For a real laugh I got the email on Friday as well, the only thing is my account has been frozen for the last 3 months and Stars won't release any funds that came as part of a bonus program (2.5k in total). But it really was great to know that even though my account is permanently banned they're willing to keep me in the loop for all the exciting changes!

I emailed Stars to ask why I never received the email despite being a high volume player for 7 years. That was 2 days ago and they still haven't responded. I also didn't get the email regarding changes to HU play when at the time I was top-3 volume player at HU mid-high stakes at the start of the year. I don't think they like me

You might want to check your client settings and make sure your opted in under the 'Global' - 'communication preferences'.

If it's not that, then maybe your right and they just don't like you!

I'm SN and didn't get the new email either although I got the first one.

0% would be simpler.

Reducing the rake by 30% would be even simpler.

Note to disgruntled Stars players. Move to WHERE they offer 30% FLAT rakeback for EVERYONE. No other solution needed. It's so le-common-sense to move away from Stars, unless you like it in the a**.

Name one that offers 30% flat to everyone, has a good software, traffic outside peak hours, not filled with bots and won't close up shop and keep your money.

Me thinks this thread is about to get that much more interesting...

Assuming you are winning their money with all this play of yours, correct, they dont like you

There's no reason I find the best deals for you LOL.
You're the kind of person who will never be satisfied anyway, even if Stars would offer 30% flat to everyone and had the cheapest rake, you would have something else to argue about.

Keep in mind that the only reason why Stars is N°1 atm is because Isai Scheinberg set the bar very high when he still was there.
Stars wouldn't be Stars if it was managed from beginning by the idiots who got it now.

Regarding traffic. The supernova players told us last year they should have special treatment because they are the ones who determine which sites do and don't have traffic.

So if you and a couple of your friends give some other site your traffic the problem will be solved and there will be real competition between sites again. Because its you lot that determines these things, right?

No reason because there are no such sites, maybe if you had a timemachine and went back to 2006.

A lot of projection in that post, have you considered working at a movie theater?

Im not sure what your point is but yeah Stars is the best place to play and it would still be if they removed rakeback entirely.

stars really needs competition

considering how small they are getting relative volume wise, with rocket speed, they surely will soon have plenty of competition.

becoming smaller does not imply that another company will simply set up shop and catchall the people that left stars. what if people dont think its fun anymore? or rigged? or better entertainment elsewhere cheaper? list goes on and on but you get the point, its just not that simple. If it were we would surely have this site by now, its been 1.5 yrs since amaya management tookover

yeah i dont think any site is going to increase to the size of current stars, but i think the point they are making is that at this rate stars could very well end up shrinking to a similar size as some of the other sites

This -
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 -

Next step for Amaya: Slide a few million to Putin in order to keep in operation. Everyone else has moved over to Phil's.

If you gonna remove popular formats because of people winning to much at it, you are gonne lose customers, its that simple imo. Both winners and recs that liked that format.
And ofcourse the constant devaluation of the vip rewards, overraked games etcetc.

I dont know why some serious competition has'nt stepped in yet, seems to me there is more room then ever for a good product players want to play, instead of a product that profits the site the most (in the short term)

I'm sure there is going to be a critical mass reached at some point. Once a site reaches a point where enough of the games people want to play run enough of the time and word gets around then there's going to be a mass exodus.

This year I'm wedded to stars because of the Supernova chase and the rewards system. Next year I will definitely be branching out and exploring what other options are available.

The only site showing any interest in keeping poker players happy is Unibet (also appears to be the only site growing) - other sites are following the Amaya model of actively trying to dissuade players from playing there (and are stagnating/shrinking).

What's interesting is that the rec-friendly rhetoric that accompanies rake increases/rakeback cuts does appear to work - Unibet have been rec-friendly from day one. The problem is that other sites don't follow through with it - if Stars had actually reinvested all the SNE cuts + rake increases (as promised at the time) it likely would have been win-win for everyone.

Unibet basically build a poker room from scratch (i know, a bit exaggerated). they didn't have tons of demanding regs and therefore they didn't need any cutbacks. unibet is also a Bookie/casino (growing market) first, and poker is just a tiny part of the company. since they also don't have $2 billions+ in debts, they can take the easy road and plan for winnings in the longrun.

that poker is only a small segment is also the reason why they can easily grow. the relative numbers are impressive (and unibet can be proud, no doubt), but if you're honest, the totals numbers are not that impressive. besides that, unibet isn't the only growing room, imo MPN (which has the same rec-friendly approach as unibet) grows too.

another thing: i don't have any numbers, but PS has reinvested into the recs, like all the tiny promotions, where the average micro grinder can complete a simple challenge and get a few $. of course it's not impressive, if 50.000 players get $2, as if one SNE gets $100k (not saying every SNE $ saved is 'donated' to recs, which prolly isn't the case).

It's not just about the reward system - being genuinely pro-rec like Unibet involves other things.

Pokerstars' making ostensibly mucked showdown hands visible to people with 3rd party software but not users of the main client, letting people "grind" what are presented as tournament satellites for cashouts, letting people use HUDs and banning any possibility of screenname changes or second accounts so as not to interfere with the "game integrity" for people collecting or sharing databases ... some of those pro-reg policies are pure evil and are matters that they should be having to defend to licensing authorities. All the douchey Negreanu speeches about "focussing" on the rec players doesn't compensate for that.

Those little promos are more than paid for already - they don't run any "normal" promos anymore. Milestone hands, reloads etc.

that's not true, you can see them in Stars replayer (you gotta know about it, though, which is indeed kinda weird)