Yeah it will be the Ipoker "essence" style system.

What is your "friends" id. Sorry I don't believe you big salmon.

The 1M freeroll was a joke. It was a 10k freeroll. I do commend your friend for winning a seat. I lost all 10 shootouts, I never gained entry to this "freeroll" as a rec. So it wasn't so free for me.
Do you have specific numbers to indicate how much longer there deposits are lasting? because that sounds word for word like the press release on the website.

go shill elsewhere avid reader lol

+1

pokerstars paid shills going with full force

Why is online gaming going away? Record amounts were spent on UK machines last year.

So this was made cleaner for the recs? Or the programmers decided to do what most companies would try and do regardless, for any customers and improve there software. Sure, the vip status bar is cleaner, but every week the lobby freezes so.... I started playing on Pokerstars because of players like nanonoko, george lind and other players who were sensationalized by Pokerstars and idolized by many for achieving and selling the dream of being supernova and super nova elite.If pokerstars wants to make the game funner for me as a rec they will ban seating scripts, get rid of HUDS and provide a semblance of support pre 2012. I don't care about .50$ here or 2$ there, this is 2016$ thats garbage. and freerolls that require me to win lotto style to even gain entry and than insignificant meaningless prizes. I remember when Pokerstars use to have promotions handing out thousands upon thousands of dollars for milestones. Now that was a promotion. This 2$ and 50$ first prize is crap.

small freerolls are NOT rewards for anyone who is a winning player. Supernova freeroll was a reward bc u were basically freerolling a high stakes tournament. But for anyone who has a hourly that is bigger than couple of cents playing regular freerolls is a waste of time since u could earn alot more playing other games during that time.

I imagine all the plo guys who dont play 2k+ (where most of HSplo action occasionally runs anyways) must be horrified.
That game currently at any lvl z500 and lower runs at insane rake, and thus getting little to no rakeback in 2017+ and having to just rely on pure winrate, considering all the corresponding StDV swings must be close to unplayable. ouch.
Feels like the game will just eventually disappear similarly to what now happened to most of non-HS HU pokerstars action.

As for others, will just mainly yield and even larger decrease in current volume. doubt we`ll have games higher than nl50-nl100 (mainly at peak times) running by 2018.
PokerStars is now all about luckboxing a random spin&go, and sportsbetting/casino, and EasternEuropean/SouthAmerican dudes (including CIS botmakers) who are more than ok with about 1-3k$ monthly poker profit with very scary perspective in next 3-5 years (where that AVG 1-3k number will gradually decrease).
Oh well

Amaya salmon and his butt buddies are back shilling like there's no tomorrow.

stars shills - the force awakens

Rakeback should be based on player balances. In this way Stars will maximize total deposits and potential number of games running. And they will also make more interest income from the float.

50-200 balance 10 percent rakeback
200-800 balance 15 percent rakeback
800-3200 balance 27 percent rakeback
3200-10000 balance 35 percent rakeback
10000-50000 balance 42 percent rakeback
50000-100000 balance 50 percent rakeback
100000-500000 balance 58 percent rakeback
500000 and up 70 percent rakeback

There are many reasons why this is the most profitable path for pokerstars to take.

1. Deposits will almost certainly increase under such a system
2. Withdraws will almost certainly decrease under such a system
3. More games will run and higher stakes games will run
4. Both casino and sports betting will have increased play
5. Interest income from float will be the highest it can be

The most important thing it does is that it forces grinders to increase their risk in order to be rewarded. If I am 12 tabling 1/2 NL but only have a 5k balance then there is no way I can make a good rakeback amount unless I increase my balance. The problem with keeping money on the site is that I then become way overrolled. I can no longer get super juicy 65 percent SNE with a 5-10k roll. I am forced to play higher as is everyone else. Higher buy-in games have the most rake possible for stars. Game quality will improve because of the economics. The money will start to get uncomfortable for the grinder because of the stakes. It will force grinders to have to play real poker.

I can see why Stars are trying to kill the mid/hs games as the skill level between recs and regs is far too great and the recs never win. Essentially Stars pays 000's to attract players to their site and at those stakes players, who do nothing to attract the deposit, take the vast majority of any deposit made.

The reg posters in this thread hate things like spins but in all honestly it is the only way a rec is ever going to win big these days. And that is the dream after all.

Re: rake back just do away with it. Lower the rake a bit and give every net deposit a % of it back as cash tickets/spin tickets/tourney tickets or whatever the rec plays.

The only way there are games in the future is to give a chance / reward to those who ultimately find the games.

Poker Stars transformation is inevitable. Its focal point is now casino / sports-book. Every single decision, bar none, is designed to lead poker players to gaming. It is a on-line gambling product with zero interest in rewarding players who play poker only, particularly tournament grinders. Its has no business promoting poker. It is a medium to be utilized to recruit casino punters.
It will destroy pokerstars as we know it. It cant help itself. The way its going live events will cease to exist in 3 years.

If Daniel & team pro's, are not right now formulating a bid to offer Amaya shareholders I'd be stunned. They know better than anyone the future of poker in Amaya hands equals unemployment.

Agree 100% on that analysis - what made pokerstars so different was its focus on poker only - Now that poker is only seen as marketing too to bring player to casinos or sports betting we cannot expect anything good...

Sad to see Dnegs support this site this far down the road when you think where Vicky Coren and others drew the line.

Well atleast 1 player will still be making a living from Pokerstars.

Hopefully Pokerstars will be remembered in years to come as an example of how NOT to run a pokersite after thowing it all away to Unibet, RIO etc.

How about doing something with :
-bots- this is the biggest issue across every poker site believe me games would be at worst 2011-2012 if we got rid of bots/in play software aids
-seating scripts (been 2 years? since they promised to solve the issue and get rid of them)
-limit software aid further (things like note caddy and the advanced HUD is just insane nothing more like basic HUD should be allowed if any)

The VIP reward system is already giving very little for regs. So if they really cared about recreational players/ecosystem they would do sth about the thngs I mentioned first. Instead they are just like
'lets money brab further lets see how much more we can squezz from the games and get away with it."

Like seriously having huge unsolved game integrity problems like bots and seating scripts for years yet doing nothing about it and taking away even the minuscule rakeback we had. Good Luck being PLO reg next year (and being micro stakes reg in any cash game with 10bb/100+ rake and no rakeback).

They will do exactly the same as 888 I guess allow bots to grind because no one with half brain will grind the games otherwise.

It's too late re: software. Too much money and too many smart people involved. Pretty sure you could just screen grab everything onto another PC running in tandem and get a suggested course of action.

A reduction in table numbers would help and name changes too but bots, huds, seating scripts are here to stay. Once this is widely known it'll be very hard to attract any recs to the site.

If the company is thinking long term it's certainly correct to put poker to the side and concentrate on its sports and casino operations.

I have no problem in principle with the 2 changes they've announced, i.e.:

(1) extending VIP program to casino/sportsbook
(2) basing rewards on more recent activity

(1) is fine as long as they don't seek to make activity in those other functions necessary to ensure decent poker rewards (i.e. use it to try to push poker players into those other activities). If I can simply carry on playing poker and not the other stuff without impact then I don't care.

(2) depends entirely on quantum. Lets see the numbers and compare with the current (already downgraded) system. Lets see if much of the "rakeback" continues to be in the form of crappy waste-of-time freerolls. Lets see if accumulated rewards are lost when players are inactive for a while. Lets compare the whole package when we see the details. In theory the new system could be better or worse than the current one (though we all know which way the odds lie on that one!)

I find it odd that the system will not be changed on Jan 1 but rather clumsily will be changed part-way through the year. They've had forever to think about and implement the changes.

Is that because people are now playing less because they're being screwed more?

Btw how will this affect the regulated sites like .fr? They dont have (and probably never will) sportsbook or betting?

are the deposits lasting longer because there are more regs in the pool now then before? smaller edges more rake.

They have to in order to pay that "I" in EBITDA while they can still make money from poker.

And to be clear, I am pretty sure they try to improve their product. That just doesn't mean they improve the poker part of said product.

The reality is, you are not forced to play on the site so if you have a problem you can just leave and find another site, just like if you don't like a new flavour of potato chip at the supermarket you can just avoid it and pick another flavour. Give credit where it's due - Pokerstars have done plenty of good things over the years and are the number one site for a reason. If you can be open-minded enough to just see what comes out of it (as no concrete changes have been implemented yet for 2017 so we are still very much in the dark) then be patient, wait it out and see what develops. You can speculate and make predictions, but you can never KNOW - not for sure. Let's be optimistic.

You are a moran.

'Rakeback' will eventually be correlated with how much you lose. Whales in live casinos get the best perks, don't they?