Hi folks –

I’m going to be posting here on a regular basis to tell you what’s going on at PokerStars, and to answer questions you have about us. I’ll be posting a selection of Q/A’s about twice a month, picking the most interesting or popular questions.

To get things started, I’ll just make up some questions you might ask and answer them.

Q: Who are you?

A: My name is Lee Jones; I’ve been working for PokerStars for about a year. I’ve actually returned to PokerStars after a three-year hiatus; I was the poker room manager here for four years and then did a year with the European Poker Tour. I’ve been involved in the poker world since the mid-1980’s and professionally employed in the online poker business since 2003.

Q: Are you a real person?

A: Yes, I’m one real person. You have my word that if you see “Lee Jones” next to a 2+2 post, I made it.

Q: So are the other people who post for PokerStars (Steve, BryanS, Josem, NeilJ, et al) going to stop posting?

A: Definitely not. They provide detailed feedback and technical information about specific aspects of the site. I may occasionally duplicate or summarize some of the things they’ve been posting, but I will work hard to avoid stepping on their toes.

Q: Okay, let’s get down to serious business. What’s the status with “Zoom” – the fast-paced ring game product?

A: As many of you are aware, we’ve been testing Zoom on our test site (www.testpokerstars.com) and on pokerstars.net for a while now. We expect to launch a real-money beta to the public sometime this week.

At the initial launch, we plan to offer nano-stakes no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha (PLO) cash games only; we will certainly raise the stakes and consider other flavors (e.g. limit hold’em cash games, tournaments) as time goes on. Any of you that have done software development know it’s a healthy thing to roll out new features carefully, gently, and with due respect for Murphy’s Law.

And even though you didn’t ask, yes, it’s killing me that I can’t participate in the Zoom PLO games.

Q: PokerStars is on mobile devices now?

A: Yes, it’s available for players in the UK and Italy now for iOS and Android devices. We will obviously roll it out further as testing and regulation permit. You can read more about it (and download it) here.

I’ve been playing this on an iPad and it is pretty cool. You can get up to five tables going simultaneously.

Q: What about the Zoom on mobile?

A: Now there’s an idea…

Q: What other features are you adding to your software?

A: There are new features coming out monthly. Best thing to do is keep track of new features in this thread. Stefan is always prompt with information and replies to feedback all the time.

Q: What interesting things are coming up on the PokerStars calendar?

A: Glad you asked. Bryan and his team of tournament wizards are rolling out MicroMillions tomorrow (March 15th). It’s a new tournament series for the low-roller. The highest buy-in is going to be $20+2; it goes down from there. He’s got a feedback thread about it here.

Obviously there’s much more coming up – I’ll be sure to alert you to it here.

Q: What cool live events are coming up?

A: We have events coming up all over the world. Within the next 60 days, PokerStars is hosting tournaments in Vina del Mar (Chile), Campione (Italy), Berlin, Monte Carlo, Nottingham (England), Cebu (Philippines), and Sydney. In general, you can throw a dart at the calendar and hit the run-up to a handful of our live tournaments.

NeilJ does a great job of keeping people informed about the live events. You can see one of the threads he started here.

Q: Does PokerStars see a future in a marriage of social media and poker?

A: Absolutely. By far, most people who play poker do it not for profit but for the challenge and particularly for the community it brings. Social media has enabled people to gather and catch up with each other even when they’re miles (or continents) apart. We think that poker is the perfect activity for social gatherings and modern social media tools make those gatherings trivially easy.

We have a number of social media projects in the works and they’ll be rolling out over later this year. It’s all part of our view that poker is a big tent, in which there’s room for everybody. Casual players who want to play with their friends, serious amateur students of the game, and dedicated professional players – they’re all welcome.

Q: What can you say about the recent changes to the rake structure and VIP program?

A: Well, we’ve reduced the rake, particularly in the “micro-stakes” games. And we’ve gone to a “contributed” rather than “dealt” model for people to get Frequent Player Points (FPPs). “Contributed” simply means that you have to put money into a pot to get FPP credit for it.

My colleague, Steve, has posted extensively on this subject. A couple of places to start reading are: here and here.

Q: On that subject, you had some “player representatives” come out to your headquarters to discuss those changes. Don’t you just adjust rake and the VIP program as you wish?

A: PokerStars has a symbiotic relationship with its customers. Properly managed, our customers (the players) get a service they want; we make a fair profit. But there’s obviously a tug that goes on between our desire to make a profit and the customer’s desire to get the best possible value. It makes all the sense in the world for both parties to listen to the other’s side of the issue; that helps ensure the health of the symbiosis.

Q: Can you comment about the status of online poker in the U.S.?

A: No. Look, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by telling you we’re not paying close attention to the situation in the U.S. But we’re not going to speculate about what will or won’t happen when.

Q: What do you think about the Full Tilt situation?

A: I think I’m not going to discuss that either. We have our own business to run.

Q: I was in a SNG and got disconnected. Can I get my $11 back please?

Q: I am trying to use SuperQuickEuro [1] to deposit and it’s not working. What’s wrong?

Q: I think two guys at my table are colluding. Their user IDs are…

A: All of these questions (and ones like them) are better answered by our support team. Please email support@pokerstars.com – they will take exceptionally good care of you.

Thank you for your time – I’ll be back in two weeks with more. If you have general questions about PokerStars, please feel free to leave them here.

In the meantime, I encourage you to check out some on-going threads about things that are happening at PokerStars.

• Software Improvement
• General MTT discussion
• Discussion about the Micro Millions
• Supernova Elite Pursuit
• HU SNG Discussion
• MTTSNG Discussion
• STTSNG Discussion
• PokerStars on Mobile
• European Poker Tour (EPT) Discussion

Best regards,
Lee Jones

[1] There’s not really a deposit method called “SuperQuickEuro” (of which I’m aware)

first, great!

Barryg1 said last year in December i think, that pokerstars is developing a complete new software for this year, is it true?

Great thread!

Are there any legal issues with ZOOM, due to you know who has patent pending?

Have you ever played PL Badugi and lived to tell the tale?

Zoom is coming out tomorrow before micro millions right?

What is your official role now with Pokerstars? I know before you were the manager but you didn't make it clear what your role is now.

zoom?

what stakes are the nano-stakes exactly?

Erm Hello Lee and welcome back Sir.

I'd just like to correct you on your statement in relation to reducing rake. Rake was actually increased at some micro and low limit holdem levels because of the changes e.g. 1/2 and 2/4 limits in particular.

Hopefully you can look to redress this?. I am sure you are aware that there are many players who resent the changes that were made at the end of last year and hopefully you can look to regain the loyalty of the customers who have given $x,000's to Stars in rake and have been rewarded by getting their rewards cut.

Hi Lee great job. Was wondering if pokerstars could get some ring game tickets for cash game players that do not want to play tournaments? Thanks

Where did the HHJ tables go in homegames?

#2...... ?!?!? YES OR NO :_(

50bb cap on the NL/PLO rounds of 8-Game please. Those 2 games play so insanely out of proportion compared to the other rounds and a 50bb cap is the perfect answer as thats the most you can lose in the limit rounds if every street is capped!

Please look into this

I live in Berlin. Could you hook me up with an entry?

Please no to this. The big bet games are what makes 8 game exciting.

Do you know Alberto M. of Pokerstars? Can you promote him?

Follow-up question:

Will the new software BarryG spoke about, will it contain a FOLD BUTTON for our Russian, Brazilian and Greek friends?


One of my first poker books: Winning Low Limit Hold'em
Poker Book by Lee Jones

Can you comment about the status of online poker in Nevada?

When can we expect more countries to swith to pokerstars.eu ? And what countries are next to be transfered to pokerstars.eu?

Awesome Lee Jones is back!

Will you be hosting the Sunday Million final table again?

One time Lee!

Please also add fold button for German, Spanish..

did i hear somewhere that pokerstars are starting £25NL tables?

Bring back Amazon.co.uk vouchers for UK players.The store is rubbish now.

Lee, until now pokerstars refuses to have a different rake structure for plo compared to nlh. However the game of plo is very different with way more action compared to nlh. This results in between 50% - 100% higher rake for plo, hence low and midstakes rake is almost unbeatable. Any chance you will re-evaluate this descision in the near future?

Lee, as a losing player who deposits often there are several things that happen whilst playing (not solely at stars) that make me leave tables/sites. These are:

Being insulted with stats abuse, i complained about this earlier and got told, contarary to stars rules, that stars would not be taking action agains people posting tracking site details/links and generally abusing losing players.

People constantly timing out, then instantly sitting back in. I found out that they are using software tools that auto invoke the time bank button, and also auto sit back in when time expires. This software should be banned, stars has in the client a button that will let people sit back in, this should be sufficient. Allowing tools that auto timebank frustrates recreational players.

Late registration in tournaments. I understand why you do this, but it stops me playing them. I like to know how many players there are, then i can make a assumption how long the tourney will last not enter one with 250 players and find out after one hour there are still 700 left. Make more tourneys with fifteen minutes late registration.

Any impovements planned for the VIP store? It's pretty bare and doesn't offer many exciting items.