Goldstar here. First chest gave me 23 starcoins #yay.

Will be interesting to see how the introduction of partys "up to 40%" rakeback scheme along with the Stars changes affects the zoom pools.

I keep regular stats on the zoom pools and numbers are way down on 4 months ago.

1st number is 27th January. (2nd) number is 25th May. The January figure was during Jacks or better promotion. Todays figure is during card match promotion.

100NL Zoom
1 entry - 68 (50)
2 entries - 20 (13)
3 entries - 14 (10)
4 entries - 15 (10)

Total entries 210 (146) Down 30%

50NL Zoom

1 entry - 86 (70)
2 entries - 18 (28)
3 entries - 19 (15)
4 entries - 32 (22)


Total entries 307 (259) Down 15%


25NL Zoom

1 entry - 143 (91)
2 entries - 53 (39)
3 entries - 24 (13)
4 entries - 35 (25)


Total entries 461 (308) Down 33%

Why is no one mad about this, or is it irrelevant.

isn't that literally what everyone's talking about?..

Handing out small portions of cash is the entire point. Your variance would help keep the recs in the game for slightly longer before busting. What the system would do if it didn't cut the rewards would be to improve the health of the player pool and quite possibly increase your ev as a reg. Your rakeback EV would stay the same, but you'd likely see an ever so slightly higher rec to reg ratio and thus a tiny boost in your winrate. This is before taking into account that the recs will no doubt think the chest system is a lot more fun since they have a tiny shot at the big prize at the end of each session. This could give a slight boost in their volume as well.

I'd support this system had the RB mean stayed the same. It looks less and less likely it will and once it's confirmed I'll be as happy as the next guy to wave stars goodbye.

I got 2 T money, $1 usd, 45 starcoins, 550 points towards my next chest and a big fat **** you in both of my first two gold chest Great value for $360 paid in rake.

1.05% rakeback is fantastic!!!

lol what a ****ing joke. i have talked **** about every cashgrab amaya has done, but this **** will take the cake. After all the bashing and the bs now its really time to leave this pos site. gl to everyone still playing zoom/spins after june/july.

I don't really understand how this is even good to pokerstars' bottom line. sure it may attract some more recreational players but it will lose lots of regs. would that change really generate more rake for stars?

I don't see how limit games could possibly survive

First off, important info for people: you have to OPT IN to get chests.


Not sure if anyone has publiced screenshots but here are some:

General information tab:


Progress info:


Once you've receive a "boost":


Progress bar at tbls:


As you progress:


5/10+ ofc does not have a progress bar at the tbls:


Chest before opening:


Post opening:

Amaya couldn't be more happy to read this.
They simply want to get rid of people whom thinking process is still stuck in the old poker industry model.
The words "rakeback", "winrate", "grinders", etc are not parts of the product Amaya wants to create and sell.
They want people who will withdraw only occasionally when they ran hot or binked a huge prize, but they don't need net withdrawers who never inject fresh money in their rakemachine.

Is that so hard to understand ? They want to sell something "à la Zynga" where people don't have the goal of steadily withdrawing money.
There are much more people playing "free" poker than real money one, can someone explain me that amazing phenonemon where people spend money and time on something they can't make money on it ??
It's called a HOBBY, and most of people practicing their hobby don't expect to make money with it. If they do, it's fine and it's icing on the cake, but simply practicing their hobby is enough for them.
And guess what ? These people couldn't care less about poker theory, and guess what ? That's exactly the customers Amaya want, not you with all your HUDS and stats and graphs and GTO approach.

They
Don't
Need
You,
Understand ?

You have no idea what you're talking about. Im a recreational player, I've cashed out my roll on Stars and im not going back anytime soon. It's funny how the average NVG poster assume all recs are braindead people that don't care about rake and winrate.

Can you please point out where did I say the word "recreational player" ?
I made a difference between "educated poker players" and "people with no real technical/financial clue that you find on Zynga (for example)".
You clearly are an educated poker player and Amaya don't need you. Recrational or not doesn't matter, it's not about your volume, it's about what you're looking for when playing on a poker site.
You, as a recreational educated poker player, aims to make money and to withdraw it when you made enough. You're not the target of Amaya, so I don't understand why you feel I talked about people like you
By the way, I'm also a recreational poker player, but still a bit educated, tho. Want a scoop ? Amaya don't need me as well.

Just realised cash rebates are gone. So starscoins can be used for... other tournaments (and nothing else)? Do I get it right?

it's funny how some many on 2p2 think everyone plays poker for the same reason they do

Announcement said you can buy cash rebates and other stuff from them vip store for the same rates as before. Sure they're gone?

"[...]You will also earn StarsCoin from Chests, and will continue to be able to redeem them in the store at the same rate for cash rebates, tickets, merchandise, and more."

They actually do, every real money player wants to win money. I've talked to hundreds of poker players playing real money games, winners and losers, from high stakes regs to losing recs who jump in every few weeks to play some tourneys etc. Heard none of them ever saying "I don't care about the $ at all, it's just for fun."

The fun of playing cards for chips and gimmicks alone is a different (and v huge) market, it's just not the player pool amaya bought access to...

They bought access to a HUGE database of "poker players", meaning all the people in the database are potentially receptive to the product they want to create.
Amongst these potentially interested people, some (i.e we, real poker lovers) will obviously don't like the new product and leave the boat, that's absolutely in their plan, but they're not interested to be a "poker provider" as I mentioned before.
They want to sell a new entertainment (NOT gambling) product mixing poker with typical e-gaming features.
They don't care about other companies in the poker industry offering more rakeback or stuff for loyal customers. People on Candy Crush, Zynga Poker, etc are all willing to pay for nothing in return but entertainement, and it doesn't prevent them to be loyal (= addicted) as well.

stars only good thing left is MTT schedule, hard to beat. im not a stars fan but thats literally the only reason i log on. its the most "untainted" part of stars still left.

lol the screenshot of the chests looks like an overwatch ripoff.

Dude, this is just nonsense.

Stars player pool is by a very huge margin the largest real money online poker pool in the world, they currently even have a monopoly on quite some games. U really think, amaya was paying 5bn dollars to get that giant share of the market for the sake of just letting it bleed out and offer a pure entertainment platform instead? LOL.

the point is, if majority of their player base doesn't want to be converted to what Amaya is trying to sell, it is gonna be a massive loss for them - and this seems to be the case.

By December if they don't make provisions then all zoom pools will be gone above 10nl imo & i doubt that is what they want if one of there biggest money earning formats such as zoom disappears.

Just found them. They're in one of the tabs now.

I was in the camp of wait and see before making a decision on the pending changes. And to be honest I find the reg/rakeback grinder class to be a bunch of whinny little bitches. But based on the numbers presented so far that 85% reduction email that was sent out should have actually said this:

The new Stars Reward system will payout 85% less than the old VIP program for all participants. You are being sent this email because you have been identified as one of the few customers that will realize and understand this and we don't want to listen to your whining BS about not communicating this to you beforehand. So shut up now, play or don't play we don't care, you do not represent the customer type we want anyway.



There is still a small chance that the payout rate will be tailored to individual market conditions and the numbers we are seeing represent a worst case based on a highly taxed small market. That said I don't believe even the best market conditions will be significantly better.

This new system, implemented with payouts comparable to the old system, might have had a chance at being a good thing. But any existing customer that puts in any type of volume will see a noticeable reduction in payouts. This can only go badly. This has giant fail written all over it.