Wow, very good read. Seems like a very intelligent guy and he's really loving poker. Sickest thing is that he really did write that in 2014. Thanks for the link.

Btw for the young guys on here who don't like the stars changes-

DN once endorsed and absolute garbage site called poker mountain. Not only was their software awful, they also raked PREFLOP. Better hope he doesn't give stars any ideas.

Great find - also, yeah for sure an update would be another great read

Have kind of been wondering about what might happen to poker/Pokerstars if Amaya can't meet their loan repayments ... will they have to declare bankruptcy? What will happen to poker/Pokerstars then ... is there anything we should be doing now to prepare for that possibility?

Am not playing so much any more - have already switched games this year ... but it'd still be interesting to hear peoples' thoughts on what might be in store ...

Now that's what I call an amazing article.

That article begs the question: How do those changes help the recreational player? How did changing rebuys to re-entries help the ecosystem? How did changing regular MTTs with turbo MTTs with a similar rake help the ecosystem? Etc, etc, etc.

Now the question with the changing VIP structure is: How exactly does causing the mass multi-tablling players to go from playing a low profit GTO game to playing an exploitive game on fewer tables (and possibly lower stake tables) help the rec players? Previously, it seems to me, that PokerStars was essentially subsidizing players to play a less profitable game. But now PokerStars is pocketing that subsidy and releasing the hounds of the rec players. How exactly is that helping the ecosystem?

With this being written over a year ago, it becomes even more obvious how they intentionally didn't communicate the 2016 VIP changes adequately.

“Again, it all got a lot worse under Amaya. The new formula for communication is: dump an announcement in the Internet Poker forum on 2+2; give no notice of the change; don’t bother to respond to hundreds of posts of feedback/concerns; give BS reasons for the changes like “its better for the players”, “improving the poker economy” etc. without ever admitting its just to boost their already absurdly high profits; make the point that they’re listening to the players – even though they’re clearly not; and worst of all, don’t send out any email or anything to the 95% of their customers who don’t read 2+2. The last is very serious imo – not telling most of the customers about significant changes is pretty underhand and shows that the players are not as important to PokerStars as it claims.”

The last point that Shakerchi makes is important because it gives you an insight into the mind of the PokerStars machine. If it is still truly an organization that puts their customers first, why then am I still waiting to be told about the currency conversion and rake changes? The absence of a simple e-mail makes me think that they don’t want me to know. I don’t trust a company that thinks that way.

I was being sarcastic. The article suks balls and makes me want to puke

Now thats an amazing article....

Going from regular tournies to turbos helps recs because there is less skill involved. if you can't figure out why lowering table caps is good for fish i don't now what to tell you.

Lower table count > Higher win rate > More hands per hour > Fish lose quicker.

Your right about turbos though.

I'm not at all surprised that you don't know what to tell me considering that you have such a shallow understanding of regular structures vs. turbos.

Even though a turbo structure has more gamble to it which might cause the ROI of a winning player and a rec player to be a bit more narrow, it isn't the ROI that ultimately measures profits. It is the hourly win rate. That's why so many people, I guess that includes you, don't understand why the Spin and Gos burn through rec players bankrolls so quickly.

High rake and a fast structure is bad for both rec player and reg due to the narrower ROI gap. But it's the rec player that is going to get hurt the most and the pokersite that is going to end up getting the most.

Great article. I wonder if 'PokerStars Matthew' will add it to his running list of reasons why SNEs should have known that they were going to have $15M+ in bonus money taken from them, LOL.

Here is one for you then borg. Pokerstars have raked preflop in the past (on .fr cash games). It got removed because of player outrage

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...itable-818853/

As has been said many times the advertising of the benefits you get continuing as an SNE and then the reneging on that is unjustifiable. False advertising as far as I am concerned. Everything else is fair game but meh, this is not a company to trust with your money.

Called it right back when Amaya purchased this once great site

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...4&postcount=90

Little did he know what was to come...

It's amazing how much people used to let slide because Pokerstars seemed like they cared in the past.

PokerStars did care in the past when the scheinbergs owned them. Isai is a legend and we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I would go as far as saying it was the most customer friendly and focused company I have ever dealt with.

It's also cool that he really IS a recreational player and not a Pro. (the author of the article)
I mean Stars did provide this VIP System in the past for the players (don't act like the didn't know why they did it in the first place, to get ppl to grind 24 tables) - then we the players use this system and then we get blamed for that we destroy the games. It's just twisted logic everywhere.
I just seriously doubt Stars is doing anything for the rec players, or the ecosystem, but it's a nice PR stunt most recs will fall for. As you did say, recs burn through their bankroll even faster in Spins. Stars doesn't care about recs or regulars.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...anets-1485512/

It's interesting looking back at this thread from last year. Everyone was furious about the changes then but ultimately just let Amaya **** them up the arse. Amaya will just keep raping players, sticking it in a little further each time, if they're allowed to.

I'm not sure how many tourneys were changed from rebuys to re-entries. Rebuys certainly have great value with the lower rake. It seemed to me that many rebuys were just removed and re-entries were added to some tourneys to keep their guarantees high. The guarantees have been dropping in alot of tourneys for years, especially the reg speed tourneys. Some sites have added longer late registration periods or re-entries to try and keep the guarantees up to a reasonable level. Others have removed tourneys and focused on keeping the guarantees up in their "special" tourneys. On Stars these are the "red" tourneys.

As far as changing regular MTTs to turbo MTTS, well, turbos are just more popular among the overall player base. The rake is higher in them because of their popularity. Stars can get away with keeping the rake high as people are going to sign up and play them anyway. You cannot blame Stars for trying to maximize their profits in them. If the demand was higher for reg speed tourneys or the rake level caused a drop in the amount of players signing up for turbos I'm sure we would see added reg speed tourneys or a decrease in rake in turbos.

This is just an opinion. But I think the problem is stars wants the heavy volume (majority being winners) off the site. So that's whose cage they're trying to rattle the most. Indeed I agree they are raping players, with an iron stick, until the players (winners) say 'I give up I quit'. I would assume stars is expecting a certain % of these players to quit, a certain amount to move down in stakes, a certain amount to decrease volume, certain amount to change poker formats etc. One by one each decision will greatly alter the landscape of poker as we have known. Either lower stake games will get tougher, overall site traffic will decrease, or some other possibility I couldn't predict (hell who coulda predicted they're literally trying to change the game of poker into some hybrid lottery game). Now I think where you really hit stars is when the net depositers start being outraged by these shady moves and also start withdrawing and leaving the site. The question is how to do that.

With that said I am also under the impression that stars is not scared of any competitors. Be it that they think they'll buy out anyone who starts to be a threat or they are just being macho headed is unknown. But obviously this would be the time for a competitor to capture a lot of market

It's really tough. Because as someone pointed it earlier how can you just say 'f you stars I'm gonna continue to play at your site just to spite you'. At the same time leaving the site is kind of what they want. That is if you're more than a marginal winner.

Also what would scare me as a stars player is the other directions stars is taking. In the sense of casino games, sports betting, fantasy football. I'm afraid they're a few days too late to that party. In theory those are growing markets but I'm sure a lot of people who are into that type of stuff have already found a site to throw themselves at. There are already extremely successful sports books, daily fantasy sites and online casinos. So if those fail the outlook for stars suddenly gets even dimmer as more cuts are made to pokerstars in order to salvage their other poor investments. Also DFS is essentially unbeatable and chalk full of potential to cheat so I personally don't see it getting to the peak it was at 6 months ago. People are learning these things and backing off. Which I hope is what happens to stars as winning and losing players alike start to realize 'hey this company is extremely evil and who know what length they'll go to to take my money, I'm moving sites or quitting'

My point, though, was, how does keeping the rake high in the turbos help the ecosystem? PokerStars claims that changes are desperately needed to improve the rec player experience. But it seems that only occasionally is Stars concerned about the rec players.

As that article stated, PokerStars tends to "...squeeze even more out of the beleaguered players.” That seems to be much more of a common thread that runs through their changes than concern for a healthy ecosystem.

Here's the original post from raidalot:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=529

Sorry, I don't know how to keep the original quotes in, the are a few bits where he is replying to other people:

31 October 2014


Other than that. Guys, please stop buying into this soap opera they are putting on of Baazov thinks/Daniel thinks/Lee Jones says/Matthew says/Daniel would/Josem thinks/Scheinberg would've/Baard says/Baazov wanted/etc. because it just enables them to play good cop/bad cop games with you and distract from the issues.

They're a corporate body, you're a customer of the whole thing, and their reputation should be judged as a whole by their actions.

It's high rake which is killing the games. Pokerstars need to find another way of charging for the games. If they pursue a path of making the game more like casino games then they will kill poker as we know it.

Nellyv, that's exactly what they are trying to do, kill poker as we know it.