Due to their dominant position Pokerstars are like custodians for the game of poker. If they damage the game by being too greedy then that's bad for everyone involved. I don't understand why they need to take so much. They are just providing a games platform for the players. Hundreds of thousands of people play chess against each other for nothing or very cheaply.

use the search function and start reading my posts

you are taking ONE sentence from my posts.

You are right as confirmed by Daniel Negrenau in the joeingram1 podcast

I guess the answer is because they can.

Imagine FT did not blow up and you have two strong competitors for a shrinking market.

I'm sure PS has run pretty sophisticated models to predict what is actually going to happen when they apply these changes. With the money at stake I doubt they are going through with this without having a decent understanding of the dynamics of player pools and the cascading effects high stakes players can have when they move down or leave.

A few things will happen almost for a fact. Some high stakes players will become unprofitable but marginally and variance will keep them playing for some time until the clock runs out and they go bust or forced to move down. Some will dedicate more time into becoming better players and keep crushing as much as possible to create a bigger skill difference to compensate for the cuts in rakeback. This will happen at pretty much any stake where rakeback is a significant factor and some will not achieve a great enough income to sustain a living and go do something else or find a game format that does provide. It's tough to imagine that these changes will attract new regulars so let's assume the player pool does in fact decrease in numbers.

The regs that do remain will be better players on average and will generally be forced to play slightly lower than they were used to because of reduced winrates. This will create havoc in the levels below and this will cascade all the way down until recs find themselves at regs-only tables at relatively low stakes, even more than now. This may or may not happen depending on how many regs just stop playing. I imagine PS would want to get rid of as many players that cash out regularly without destroying their games since they do not actually contribute by depositing and as long as they can keep games the money keeps flowing.

I'm curious to see which factors will become dominant and how this plays out. Clearly PS thinks they can get away with it else they wouldn't be doing it but things could happen that they had not foreseen which turn out to be quite destructive. One thing that they may underestimate is the new players that they repulse by making poker no longer a game that can be beat. The whole idea behind poker is that you can win money by becoming a better player, when only a tiny percentage of players even makes a slight profit there isn't really a motive any more for a lot of people and they just stop trying.

That's true. Maybe the old Stars management would have taken an approach that had more faith in the long term health of the game. All I know is that both the old Stars management and Amaya were well aware of the fact that the window to make money might close within a couple of years and that the focus on regulars wasn't sustainable anymore.

this mean average reg at 5-10 will now move down to 3-6 so they can win with a higher WR and rakeback combined, wich will lead to average 3-6 reg to move down to 2-4 because they cant compete with with the a tougher pool wich mean 2-4 will get tougher also and some of the player will now play 1-2 like some all ready do, so overall this move will affect players all the way to 1-2 for a move targetting 5-10+

I had my 5 million vpp reward changed as well. Got to 5 million lifetime vpp like 4 months ago when they offered a 5.5k euro (multiple blog entries claimed it to be worth that much ) Slyde HD3 watch. Had to wait 4 months with me sending multiple messages.. Now I got the message the rewards have changed to either the Apple $2.5k or the new watch ($2.3k worth). I feel kind of scammed out $4kish dollar.

(their reasoning was that although the BLOG/EPT department claimed the Slyde HD3 watch was worth 5.5k euro, the VIP department never claimed it was worth that much. They BOUGHT the watches for $2.3k and thats the equivalent that I get something else for.... yes for real. Must be nice paying over $650k rake lifetime)


Didn't feel like making a big post about (already quit poker), but I feel like having to mention it.

You should of read the post he was quoting.

You left one effect out. Players will switch to things which offer an easier way of making money. I will probably switch to sports betting as it is more stable. Who knows for how long poker will be viable at all ?

No VPP earned at 5/10+ , so therefore Pokerstars are pocketing the total sum of all rakeback that would have been earned at those levels? Also lowering the rakeback with these Star Coins for all the other levels.

They don't make much money from hsnl I imagine. (Well other sites removed hsnl because it made them no money) and I think it says transaction fees cost too much so they are using rake to pay for the fish deposit. It would be OK if fish didn't bust so quick at those levels/pay more rake.

Its just a way to remove hsnl without actually removing it and annoying customers.

Obviously ****ty way to treat the regs though

Going to make 400/600 redic hard now though

Would be interested to see some numbers of winrate + rb that is needed at 600 to be equal of winrate/no rb of 1knl or 2knl....I can't math

If it's any consolation I received the Slyde watch for reaching 5MM VPPs and it's a load of crap. It looks OK on the wrist, but the display is terrible. I've worn my twice in the last two years.

the only people being scammed are those paying anything over $200 for that Slyde watch. you are one of the lucky ones to avoid getting that worthless piece of crap. you're better off looking at sale prices on ebay than looking at pokerstars claims.

take the tag if you want a watch or the apple $ if you want their gear. that's a great deal. if not, im sure there are plenty who would give you their slyde in return for the tag/apple.

Good post.

Well the last time they hiked rake they reverted back to the old prices just two months later.

Stars has a long history of introducing lots of changes that everyone hates.

They then go back on a few of the worst ones that people really seem to go off on while leaving the majority in place.

I think this has happened at least 3 times in the past few years.
The cynic in me thinks this is a deliberate ploy actually

I would not be suprised if they go back on a couple of the planned changes or dial them back a touch. Keeping most of the planned changes in place though.

Confirmation by Eric Hollreiser:

https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/c...e-158887.shtml

Sounds like those changes might get very significant way sooner than most people expected.

I hope they keep their world and invest heavily into marketing for new players.

This is where I think you're wrong. When I started playing poker, I can tell you I didn't give a **** about rake much less rakeback. New players want to win without needing rakeback. New players will think they can win. You way overestimate how many new players would be winners instead of losers with this change. It's actually going to have more to do with what you mentioned in the earlier paragraphs. Higher stakes regs will move down and crush these new players and no amount of rakeback is going to save them from that.

Sounds like they might implement the FTP model for cash-games

No I'm on the same page. I think new players will lose faster because of tougher player pools, not because of rakeback.

+1

This is a very insightful post. There's tons of chess servers out there that run just fine with no corporate intervention at all. It boggles my mind that the same doesn't exist in poker. The only reason why we are having This discussion is because of corporate profit. But what if that profit was removed from poker? That would completely chase the landscape of everything while still proving a competitive atmosphere for games.

Let Supernova+ and gold+ freerolls stay as they are please

November 1st, 2015: the day PokerStars formally announced they no longer care about their customers.