Amazing how people cannot read.

ONCE AGAIN: 888vipclub is coming to pokerstars. For teh transition period most SNs will get 2% less

Do we even get 30%? I've got my rakeback set at 27.5%.

People can read...they just don't wan't to believe it's happening so, attempt to come up with every other possible scenario other than that one.

I'm able to read even if english isn't my first language.
I understand that people could be right about the huge cut, and SN could have 28% till new changes will be implemented. However for me it doesn't make sense at all. I mean, they email SNs about what? About SC withdrawn?
Well, this could be just a way to trick users, as Amaya did for the first day. It woudl be just a way to look interested in the customer, communicating earlier, and in a vague way, the changes.
Anyway I emailed Stars and ask further clarifications, even if they don't want to share more details, they have to reply to something about the 28%

Surprised about 6 months being the period they went for. Seems really short. I wonder how many accounts there are that will lose significant amounts of money because of this.

Typical timstone, condescending as usual.
It is not that people can't read, the wording of the email is more than poorly chosen. As a player I want to know what I get with the new vip club, not what I get in transition period! I'm confused af!

They essentially communicated earlier this year that they gonna do something like 888 where you have to start grinding casino and sportbets as well to get max value. They arent telling us more bc its the end of the year pretty much and if they would give details on how much we are getting screwed some people may actually try to take their action elsewhere for teh new year - new year new site... they arent really that hard to read imo...

I'm not sure it was "have to".

The setup around 2015 when I used to play on stars was that casino play counted for FPP but not VPPs - I assume now casino play counts for StarsCoin but not VPPs - I read that previous statement as meaning that casino play would count for VPPs too.

Hang on a sec, you're not suggesting that Pokerstars woud deliberately mislead their customers into playing more until year end only to short change those customers in the new year. They got Negreanu there to make sure that a communication blunder of this kind cannot happen.

In all seriousness, I would snap take a drop to 25% or 20%. Something like the 888 VIP could well backfire massively for them given how volume has dropped on the year even though regs are still getting 30%. An enormous amount of greed is causing them to take a lot of unnecessary risks.

If your a cash game player why play on pokerstars?
there are enuff cash ring games on microgaming and they
give everyone 30% rakeback + rakeback races.
simples

if you're happy to play in games full of bots and colluders, sure.

Even more scripters, colluders and bots. No zoom. Client is worse. Not enough games if you want to play above micros. Atm there is 10 NL50 5 NL100 3 NL200 and 1 NL400 game running. And it's pretty much impossible to join a table because there are no waiting lists and I ain't buying a script for that.

What traffic do you expect midnight on a euro network? 6 hours earlier and there would of been more traffic.

Is pokerstars even playable in 2017? I pretty much quit in 2014 are the games still beatable? Above 10$ stacks? (0.00350 winrate doesn't count)

Note to Stars. Offer 30% FLAT rakeback for EVERYONE. No other idoicy needed. It's so Le simple and so Le affective. And so le-common-sense, unless you're one of the 1%.

hourly rakeback in stars is still many times better prolly. and since its seasonal highpoint games r juicy. and microgaming software is horribad.

More than that. Plenty of euros at stars.

So reading both this new email and the previous blog post in September, i think it's clear how this works. The 28% is a temporary measure until an overhauled VIP system is in place. Here's how I read this:

- An entirely new VIP system is coming some point in 2016. It will reward play across all our gaming verticals, though non-poker play is not required to progress. The monthly system will be scrapped. In its place is a system "more personalized to your recent gaming activity and player profile." [source: Sept blog post]

- We don't know when this will go live, but it will be in 2017. On January 1 2017, the supernova will switch from annual to monthly temporary, in preparation for the new system (because we can't get people on an annual target when we know everything will be scrapped, so we need this temporary monthly system for SN). [Sept blog post]

- We will tell you about the all-new VIP system at least 2 months in advance before implementing this new system. [email today]

- Before this new system comes into play , supernova's new monthly system will be capped at 28% (down slightly from the 28%-30% now), target to get it is 10,000 VPPs a month. Existing tiers remain unchanged in rewards and monthly targets. Again, this is all temporary. [email today].

- StarsCoins will expire for 6-month old accounts. [email today]


So my read is, the whole system is going to change. There won't be "reduce SN to 10%" because there won't be SN. There might not be tiers at all. There's going to be an all-new system "personalized to your recent gaming activity and player profile." It will cover casino, sports and poker. It could be entirely mission-based and everyone's rewards will be different.

Yes but the effective rakeback % will still be there to calculate. At the moment its around 28-45% for most higher volume players.

And if they continue reducing it from beaten down 30% even further for the greater good of ecosystem, i just find it unreal how amount of games wont shrink even further in 2017 for many reasons lolcompetition but also even more regs/recs quitting because of totally murdered reputation (and we already have very low relatively speaking volumes in 2016 vs 14/15);

Sounds like a bad way of paying of debts long-term if u wont have any games above microstakes in all formats by 2018.

Possible. If everyone is getting different rewards (think bespoke achievements and missions), and you don't know what missions lie ahead for you, it may be hard or impossible to know what to expect.

But anyway that's all speculation: My main point was hopefully to clear up some of the confusion with this latest email. Seems clear to me the new 28% monthly SN is a temporary measure until the whole monthly VIP program is scrapped entirely.

From the conference call yesterday, looks like our boy Bobby Basaov has put in another bid to take Amaya private. Maybe this would be preferable to being bought out by 888 or somebody. Not even sure what to root for at this point.

At this point you can only root for Phil Galfond site I guess. The others are just desperate to convert everyone into a casino gambler. They wouldn't even offer poker if they could get away with it.

Pokerstars keep trying to justify their cash grabs by catering more to recreational players but all I see is prize pools going further down since 2013-2014 and less and less recreational players playing. Maybe your s h i t does not work, Pokerstars?

Somehow back in 2013 you had huge player pools in all bigs and double vision Sundays with majors filled with all kinds of recs yet all of the grinders and mass-tabling nits were getting all their SN and SNE bonuses. But since all of those b/s sportstars endorsments and all the cuts you made to grinder's rakeback your player pools are shrinking and you lost all credibility in the poker world (not that you care about it).

I took a long break from poker.. and when I did play I stopped actively following everything. I've been playing again for three days and just noticed Supernova Elite is gone. I've been reading this thread and the other one for 30 minutes just shocked. And it only gets 'better.'

oh u`ll get plenty of surprises, unless u want to start at microstakes, and much preferably tournaments.

But think of the ecosystem !!!