The problem is, assuming that people will re-earn their statuses is way too subjective. Yeah, the guy who has been SN for 5 straight years probably will earn it again. But what about someone who earned it once, 3 years ago, and hasn't earned it since? Or someone who barely earned it last year, and has already lost it?

It is also relevant that Stars has not made it very hard to keep SN. 7500 VPPs per month, AND you can skip one month? And it was only April. So you had to miss that minimum for TWO months out of the 3 total for the year already. How can Stars assume anything if you (not you specifically, but in general) have lost your SN status so soon in the year?

Pokerstars have been forced out of the US market. They didn't choose to do so. Losing upwards of 25% of their business overnight means they have had to re-evaluate their operations which includes their bonus schemes.

Why should anybody expect to get offered the same rates they could have had before Black Friday as if nothing has happened?

Sinner is missing the point so badly it's frightening.

I feel for the players losing thousands of dollars on Stars' poor decision, lack of flexibility, and obvious money-grab. I haven't done the math yet but i will probably be out $300 or so based on their incorrect conversion procedure. I'm not thrilled with that but I can survive. Can't believe they won't make things right for some of the other situations though.

The bronze star with 1M and others similar should seriously consider some sort of living arrangements in Canada for a couple months, grind like a wacky guy, and grab up the extra $10k in value or whatever it is you were currently going to lose. For the bronze star especially, there is no hurry. So if you think you can get around to something like this in a year or something then go for it.

i'm out some money too since i cant get all my points at the $4k bonus rate. i guess i'm just sympathetic to the terrible situation stars is in.

I'm not at all sympathetic to the multi-billion dollar company. What on earth? what terrible situation are they in?

And I'm especially not sympathetic to them keeping millions of dollars worth of their own customers' rakeback value.

Other points aside, I'm not sure how we could expect a ton of flexibility from Stars on this. If they started making exceptions for one person, then two, it would open themselves up for a lot of people to start making claims about their personal situation and intent, and then whole masses of others would have a complaint because an exception was made for X but not for Y.

I think their only option, whatever option they picked, what to set hard and fast rules and allow no exceptions.

I agree with you that if someone is potentially out thousands, then find a friend in Canada or Europe and grind up until you can cash out at better rates, surely it would be worth it if the amount you are out is that significant.

But if you are in the situation where you are out thousands, you are probably in the "lots of points, low status" group, and I have yet to see someone in that group at least acknowledge their own responsibility in allowing their status to lapse.

i see your point, but stars has handled the situation SO well imo, especially in comparison to FTP/UB, and even if they did give me every single point at the maximum rate, its a small amount of money.

i feel like you're arguing that Stars could have given me slightly more money. yes they could have, but they greatly exceeded my expectations and i'm grateful for that.

could Megan Fox be any hotter? ya i suppose its possible.

This.

Remember, if Stars allows FPP redemption in any other way besides the standard rules, they need to make it fair for not only all the different situations for players in the US, but for Washington St residents and for non-US players.

I highly doubt they are trying to 'steal' players rakeback. Absolute/UB are trying to make a 'money-grab'... Stars is just trying to be fair to everyone.

I am a Supernova and lost >$400 in value because I wasnt able to even cash out 1 FPP at Supernova rate.

The way I see it PokerStars did the absolute minimum they had to in order to maintain their image. If they decided to not honor FPPs and FTP did, they would look really bad and take a hit to their image.

Also the way I see it is that if next week FTP comes out and pays everyone and issues fair value for non-monatary items they will have leapfrogged stars as fair value>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>2 weeks sooner

they opened the door to allow FTP to out perform them imo

if your logic holds then they wouldn't have been able to offer partial credit for stellar rewards

They are in fact as business. As such, why should they make US players the absolute best possible conversion rate instead of a fair rate?

Everyone is allowed to cash out their points via the cash bonuses as their points and status stood on April 15th. In addition, some people also got prorated bonuses depending on were in their yearly VPP accumulation (something which strikes me as extremely fair).

Are the conversion rates for the cash bonus options the best on the site? Apparently not? Is this solution eminently fair for the vast majority of players affected by Black Friday? Absolutely.

Needs of the many vs. needs of the few in this case, I guess. What possible solution could they have come up with that someone couldn't have complained about? If prior SN who lapsed at the beginning of this year were restored to SN status, I imagine people who had grinded to maintain their status would have a gripe, yes?

And while it may have been nice for PS to make sure everyone got the very best rate for their level (and I very much doubt a lot of players even knew how to use their points for the very best rate), to argue that they shouldn't be using our status as it was on April 15th is wishful thinking. PS is under no obligation to reward prior performance (you could have rewarded yourself by cashing out at the time) or intent (as others have mentioned, then have no way of knowing, on an individual basis, who was going to grind back up and who wasn't for this year).

But I don't really think anyone is changing anyone's mind here. Those who think PS is being completely fair and those who think PS is screwing us to whatever degree are basically just engaged in an intellectual debate in lieu of doing what we'd all like to be doing, which is playing poker on PS.

They were running a legitimate business and overnight lost 25%+ of it (dodgy transactions aside).

In the UK they've just completed an inquest into the 7/7 bombings in London. The emergency services were criticised for delays and lack of communications on the day. Maybe they shouldn't have bothered trying at all.

I'm simply saying I should be put in the same position I was in on April 14. On April 14, I could have purchased tournament tickets giving me value of .0159 per FPP. Now, I can purchase rewards worth .0111. That simply isn't right.

The FPPs were value to me just like the the dollars in my account were value. They were no different. The FPP system was built to ENCOURAGE collecting them (so that you can buy, for instance, entry into large online or live tournaments). This value is MINE and, by this decision, it has stolen my this asset from me. There is no other way to explain it, unless Steve can tell me this was a fundamental part of the decision made by the DOJ, in which case, the US government has stolen from me.

that is not possible. please explain in more detail cuz as stated it is not possible.

FTP always made us clear bonuses whereas u could insta-buy em on stars. but yes, we will have to wait and see.. altho it doesnt really matter imo cuz stars cashed people out way faster.

I think he had less than 250k vpps. I'm in the same boat and lost about 300 in value as well, buying the lesser bonuses.

Valid point that I think a lot of people are missing. I played a good amount for a recreational player, but I never sat down and actually calculated the best possible rate for my FPPs.

I get the impression that a lot of people sat down after Black Friday, calculated the best possible amount they could get for their points if they were still allowed to access everything on the site, and are now disappointed that the actual plan put in place falls short of that highest dollar amount. I know a lot of regulars probably had plans in place to extract maximum value before this fiasco, but some others probably need to honestly assess if they even would have known the max value of their points prior to BF, and what they normally used their points for.

If you weren't getting maximum value before, it seems disingenuous to be complaining you aren't getting maximum value now.

Pokerstars are not allowed to let you play anymore.
Tournament tickets are therefore worth 0.000.

Last week my local supermarket was offering 2 chickens for the price of 1. This week they stopped the offer. That simply isn't right!

I hope you understand that your use of the word"fair" is subjective especially considering that your statement below is false

the best rate available to me on April 15 was via the concierge service
.016129 for 100% of my FPPs. I received on average .012 0 of which were the standard SN rate of .016

I dont see that as fair

Thanks for explaining that conversion rate, I hadn't done the calculations before.

I disagree that this is inherently unfair. YOU may have extracted maximum value and used your FPPs to buy tickets, but does that mean that everyone used their FPPs in that way? I would think a lot of people used them for tickets sometimes, cash benefits sometimes, maybe an item from the store. But the only thing US players have even been able to access since BF was cash (their bank rolls). Now, we can convert our FPPs to cash via the bonus structure.

It's personal opinion, of course, but I think that's perfectly fair. We're getting the exact rate we would have if we were saving all our points to buy cash bonuses, and since we can't buy tickets now, giving every player the highest maximum value, regardless of their past history of VPP/FPP usage, would have been generous in the extreme. They are still a business - them being fair and timely seems both good for us and for them, although I can understand not having a whole lot of sympathy for a billion dollar company.

IF FT compensates at the maximum conversion rate, that would probably make them look better to serious grinders, but I doubt many low level/recreational players have enough points/medals/whatever on either site for it to make a huge difference for the vast majority of the poker hoard.

The smallest cash bonus for SNs is based on 100k FPPs my balance was 99,637 therefore I was unable convert any of my FPPs at the SN rate....additionally on April 15 I was able to convert my FPPs at the Concierge Service rate of .016129 which i was awarded yesterday then revoked 4 hours later

If this is exclusively because of the loss of concierge service to the highest level players, then I would tend to agree that you and others in your situation have a legitimate gripe.

Jesus christ, I don't understand all the hand-wringing from people who just can't comprehend how Stars could've handled this more fairly. Is it 100% fair to assume people would've re-earned their previous status? No, probably not. But it's a hell of a lot more accurate than assuming none of them would. And all these strawman arguments pointing out how Stars is so much better than FTP and how people should be happy to get anything and how they wouldn't have gotten maximum value anyway are just missing the point. Individuals are losing value because of Stars' decision. Period. That's not fair, no matter how you want to spin it. Stars has probably made enough in rake from their still-massive remaining player base just since this thread started to cover the cost of paying everyone out at a 0.016 rate, so no, I don't have any sympathy for them having to pay a fraction of a percentage point more to ensure that no individual players are getting screwed.

And I don't understand people who seem to think nothing has happened since April 15th.

Ok so this is great I guess.

How do I download the site since I cashed out a few weeks ago and unistalled the software?