Yep, it's true. Just looked in the VIP store. Lowest reward bonus is $50 and your VIP status requirement is Silverstar.

If this is the time the strike is starting Sydney should be 4am.. its 8:40pm here now

if Athens it's 7:00 PM then for London should be 6:00 PM since it's a hour difference between the 2 countries. just my POV

That $25 dollar bonus was terrible value anyway. A gift certificate or a tournament entry was better and the $50 bonus, which is easily reachable, though still a bad deal, is better than the $25.

I will wait for Star's explanation, but I'm struggling to find a reasonable one.

But for all of this you need to be a Silverstar. And in the last time, the support did not upgrade you for buying these things.

Two hours.

yeah, after checking out your right. dunno why i had the impression that the difference is 1 hour...

Okay, I'm in too, though I'll be able to do this only today, since I won't have access to internet between the 2nd and 9th of January.

I am not sure what the exact plan is though. Once we start sitting out on 24 tables at 12 EST, for how long do we do this? Are there going to be scheduled hours of the day? As far as I know, the table kicks you out if you don't play, so we'll have to be constantly resitting or something.

Do we do this until Stars changes the rake policy?

Please clarify whatever I'm missing.

I had the same hopes that you mention, but unfortunately as far as i can tell this will also have a negative effect on me. Its not just the 20/16 nits that are losing out here. As far as I can tell most players will lose out, and those who are benefiting will not benefit as much as we will lose.

I may not have the exact same interests as massive volume SNE grinders, but we can all agree that gradually increasing the cost to play online poker will eventually make the games unprofitable.

I'm a medium-low volume LAGtard. Ive always known that nits are being dealt rakeback - this is no secret, but they fold their blinds to much and often play bad postflop in marginal spots so I don't mind.

From what I can tell, the only injustice this change brings by design is to reduce the total amount of rakeback being provided to the poker community. This directly and indirectly resulting in higher profits for the poker room. Many of the indirect profits i have no problem with at all.

However, if I'm right it means that PokerStars directly benefits from arbitrarily increasing the cost to play online poker at their site. It may not seem arbitrary because of this kind of "injustice" you mention, but we're only redistributing VPPs, not rakeback. I think the difference is very important.

PokerStars has many of their own reasons for developing the player base. Not the least of which is money they already receive in rake and will receive from new players. I paid 4.5k last year, roughly 50% of my action. They also gain interest on my account balance. This is enough.

I'll admit that I could be wrong... but I think that changes like this, carrying on in this way and increasing the cost to play is the MOST certain method for making poker unprofitable.

see this thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...thods-1146855/, W/C is unfair too, dealt is the lesser of 2 evils compared to W/C without other compensation. W/C with compensation or WTA are better, we're striking for one of those, which help all players loose or tight, winning or losing, high or low volume.

That's not the point. The point is the $25 dollar bonus was actually attainable for low volume recreational players. Even if you would never buy it yourself, someone else would, and put that money back into play.

yeah I think something like this has a shot. Compensation is very tricky though. Limit games can suffer a lot under % rake models because the cap is reached much less often.

WTA is winner takes all right? I think this option fails to reward players for the act of playing poker. I can accept that its in PokerStars best interest to reward players for doing the very thing that makes them money.

WTA connects winning so strongly with rewards that it would be like saying "pokerstars only rewards the winners" and many pure gamblers would be put off by this kind of unwelcoming treatment.

should we organize some kind chatroom/channel while this is going on? so everyone can communicate quickly and effectively ?

might be a good idea.

fwiw i think a very abbreviated and unbiased article/statement that explains the changes very clearly and then also clearly lists our stance on the change is also a good idea.

people might be frustrated by others who sit out, and i think we share some responsibility in letting them know whats going on.

The same number of VPPs are being given out, but the number of FPPs being given out is a fraction of what it was before. This is because players who rarely take down pots preflop and often go to showdown are the players who benefit most from weighted contributed, these players also tend to be recreational players with little to no VPP multiplier and they also tend to spend their points on low value items in the shop, if at all.

That's the bad thing about this change. Stars is taking millions of dollars out of the poker economy and giving nothing back at a time when the games are already getting tougher than ever even at relatively low stakes. That's a very dangerous combo.

http://chat.efnet.org/

Choose your nickname then click <login> button.
Click at the bottom where the chat-field is, write a "/j OccupyPS" and then click enter.

Chat-room created

In

Of course, they're expected to spend their FPPs on a stuffed donkey or some other tat from the VIP store costing pokerstars about $0.001 per FPP

*** Access Denied: Too many connections

weird, another guy just came in and had no problems

chat works for me

i sort of think this line of argument is the wrong one.

Fish who are often in the games will gain VPPs and status. This will off set some of the reduced rakeback, but far from all of it.

Its not PokerStars' fault if players make poor decisions with their FPPs. Its a bit ridiculous for winning players to take up some silly crusade in order to prevent fish from making poor use of their money.

The real problem here is that the changes they make are driving up the average cost to play when theres no reason why they should.

+1

now " /j No such channel"

Bump?