I have come to the realization that I will never pursue this Exclusive Poker Challenge again at 2,500 pts for $200. It is way too much of a waste of time and forces me to play more than I otherwise would. I'm at 1,800 pts so I might as well finish it within 9 days, but after that I will pass if this is offered again. If it is for 1,000 points, I'll take it up, but never again at 2,500 pts.

I'm sure it is designed to force you and trick you into playing more. But in the future, I'll just either fail at it or not accept the challenge. Hopefully, that will get them to offer the more attainable point level.

at this point i kill for a 2500ptns for $200 bonus

never got one ever, wondering what they are tricking me into

Since the update Friday I don't have the coins hands any more.
The one where you play one hand for 7 coins.
Same for everybody ?

Took a break for a while, came back to 750 bronze chests. Oh cool, really low. I can breeze through them!
On the 8th, it jumped to 1250, the 9th went to 1850 and the last one went to 5950. What a joke
I could understand if I was crushing and it went up gradually but its ridiculous that in the span of 3 chests, it goes from min to max

Well. The Deal is back. Not sure why it was gone for a week.

So I was invited to comment on a video from the Director of PS in the Team Stars portal - Will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears but let's see what his next video holds.

My response >

If every single player on Stars posted here, what would they all say? The removal of the level based VIP system to implement the chests has been one of the sole reasons for the slowly decreasing player base to move to a competing site.

Guess what? That competing site have a level based VIP system in place.

Players of all statuses alike prefer the motivation of getting from Bronze to Silver, Silver to Gold, Gold to Platinum etc, than opening a chest with 10 cents in and a freeroll ticket. It isn't rocket science to see what the player base wants.

I understand something did need to change as the games were awful and full of 24 tabling regulars but you went way to far on the spectrum. As someone else mentioned here, you did this with the promise of taking from the big guy to help out the little guy - but that never materialised and it has now massively backfired with other sites offering far superior rakeback systems.

The Exclusive Poker Challenge and various promo's are nice, but this will not be enough to claw back the player base. I guarantee with an overhaul of the rake-back system you will start to see these players return as you still comfortably have the best software and playing experience.

I am by no means saying it should go back to how it was as the ecosystem was clearly hurting. However, meeting somewhere in the middle of where we were to where we are now, would be a reasonable first step back on the right track in my opinion.

Unfortunately though, you seem to very committed to the chest system so while I have all the hope in the world, I don't see anything changing.

+1 well said!

indeed,

their vip system from bronzestar to supernova (elite) was 1 of 2 reasons they were the biggest site, the other being they had better software than their competitors

so the fact that they ended their vip system for those useless chests and are forcing aurora on everybody which leads to crashes and glitches (on times where in the old days there was 4/5 times that volume of players online and everything went fine) is just mindblowing

that gg is overtaking stars right now is completely on them

Even if they kept the chests but had some reasonable % of RB in them. Opening a chest after playing for 10 days and getting $1 is just insulting.

you've got one of the bigger ones

but you are right, its insane to think something like platinumstar vip was around 40% rb and now im getting 2%

it doesnt really make me want to play at all and i am a total fish

Tip for any of these board game type challenges.

As soon as you complete your next chest exchange down. Then don't open any chests until you level back up (assuming you can clear 10 of the lower chests in the period of the challenge).

You get your dice rolls to move around the board from whatever chest you open but rewards are paid out based on your current chest level.

Might as well ask a quickie here as it's a PS question: Why are villains' hands no longer visible in the visual hand history tool even if they are visible in the text version (="instant hand history")? Is there any way to fix it? Bizarre update if it's not a bug.

Asked about this and it's a bug and should be fixed in the next update.

I've not played much the last two months so haven't opened any chests, but I've just read an article on pokerindustrypro about recent adjustments to the chests.

It seems the average value is still the same, but they've raised the minimum value slightly. For example Bronze now ranges ranges from $0.72-$12 instead of $0.60-$12. They've reduced the chance of hitting the top value, and redistributed it at the bottom.

Nice post. I keep putting this kind of thing in their surveys (albeit not so eloquently), but nothing changes. I just want transparency and fairness, and if they want to throw a whale a free ticket or a deposit bonus on top every now and then, go ahead. They've lost probably $10k per year in gross rake without any attempt to win me back, which is an interesting business model.

Seems like they are in the spiral of death as a business. I wonder how they explain losing market share to their shareholders? Maybe they don't care if they are looking to exit soon, the sports book is going well and they are slashing enough costs, but that's a risky route to go down.

sports book aint going well at all, is the worst of any sports book with 0 advertisement in that area. all their ads are around poker which signals that is their market to gather people at sportsbook.

its not just to give to the whales back more, the logic was at least what they said, they wanna take that extra rakeback that would have been given to regulars to pay for more advertisement so more casuals come, they do have a lot of ads tbh, at least in my country, and also they are paying for neymar which aint cheap at all.. but all this is pointless if another site has 80% of the regulars, in the end regulars are creating more games, a lot of casuals join a tbl as soon as 2-3-4 regulars start a game. im seein this on stars constantly, very few casuals solo sit at a table to start a game, they usually join once they see 2-3-4 players in

Thanks for posting this. The system they had before (i.e. Steps) was doing well. It was a nice middle of the road approach and games were good. They saw this was working and decided to take it further with the chest system but it just hasn't panned out. Recs are getting like $1 or $2 here and there. I just can't see how it can be motivating for them.

I'm also not a fan of the exclusive challenge system. I don't mean any disrespect to anyone getting them, but this keep a disproportionate amount of regs in the game like the SNE system did.

I think a change back to something like the steps system which is transparent and fair would restore a lot of goodwill.

the exclusive challenges are just rewarding the biggest winners in the zoom pool i dont get whats the point of that to give more to the biggest winners wasnt that the whole point of quiting sne

It isn't the biggest winners getting them. It's the guys who are breakevenish who would otherwise be getting weeded out of the pools.

those break evan guys are not playing tthe challenges consistently they often change sites if they see they are not winning, the big winners at tbls that also get the challenges are gonna play them every month and take money from economy.

not true at all

I haven't heard of anyone who is winning decently getting these. You might have a guy who has a good winrate at 200z but breaks even over 100k hands at 500z and then gets one after that period. I could be wrong on that though. It's just what I have heard.

Spewed a ton at low stakes cash and $50-$150 chests was common which put me a lot closer to break even. Some players getting good ones

not sure about mid/higher stakes but ive been doing really well at 16/25z all year and getting the challenges offered every month, have been away from stars for a year before that though