I don't know why there's so much focus on the NDAs. They're standard in this type of situation - where a company discloses to certain parties more information than it reveals publicly. It basically just says that the party being given the info agrees not to disclose it to others (except in certain circumstances) as that may harm the business.

With the comfort of NDAs in place Stars can reveal more information than it would otherwise do which helps to facilitate more productive discussions. The use of NDAs shouldn't be seen as sinister in this context.

It would be different if the agreement was more restrictive (such as preventing derogatory remarks about Stars) but nobody is suggesting that is the case here.

Often the NDA is part of the confidential information which is protected. Even if it weren't, you're wise not to publish it imo.

I can't go in any case but agree a full time player like you would be more appropriate than I.

it should be easy to get confirmation if the NDAs are part of the confidential information or not. a simple ask may be sufficient.

steve, are the NDAs part of the confidential information?

Great post bubbleblower. I nominate him as a rep for the meetings.

<3

I don't think there is any value in posting the NDA or going down this particular line of inquiry.

The NDA is intended to keep our private and confidential information private and confidential. When reps are writing their trip reports, I suggest that they will not have problems with the NDAs if they simply speak for themselves, and not for PokerStars. PokerStars staff, including me, can speak for PokerStars. We are able to best judge what of our confidential information, opinions, reasons, and future plans we wish to share with the public.

Representatives are free to include in their reports and other communications any opinions they have as long as such communications do not reveal confidential information as described above. If there were an issue with reps feeling the NDA was unduly restricting them, it seems nearly certain that they would have reported this. In fact, multiple representatives have reported exactly the opposite, that they do not feel restrained by the NDA.

I fully expect that we will shortly host another group of representatives who do not feel unduly restricted by the NDA. You are welcome to query them directly both prior to and after the meetings to confirm that this is the case.

The above should be sufficient to remove any concerns about the role the NDAs play in the meetings.

see, that's how easy it is. a simple ask leads to a simple and easily understandable answer. stars neither confirms nor denies that the NDA is part of the confidential information. you are on your own to read it and fully undertand its terms.

He asks if NDAs are part of the confidential information or not.

Steve responds with 5 paragraphs, 222 words, 0 answers.

Perhaps a sliver of insight into what the meetings are like.

You don't think Steve's actions would lead a rational person to the exact opposite opinion? If their NDA was completely standard, what reason would there be to withhold it? It would certainly be of public benefit as players considering participating in the meetings could even run it by a lawyer beforehand to ensure they're willing to accept the terms, consequences, restrictions and so forth of of the agreement. If it was a standard NDA he could have simply responded: "No we certainly have no reason to keep our NDA from the public eye. Here is a link to it: stars.blahblah/somepdf I'm unable to answer any questions regarding the exact terms as I'm not a lawyer."

Or for that matter it seems quite clear that Stars has lost much of its goodwill from players. Even a token gesture is better than Steve's response. For that matter an honest negative response would have been better than Steves. "Yes - the NDAs are part of the confidentiality of the meetings. I'm not at liberty to discuss the reasons for this."

.

@ Blopp; I'm not sure if your being sarcastic or serious by quoting that post? But that small selection of players (215 / 0,4%), played over 6/17'th out of all hands in the sample. So it might be a small selection of players but also is a large fraction of play.

==================================================

I went to the PLO meeting a few months back. I still think the rake is really high at plo and that a way lower rake would be closer to an fictive "optimal" level for pokerstars. On a table with only 1 rec and 5 regs with 10bb/100 rake; the rec has to loose 50bb/100 to make the other players break-even (pre rewards). This harsh environment increases pressure on players to table/seat select and decreases the volume. I think with a lower rake setting there will be way more tables running, and recreationals will be better retained. And if the average level of skill keeps increasing in the future, the high rake will be more and more of a game killer. I therefore totally think plo rake should be lowered and the same rake schedule for nlh and plo should be seperated. I think a lower rake will increase the popularity of the game of plo even more and allows plo to continue to thrive in the future.

However the frequent claim that "plo low/mid stakes is unbeatable" due to the high rake is just not true imo. More analysis (by eldodo and gui) of the 100plo data that gui posted turned out to indicate that there where winners. At the PLO meeting pokerstars showed me figures that the SN and SNE players as a group played about break-even on most levels (offcourse it differed across stakes a bit) and had very reasonable winrates after rewards. And offcourse the better players within the SN/SNE selection should perform way better. Since the meeting i personally played about 350k hands of 100plo and 200plo zoom hands and had a positive EV/100, which was actually larger than i expected when i started playing that. I also spoke with a couple of the zoom regs and they did fine as well over large samples.

It doesn't mean that it didnt became way harder and that some of the guys that used to win in the past are now maybe break even. It also doesn't mean that it will remain beatable in the future. People are totally right that some games are very heavily raked (plo, cap nlh, midstakes fixed limit holdem come to mind) and players should be closely monitoring this aspect. The PS meetings are an excellent spot to make sure PS is aware and consious about this delegate balance.

About the NDA; There is nothing remarkable about the NDA and i don't feel any restriction to speak my mind. Asking a company to post a legal document like that on an open forum like this is silly and I don't think any serious business will ever do somehing like that. I also don't even think PS is really strict in enforcing it. In the meetings they explain us future plans and show some sensitive data. I would be way more worried if PS didn't make us sign an NDA. So i suggest stop discussing this matter that suspiciously.

then ..why don't you speak your mind? or are you not allowed to tell us if this thingy is confidential. i think linus torwalds solved this problem lately by stating "no", but nodding his head in approval, to the question if any government agency approached him to plant a backdoor into the kernel.

Steve quoted Eldodo42 out of context. Not 27% of all (PLO) players are winners, but roughly 25% of the 0.4% that play over 40K hands. Somebody had to point that out.
Clearly the percentage of winners in PLO is much lower as it is in Holdem

Do I understand correctly you think these 215 players are more important than the 38K players that played 323 hands or less? Do you remember what Bubbleblower wrote before that:

The table showed there is at least a strong correlation between winrate and amount of hands played, so he was actually proving your point.

It's just not very interesting.

#dutchman; I agree with the sentiment of your post. I was just pointing out that the claim that "nobody wins" pre rewards or that its "unbeatable" was false.

What i took out of that table is that everybody with >38k hands (6 groups) is roughly break even. This is consistent with the data that PS showed me that SN/SNE's as a group are roughly Break-even (see my post). You are right that the winrates of nlh players are higher, but rewards are also much higher for plo players because the rake is roughly double. Looking at results after rewards showed plo players did fine.

Yeah, these 215 players did, but the 38K players never got any rewards.

Jeah, unfortunately we need loosing players in the poker economy.

But one of the main onclusions was that the plo players are too dependant on rewards. Check the report of steve or/and mine if you want more info on that.

I concur with everything joeri says....I still think rake should be lowered at low stakes plo and probably raised at high stakes. The nda agreement is also not limiting anyone from saying anything afaik.

Put me 4ward, I've always wanted to go to the Isle of Man.

I shud be able to liven the meetings up a little bit.

hey, this is the very purpose of an NDA, remember? or are facts just not interesting enough?

Volunteers to date:

Chuck Bass
Czar Chasm
Dabs
MurderbyNumbers234
OMGClayDol
VP$IP

Nomination accepted by nominees, to date:

Shane Stewart

Nominations declined:

bernardc
Bubbleblower
Do It Right
kanu
Pokie
raidalot

OMGClayDol is a good choice, i'll second his nomination/volunteering

pokie i somewhat understand your trolling in ssft but why troll here, wtf nominated this clown?

It is stopping us from saying specific information that really would not benefit the community in anyway, but I don't think it has stopped anyone who went to a meetings from sharing anything they had wanted to.

That is just your opinion and it can be difficult to prove a negative. For example, there are several past attendees that before attending wrote a lot of posts about PS. Heck their writing a lot of critical posts about PS is one of the reasons they got picked as player reps. But since attending they have been almost silent about PS. They didn't go from critical to fanboys, they went from critical to mostly silent. They still post on 2+2 and at about the same post count frequency. But their topics of choice have moved away from PS as though it isn't worth the trouble of talking critically about PS anymore.

Just a thought about the consequences of a NDA that PS won't even share with all of us to read.

Agreed.