I've had a sudden wave of insight regarding what this change made by Amaya actually means. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think these changes are related to the poker ecosystem specifically. I think it is more a reflection of the economic landscape of online gaming in its entirety. I am under the impression that the flow of money between the fields of varying authority can and will undergo a more wave-shaped motion than the false allure of exponential or linear alterations. I see these changes as an endeavour made by corporate Amaya to re-establish the iconic patterns of a global system that not only will unite the various subgroups of the online gaming industry together but also restore the connection between poker literature and the physical aspects of the game.

you've got point. LOL

Oh god
This news are depressive
I'm not a big winner , 3000 - 4000 $ is enough to live well .
I guess this changes will cut my income drastically .
Its time to cooperates with whole poker community and make a boycott for couple of days .

This is a myth. Spins are the easiest, most crushable format nowadays and it is good for both the regs and recs. One of the rare things amaya got right. A solid grinder can crush spins without hitting jackpots and not have losing month if he plays enough volume. Variance is way lower than in MTTs and probably lower than in PLO cash for a good reg. Only bad thing is the killer rake in low stakes, as it is hard for a newcomer to move up similar to cashgames (the 5 dollar milly ones are pretty much unbeatable w/o jackpots for an avg micro spin reg), also good rakeback is important for a spin reg. Still should be profitable for years to come, unless they lower rakeback even more or raise the rake.

Pokerstars lying and sandbagging poker players, I would say that is a very stupid way of approaching this situation.

I'd really didn't want to comment this case, but many of the steps Amaya are taking here is bad for 99% of the players and for Amaya themselves for the long-term.

The CEO looks like a really big amateur, and Amaya will be punished for it by people leaving/stopping playing.


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Banning huds and scripts would be fine, but increasing rake/decrease rakeback is just absurd when some games already are unbeatable.

Thank you. I did not know that. But you still mention that $5 Spin & Goes are almost unbeatable for an average grinder without hitting the jackpot and that it would be harder to beat if they further lower rakeback and raise rake. I think that will be exactly what will happen the next years. Due to its strong market power, Poker Stars can just do that. There is a lot of competition between winning players to play recreationals. If an average player cannot beat the stakes due to increase in rake or decrease in rakeback, a better player will fill his spot, because he himself cannot beat the higher level.

To put it in economic terms: Poker Stars controls the supply of fish. The middle class of winning poker players will slowly earn less and less money.

Thats all folks!!.They have managed to change the best poker site in the world into a casino and sportsbook.I have been struggling over the last 6 months to play any regular sngs due to very low traffic you can't get a game unless you play at absolute peak times.I have had to change my games and times just to be able to multi table.the only decent thing they have done is introducing the stars card-afraid its going in the bin!!
They are putting hate into the hearts of poker players..
see you on the other side..Euro currency sites!

Question: how is this going to affect MTTs? i have a friend who thinks these changes will mainly hurt cash game players and he reckons MTT players (at lower stakes at least) shouldn't be affected too much i.e. the games will stay roughly the same in terms of difficulty. Is he right?

Would be a good idea to be switching to softer alternative sites such as Bovada (even if you are ROW) Just look to contact the correct personnel.

It probably wont affect MTTs quite as severe as cash game players but it is going to have an affect everywhere there are heavy volume grinders. If the reduction in rewards turns any high volume pro at any format or level from being profitable to no longer being profitable game's are going to change.

i like this idea to raise awareness of this BS but i think its needs something more to the actual poin than the possible death of stars.

it will effect MTTs! if the rakeback causes the cash games to become tougher with Regs moving down it will force people to move over to tourneys because of this. i dnt think MTT grinders want to be playing any sort of NL with some of the better holdem cash players online. Timex brought up this point how he thought he was -ev in the 51k high roller on stars vs cash game players "who play millions of hands of deepstacked NL against tough opposition" true ben86 wont be playing 180s but MTTS will feel an influx of solid players.

this is one of the best examples to see what happens when a big company has an unfit CEO with too much power.

i would like to see those pokerstars employees faces when they have to post the bull**** on 2p2 amaya told them ...

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgu...IVTziICh3WEQ-i


dont know how to get this avatar on here lets get this all over stars

Just leave Amaya! Let them run 20 tables with recreational players. Lets see how much their earnings grow.
Leave them before they destroy poker.

Wondering the same...

I just want to point out that Supernovas are also concerned by this "2 year agreement". As a SN, Pokerstars also promises you a boost in RB as a 2nd year SN. SNEs are not the only ones hit by this. And there is a hole lot of supernovas.

Iv hit a tipping point I can't even breath I need to vent.

NO RAKE AT HIGH STAKES,
All you are doing is making the games harder for everyone. Regs will flood to lower stakes and make it harder to move up for other people. You are essentially saying the poker dream is dead. You have made it a huge % harder to make it to the top now. What do people grinding .5/1 have to look forward too once all there hard work has paid off and they've made it to high stakes? No rakeback and punishment cause there good at poker now? There's so many ways you can help recs without ****ing over regs. Which leads me to...

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS,
LOWER THE RAKE. Yes I said that lower the rake. Right now you have an environment where there are many games that are unbeatable unless you mass volume and some that are just outright unbeatable. (Low plo,hypers,turbo mtts ect ect)
Maybe lower the rake in those games and limit the amount of tables people can play,ban huds,ban scripts,make everything anonymous, or make screen name changes allowed. Just throwing out ideas here, but no. What do you people (Amaya) do?.....

FU SNE and SN
obvious 2 year programs that people worked their ass off making money FOR YOU and themselves to earn and reap the benefits in the following year. NOPE that's not happening. Like how can you guys be so naive to think these people wouldn't care. And then the whole PR bull**** "98% vs 2%" trying to make your most valued customers seem like bad people. I see people on Twitter saying things like "thank you stars for fighting for the 98%" well guess what stars hasn't done **** for you with these changes except make it harder for you. Did they take from the top and give to the bottom? No. Did they take away SNE and give all that money to bronze - platinum? No. Did they give you anything at all except harder games and not much of a future to look forward too? No.

Another tilting thing I saw a stars rep on here write something like "the change to stars coins are to make it more simple to recs" OH, so you have to STEAL 25% of everyone's fpps and name this process stars coins to make it easier for recs???? Do you think these people are so dumb that they don't understand fpps and what you are doing?

You want to help poker? Let's start by not making the already tough environment 10x harder Amaya. It just really seems like some Amaya execs got together and were like "what's the best way to make a **** load more $ and make it seem like we're trying to help everyone." And ffs do the right thing and honor your agreement to SN and SNE through 2016 at the very least.

Final thought, why do you think recs play? For fun? Yes but also TO WIN. No one plays poker to lose and most people want to make it to high stakes. That's how they got drawn to poker was from watching isildur or high stakes on TV ect ect. Lets not crush that dream and that
Motivation for them.

The "poker dream" of starting lower and moving up was impacted quite a bit by the volume incentive based system. Years ago, even before Black Friday, I used to play some DoNs and backed/coached people who played them.

Many players at the time had the "poker dream" of starting small ($5 games) and eventually moving up to the 100s. I made it clear then that that was not possible, because at 50s and 100s the opponents were all SNE players, so playing those games was a very bad choice unless one was getting SNE. A lot of people were frustrated because there was basically a hard cap at the $20 level at the time unless one was going to make a SNE run.

Other games back then, including limit poker (5/10 games) had the same effect, and that is why many rooms have gone away from the volume based incentive approach. I was surprised Stars took so long to move away from it.

That being said, I understand the frustration of those impacted by the change, including the dozens of people posting in this thread with 10 or less posts that were apparently going to go for SNE. Quite a few of them out there it seems, and there are some valid frustrations such as the 2 year value of SNE that could be gutted in the middle, and I hope some of these genuine complaints are discussed in a rational manner once everyone gets they venting screams out of their system.

The sheer volume based incentive programs are quite outdated, and they had a negative impact on the games in many ways. Unfortunately Stars is opting for the ripping the band-aid off approach in trying to correct for that.

doesn't americas cardroom have the exact same sne rewards program?

That's void under the law of a lot of places as long as the judge realizes that FPP's are just a pretty way of covering $ value, especially considering SNE is advertised as a 2-year program.

It's time to consider what other site can be good for Cash games. Ipoker is pretty cool I think

I don't think Poker Stars cuts volume based incentive programs, because they want to keep the "poker dream" of grinding it up alive. The players, who have such a dream rarely redeposit. They work hard on their game and try not to go broke. Poker Stars has enough players of that kind. For them, more redepositing players are the ones that drive additional traffic. For example, a recreational player wanting to play a $50 SnG does not have to wait for action.

One thing that I didn't see anyone mention so far is "role of regs in non-poker community".

I'm playing poker now for about 7 years, 4 years more seriously. Poker always been like part-time side profitable hobbie to my "main thing". I've never been too open about my poker carreer with no-poker community, since online poker is still on grey side of the law in my country.

But during those 7-4 years I was AMAZED how many people know I'm playing poker and I'm winning (only my poker buddy knows how much I'm making). I even met people I haven't spoke with several years who asked me about some rumours they heard about my poker winnings etc. Maybe this is a small town thing only. But you should be sure that this might have been booster for those people to "try this online poker thing" too. Meaning, if some big names from TV ad talk to you to try it, I believe "normal" people are resistant against this influence. BUT I believe if they see someone closer to them (it can be their ex StarCraft buddy streaming now online poker on twitch) suddenly making money in such a thing, it might be much more effective to get them into the game. Lot of them contacted me during those years asking me about poker and where to play etc. (people I didn't see or spoke to the YEARS or barerly ever).

We've seen already this in "real world" bussines when micro-celebrities are being "sponzored" by companies who are realizing how much influence those people have.

I don't want to compare myself to someone who has hundreds thousands followers on Instagram or Youtube, but I'f you take what influence those "unknown" regs has, given to their offline and online activity, the amount of people who whould probably never try something like poker and now they're "trying it", wouldn't be small.

A dream... exactly that.

PokerStars are there to serve the stakeholders, increase share price, maximize profits in the current macro environment etc. Blame the launch of Amanya on the TSK as the catalyst for this. It is sad to see the lies, word play, corporate polished English used. Players will see through this, if not now, as soon the Policy changes are effective.