads for a February boycott, they should have been made yesterday. Both here and in NVG.

Each strike will have fewer and fewer people participating and they will eventually fizzle out.

I find it telling that no other poker room has made an attempt to take on the disgrunted regs.

Personally, I think all rakeback should be eliminated completely.

No.

Really, there shouldn't even be a thread in NVG. But since there is, any new boycotts can be linked in the existing NVG thread.

I actually asked a poker room manager on Microgaming about this: His answer was interesting - they would love to get a few of the Stars striking regs to their room, but absolutely not more than in the low three-digit numbers.

So that is about your negotiation power....

Did it ever occur to you guys that these new 'biggest ever' promos might just be funded partly by the monies that Stars has taken from the SN's and SNE's? Maybe they are channeling the money back into the poker economy, but in a fairer way, such that everyone gets a decent share of the cash, not just a few guys at the top of the pyramid?

The strikers couldn't care less about the ecosystem or the fact that the company hosting the games and bringing players together needs to turn a profit. They just want as much money as possible, to heck with everyone else.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black...

That is why the strikes will die, even though the strikers keep claiming success by making up numbers how 300 guys are causing Amaya to lose billions.

As someone posted earlier, even the people who said they were striking were actually playing lol.

There are a number of posts like yours that lump all the protesting players into one extreme category. The fact of the matter is that at the higher stakes, where the profits are very narrow, there needs to be a reward system for many of the players to make any profit at all. There are players like Ansky, for example, who lost $400k last year and only want those rewards to help mitigate his losses.

It's absurd that you think that a company that is turning a half billion dollar profit each year needs our support to make more of a profit, whereas many players, who are just barely squeezing out a profit at all, are the ones hurting the ecosystem by wanting to make that profit. Forcing some of the best players on the site to move to the lower stakes to turn a profit is what is going to hurt the ecosystem the most.

how about such players try to earn profits by winning? such big rewards in which amaya cutback is pretty much the equivilent to amaya having those very high rollers on payroll.

i understand some people are feeling the pinch from the cutbacks and are upset. id be too but i wouldnt be griping the way some posters are griping and carrying on.

do you think your average joe who is barely getting by in life or slightly better is swayed to hear that somebody who lost 400k in a year depends on those rewards to mitigate their losses?

i really think one word keeps getting overlooked in all of this... REWARDS