I was responding to posters itt and others that are mocking posters such as rom who are providing detailed information on what the effects are on players. Obviously stars had a logical reason behind their changes.

I was right with you until you said not even worth 1 billion. I did it last year for around 100k... Im pretty sure I would easily do it for 1 billion and then retire for life... Not sure exactly how opposed you are to work to think that 10 hours/day isnt worth 1 billion.

Sure they are allowed to change their model.. and we are allowed to express our extreme displeasure in a plan that suddenly sucks a LOT of money given to the player pool and instead going to the company. We should just be quiet since they are 'allowed' to do it?

I actually said in my post that people can leave if they are not happy with the company anymore. Of course people are allowed to complain. In fact, since PokerStars probably gets more heat on their changes than any other site because they have shown that they actually listen to their players and do sometimes respond with changes. But for this same reason, it's silly for some people to be posting things like 'money grab', 'rake grab', etc... implying that they are doing these things simply out of greed. They always demonstrated that they don't operate like that.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...l#post30711233

It's just not healthy to grind 10 hours daily. You're gonna get a cancer in the brain ( for say 1 sick ). Health for me has no prize. Second, poker would become BORING if I do it 10 hours daily everyday. I just play the hours I feel confortable with so I don't have an schedule. For me poker is a challenge, a game I really enjoy and plus gives me good money, enough to live healthy. Using poker for own purposes is not the same that poker using me for their purposes (ok, they have rake from me everyday right, but at least I'm not a slave of their VIP system). So now tell me why you evaluate like +EV grinding such hours everyday. 100k is worth it ?

Hi steve,

You can add me, l0ve2playu, to the list.

Whatever the outcome is of the rake meeting, i think stars got a pretty clear message; a lot of players are very frustrated by the current rake levels. For me personally rake is relatively marginal. But for low and midstakes it is just killing. For players starting to play and learn the game, it is almost impossible to keep playing and win consistently without extreme tabe selection or a huge upswing. The speed i went up in stakes 4/5 years ago is no longer attainable. I see so many players struggle to win at midstakes nowadays, many of which have been winning players in the past. If these guys with long experience fail, how do you think the chances of new players look? For the long term chances of online poker i hope stars will realise this!

I've played close to 10k hours of poker in my life, and I still have fun every single time I play.

Unfortunately, the rake is killing the games slowly, and I fear it will not be much longer until there will not be poker to be played on Pokerstars.

It's all relative. If I could make 100k playing 1 hour per day I would do that instead. If my other option is to work at taco bell 8 hours a day and make 12k per year, then yeah I want to play 10 hours for 100k. But wait a minute here... you didn't say 100k you said 1 Billion! lol.

But I do think SNE is kind of misleading and almost false advertising in a way.

I've made SNE 2 times now, but actually have had changes happen MID grind 3 times. These changes come, there is nothing u can do about it, and you are forced to either adapt to it, or walk away part way through abandoning all the equity you've built in the VPPs you've earned toward the 1 million.

The thing about SNE being setup like this and then for next year, is there is a reasonable expectation that things wont change much from year to year because SO SOOO much of the value of SNE is in the next year. If stars is going to keep changing things like this, I think they should try to make all the value of SNE be in 1 year. This year for example, we still get our (up to) 9 months of 5x FPP multiplier, but they have reduced the amount of VPPs we can earn per hand to GET the multiplier, so it isn't as advantageous as it appeared when grinding for it last year.

Also, this didn't happen this year, but the last 2 years they completely did away with certain tables, so if you were playing these tables you had to earn the VPPs some other way you hadn't been getting them on before.

The problem with the VIP system carrying over to next year is that if poker is so volatile and stars 'has' to keep changing their games and rake etc to survive... they are really implying a promise on more than they CAN actually promise, and I think that is something that gets me frustrated every year more so than the actual changes.

I can concede that I don't know Stars' financial situation and all the data they have access too, and it may be totally true that these are all necessary moves by them... I get that. But I, and many other VIP grinders keep getting our VPPs and doing our part, but are then always having to adjust the following year (sometimes with next to no warning). That is why sometimes I feel stars is doing things that are unjust. Not because they are making changes or shouldn't be allowed to do what they think is best for their business, but because in a way every time they make a change, it violates the SNE VIP system, and if it always carries on to the next year, how CAN they change it without screwing over some people? It's impossible to avoid really.

Sorry Steve just to clarify, the reason 6 max has a lower multiplier (5.5) than full ring (6) is because full ring players historically received way too many rewards than you would consider fair and so when you adjusted the system you thought, "well now they're used to all this stuff they don't really earn, we'd better keep giving them too much"?

This explanation is magnificently illogical and unsatisfactory. Humans really do have an incredible knack of addressing the most simple problems with the most organic, convoluted and complicated solutions.

you may have missed my response in that thread:

the situation with the multiplier is pretty simple:

the last big update hit FR players really hard so they got the higher multiplier as "bone" to not leave.
stars cant take this bone away now especially because most FR players are already taking a hit with the new WC system.

Increasing all other games to a 6x multiplier would go against their plan of the new changes(more benefits to low volume players) and is way too expensive to just make "things fair"

hypocritical? of course but thats just how things are from a business pov.
"making things fair" is a decent marketing point for the new wc change but that doesnt mean they even things out everywhere else too.
changing multipliers would cost them money so there is no way they do it.

im guessing, but i think if they went to a 7.5 global multiplier they would still be increasing rake from last year.

Not directed to anyone in particular, but it's always fun to see people with warped libertarian views bend over backward to justify businesses making decisions that hurt everyone.

that would leave us with basically the same system as before and given that stars showed that they intend to decrease benefits for high volume players and increase for low volume players a change to the multipliers is totally unrealistic at this point.

I see only one point that everyone can agree upon.

THE RAKE ON POKERSTARS IS TOO HIGH

Let's forget about nits, shortstackers, multitablers, lags, snes, bronze stars, fish, limit players, tournament players, and whatever else people are pissed off about at the moment.

We all agree the rake is too high. If we actually work together, we can change this. Imagine games where rake isn't 18bb/100 but 2bb/100. Would you want to play at that site? Yes, I think so. Do you want more action? Lower the rake. Do you want people to stop 24 tabling to breakeven? Lower the rake. Do you want to be able to play small stakes and micro stakes poker? Lower the rake.

It really is not a complicated issue. We are making it so, and Stars is benefitting.

+1 to this.

Even if you are going for SNE and have to put in more volume you will still benefit from lower rake since SNE does not equate to 100% rb.

It is not that simple. If the rake is low there will be few promotions and deposit bonuses and therefore the influx of new players/deposits will be slow. You will have reg-infested games.

But imagine a site that has high rake but also runs promotions regularly and gives a lot of deposit bonuses out. The influx of fish will be higher and games will be better.

The point is we should lobby for low effective rake not low rake.

That is not true. Why do you need promotions? Because everyone goes broke so quickly.

People don't need 600 dollar deposit bonuses if they don't get raked 600 dollars in their time playing.

Would you rather shop at a store with low prices or a store with ridiculously high prices, but gives you some of that money back to shop at their store? Assume products are equal.

People deposit on the sites where the action is. You want to increase action? Lower the rake.

Who needs rakeback or promotions? People who are not winning. Why are they not winning? The rake is taking all the money.

it would still completely screw over the nittiest players and shortstacks.

it would still switch to a 'fair' system and reward laggy and losing play. it would also increase the play of bad players because their vpps would be doubly increased.

it would essentially make the breakeven point for the switch the moderate winning lagtag, as it should be, rather than the 45/35, as it is now.

if we assume that the overall cost of the products is the same (after money back), its much easier to promote the second store, and reward loyalty.

So you would rather play at a site that rakes 80pct of the pot away every hand but gives you a lot of it back than a site that just has low rake?

Pretty sure McDonalds, WalMart, and CostCo would disagree with you just off the top of my head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebate_(marketing)

Companies have been using mail-in rebates and similar strategies to fool consumers for years. They offer these because a lot of people don't ever bother sending them in. Everyone would just benefit if the price was 200 dollars not 250 with a 50 dollar mail in rebate.

Imagine FPPs in this manner.

Losing players lose because of rake and because of better players at the table. If the rake is low but the games are reg infested they will still lose to the better players and will stop playing eventually if they have lost too much money.

You need a steady influx of money into the poker ecosystem to get healthy games. And this works best with deposit bonuses and clever promotions.

That isn't necessarily true. SNE players can actually be worse off, and in most cases will be negligibly/minimally better off. (The model v1.2, above, has more detail on this.)

Having said that, reducing the rake does seem to be the most likely answer. However there really needs to be some sort of kicker for the SNE/high volume cash players. Milestones can't be increased in value (as they are also used by non-cash players.) Therefore, an increase in the VPP multiplier is the most obvious answer- and even a small increase of 0.5 VPPs will go some way towards appeasing the players.

I don't think this is too relevant a analogy.