So `effective rake increase, thats what cutting VIP program is` is one thing. U cant argue with ur boss if he wants to cut ur salary, you either change the job (site) or u swallow it. Thats one thing.

But getting rid of highstakes games will make every single game down to micro stakes) much tougher.

And to me now this doesnt seem that Amaya is only interested in taking more money from players via rb cuts.
It seems now that they bought the company not to dabble into poker economy to use poker as a business.

Instead they bought the `customers platform` from Isiah, to attempt to move customers in other non-poker directions (casino/slots, its quite obviously that any gambling company makes very small profit out of poker games they run compared to casino/sports betting part of theirs. Ive been around people who run smaller gambling companies and thats what they told me).

I mean introducing S&G`s in it self is an attempt to convert poker to casino-like format where site wins the majority, making edges extremely thin.

So Amaya just bought a huge customer base to slowly redirect them to more profitable aspects of gambling business to themselves.

They dont actually want u to play poker. They dont care if u quit. They want to aim those customers out of poker economy that would allow them to make highest EV profits for non-poker gambling sides of that business. And poker is there to just cover things up. The slower u lose (less/smaller withdrawals) money out of poker world (aka much thinner edges created in all formats) the better it is for Amayas bottom line.

Now thats very horrible news for anyone being around poker business.

MORE MORE MORE

thanks alot amaya !

If I earned 200k+ VPPS this year will I receive 30% rakeback from the beginning of the year? Sorry if this has already been asked.

No, you start from Chromestars and have to pay a 200$ admission fee per month to play more than 3 tables.

it will be from 2016, it will be the same until december 2015

Thanks. I guess these changes actually won't affect me as much as most other supernova+ players as I'm not SNE and don't play that much cash. That being said, it's still horrible for the future of online poker.

I'm sure the changes will maximize their short term profits, but it will kill a lot of the buzz around poker. Even fewer players (especially people who are aware of the scope of these changes) will tell their friends about poker/Pokerstars, there will be fewer succes stories, less high stakes action (and dreams) etc. It's a pretty gutsy business decision.

so it just seems like this is a huge money grab.

i like the fact stars is trying to make it less lucrative for guys to be playing 24 tables of robotic break even poker, which slows the games down and makes the game boring for the fun players playing a couple of tables. But they also need to do something about this micro stakes rake, it's absolutely ridiculous and it's become almost impossible for anyone to win at <50nl with the way today's games are.

take money out of the high stake pockets fine, but it's got to be pumped back into the bottom of the food chain to create a healthier poker economy. I think the guys who are being effected most would be a lot less pissed if the money they are losing isn't just lining pokerstars own pockets rather than developing the games at lower stakes.

frustrating thing is that stars has such a large % of the online poker market that they could literally destroy it within the next year without the introduction of any real competition.

Ehm I rarely even play more than 2 tables at a time.. But hey, thanks for taking the time to post an absolutely useless comment

I just want to see the reaction of a bunch of SNEs and how they will respond with actions to this obscenity.
Curious to see SNE pros like Haxton, Jorg and Coimbra. Even more curious about hyper turbo grinders!

Ok, I'll take up the slack while you have a break, Negreanu is a ****.

Pokerstars and professionals ultimately have the same aim, to get as many players depositing as much money and then making them play lots of poker. Pokerstars then get their income from rake whilst professionals get their income from beating the casual players.

The current Pokerstars strategy of spending the vast majority of their marketing budget on SN and SNE players (who are nearly exclusively professionals / winning players) rather than casual players is therefore absurd in this regard as it does little to incentivise casual players to deposit and play (which should be pro’s ultimate aim).

We can see how this by looking at the state of the games. Years ago things were a bit different in that when a casual player stopped playing there was a steady flow of new players to sign up to replace them. That has stopped and the quality of the games has suffered immensely as a result. Casual players are stopping more quickly, it’s harder to get them to come back and it’s harder to find new players to replace them. Can you not see where this is going? Less and less casual players will reduce win rates of professionals slowly turning more and more into losing players. This is NOT the path to continue on.

The 3 drivers of a professionals income are
1) Winnings from playing (the more casual players there are the higher this is)
2) Rake (the higher this is the more winnings are offset)
3) Rakeback / loyalty rewards

From the above 3 drivers number 1 (winnings) should be so far above 2 and 3 that professionals should accept compromising those to the benefit of them. This seems lost in every negative post. These changes by Stars are being done with the aim of boosting the number of players who login to Pokerstars and deposit money to play. This will benefit 1, albeit at the expense of rakeback.

One criticism has been that the reduction in SNE benefits is not being matched by an increase in benefits at the lower loyalty levels but much of the marketing savings will be re-distributed via more attractive bonuses to sign up new / win back lapsed customers. The critics will say why would Stars do this? Well of course they want to, as they want to get as many players playing & depositing as they can so they can grow their revenue! Their overall level of marketing spend won’t go down it is just being changed with less going to professional / winning high-volume players and more going to casual players so they stay longer and spend more.

The alternative is to stay with the status quo and see the games continue to get worse as more casual players will stop playing each month than start playing. This will inevitably lead to many ‘professionals’ becoming redundant as they are unable to remain winners.

One final point around the belief around the value of a high-volume winning player.
Let’s say a player ‘manonoko’ plays 200,000 hands during a month at 1/2 NLH Zoom and wins $10k, whilst also paying $10k in rake. Actually, they have won $20k total from the tables (but only profit $10k after rake). They withdraw $10k winnings as their income for the month. What is this player’s value to Pokerstars? Most posters seem to believe that it is $10k as the player has raked this much.

Let’s imagine that instead ‘manonoko’ had taken the month off on holiday instead of playing. The ½ NLH Zoom game would very likely have continued to run the same amount. But his winnings would instead have been won by other players (or lost slower by the casual players). As manonoko’s $10k rake was paid directly from their $20k winnings then that money would be won by other players and in doing so rake would have been generated as it was won. Pokerstars would not have raked any less by manonoko not playing. It is a big misunderstanding to assume that a player generates rake if that rake ALL comes from winnings.

AshleyC you still seem to live in the romantic world of golden era of poker,

The games will never be as easy as they were back in the days. The regulars got better. Do you think that fish sign up less nowbecause they suddenly lost interest in poker? No it didnt happen suddenly! The recreationals are losing more, which is natural because players are better. It's evolution, people get better!

In every sport/hobbie people get better overtime.

I agree with the policy that PS should incentivize recreationals to PLAY, and provide them a better ENVIRONMENT. But these changes, have nothing to do with it.

They could've limited the number of tables, increase rake slightly.. lots of different stuff. I'm not a genius, and If I worked on PS and I only needed 1 week to think on a better solution than this.

This will solve NOTHING, it's a straight money grab. They aren't taking money from the ultra-grinders to redistribute! I'd be fine if they were, but its not the case.

Games will be more tougher, the better regs will play lower and make the limits much tougher for the recretionals. The recreationals VIP system will be worse as well. Where in the world these are ingredients to make a better ecosystem?!
Also don't make excuses with CR7 and NEYMAR, stars already had previously sponsorships long time ago as Rafa Nadal and Brazilian Ronaldo.

Pokerstars is a company that by its history should've competent professionals. But these changes are so non-sense, that prev stars owner would fire the entire people of the department that proposed this changes and think these changes are good

They claim they have a security team of 800 people, I think 8 is more close to reality.

Stars support is getting worse by the day, their investors ruined OnGame and are now ruining Stars, maybe for the bigger picture or maybe they just happen to be that dumb.

Trying to make a rec game out of internet poker after all those years...? Stars can't even protect from the most obvious bots that PLAYERS busted,
not the ridiculous "integrity team" of Stars.

Regs who don't want to forfeit their investments into huds will keep using them - gl with that "integrity team" then. If anything money from innocent players will get stolen by suggesting who might be using a HUD "secretly".
Also gl vs the bots if you play w/o a HUD, they will crush your sould and roll.

GL with that.

When the former owner of ps will be able to create a new room? is his contract 5 years out of the industry ?

long time lurker on the site - I have read about this and the reactions to the same over the past 24/36 hours. Felt like getting an account and sticking in an opinion at this point.

It might be worth taking a step back and someone neutral chipping in. I am not in this debate for one side or the other for what it is worth.

Stars need to make money and show a profit for shareholders.....they pay out a lot on advertising and hosting tourneys as well as paying top dollar for serious names in the game and other sports to sponsor their brand. All that has to be recouped somehow.

The money that they get is (mostly) through tournament entry fees and rake on cash games.

They are without a shadow of a doubt the biggest, most popular poker site - They got that way by providing good customer service, an interface that most players enjoy and a wide choice of games. This, along with some serious incentives for high-stakes and high volume players, all added up to a self-perpetuating bigger and bigger player pool....up to a point.

That point arrived a while back and now the overall player pool online is dwindling.

So this is roughly the situation....I have left out individual player circumstances so far.

Stars have decided, for whatever reason, that the current business model that they are employing isn't working for them to their best advantage any longer. They are choosing to remove a lucrative reward system and removing the incentive to play huge volumes to aquire rakeback and elite status. This can only be to increase profitability in the long run. It either cost them too much to sustain it and/or the player base that it attracts isn't bringing an adequate return for the business.

I do feel sympathy for the people who have grinded it out for days and weeks upon end to get to this status (especially those who only recently achieved it) thinking it to be some nirvana and promised land only to find that it is going to be a very different place. You have done what was asked of you to get a certain level and now it is being removed. While it may well be within T&C of the promotions on the site it does seem harsh.

Another phrase that is being banded about is loyalty. Sorry in business these days that doesn't apply. If you don't like it then blame rampant capitalism more than any individual person, group or entity. I doubt any of the operators really cares about poker per se other than it makes them money. They care about keeping customers AND bringing in new ones....would they shed a few old customers for the chance of brining in more new ones? I think you all know the answer to that.

Does this work the other way though? If new operator POKERBOINGO started and was offering x% on top of what Stars was offering...with a growing player base who here can honestly say that they wouldn't at least check it out and if things were good move over if stars amounts/players/cash earned for you was falling?

Having said the above I think that the choices for those affected are simply put:

1/ Complain (organise into groups, use social media etc.) long enough and hard enough and if the numbers are there and /or the negative publicity is harsh enough they may choose to reverse their decision (if not all then perhaps parts of it).

2/ Suck it up and get on with it - the rewards and rakeback etc. Stars have made it clear in their announcement that this should always just have been an icing on the cake and not the modus operandi for playing in and of itself. I am not saying that they are right or wrong just that this is how they are now viewing it. Can you make a living on what you just actually win from playing hands of poker (be that cash, SnG or MTT) and not incentives and kickbacks. Stars want these to be the cherry on top that makes you choose their site not what you make up a big chunk of what you live on.

3/ Move on - If you truly feel that you are being shafted then why would you want to stay with a company doing that to you - There are other alternatives out there. Admittedly not with the same player pool numbers or volume of games but they are there. If enough people move then this may harm Stars to the degree where they might have to choose to rethink the decision or their position at the top of the tree will be in danger.

-------------------------------------------

Some food for thought - Many UK high street bookmakers have in recent times now chosen to implement bans on people betting online on this sites....these are professional gamblers who win on a regular basis and either have accounts frozen or serious limits placed on the amount that they can wager.

Why? Because these guys can be a serious loss to the business - They aren't interested in the professional...they simply want the casual or enthusiast gambler who is happy to deposit and lose their money in the chance of chasing a big win. I would suggest that Stars is perhaps looking at a similar model and this is perhaps an sort of similar move. When balanced out are the biggest stakes players bringing them in what they need? Is forcing the skill set of better players down to lower stakes going to make the casual player lose quicker and more often (and therefore deposit more often)? Perhaps they think so and that the casual player pool that they are looking to build can and will be happy to sustain this which is why the newer faster games with bigger random prizes etc. are marketed and advertised to these players.

Again I have no side in this - I am a mostly live player with only casual SnG and MTT play which isn't on Stars incidentally.

I wish everyone the best and hope that this works out well for Stars, all the individuals who will be impacted by these changes and the larger poker community. We all enjoy the game and while the cards are in the air for someone to win there has to be losers I hope that this can be worked out so everyone is happy.

gotta bring lederer back!
oh wait

an lol long retired online player queston:

I have around 40,000 fpp what do I do with this ****? I see it's about $700 in tourney tickets but obv I don't have status to cash those in since I'm in the bottom tier.

If I read correctly, if I do nothing these get converted at a 20% downgrade to starscoins but then I can just take straight cash?

dgaf either way but **** amaya would like to get the most value out of these points.

You can cash in untill end of the year for the tier you're currently (or achieve before the end of the year) in. After that the value will become 1.20 cents per fpp.

So that would be $480 for 40k fpps.

If you're a silverstar you can already cash in tourney tickets for the maximum value of fpps. 1.6 cents

You could play some hyper turbo single table fpp sattelites, if you're breakeven you'll get virtually the same value as a supernova exchanging fpp for cash.

unregister the sattelites you win and then sell the tournament money here on twoplustwo or at sites that charge a 1% fee. 40k fpp that way would give you around $640

This is one of the scarier parts about this whole thing. Especially considering that stars is likely less inclined these days to shut down bots than before.

On the other hand much of bots winnings probably came from rakeback before so jokes on them too

**Conspiracy alert** Just pure speculation but would anyone be surprised if amaya have top secret really advanced house bots (configured to breakeven/not win to much) to do the job of the SNE which is why they are no longer needed??... would anyone put that past amaya?? With all the shady stuff that's happened in online poker it seems probable at least some sites are doing this?

imo, decrease rake at bum stakes, ( to allow people to move up quicker ) increase it at higherstakes ( pay more rake ) and start dropping all these useless pokerstars sponsored pros/sports pros?

Never thought I'd say this but no. I wouldn't be surprised. Also, the guys saying the RNG is rigged may be right. I honestly don't put anything past Amaya these days.

source: 900 buyins under EV this year.

A couple of years ago at NLH I ran 500 buyins below ev during one month on ipoker