Greed will be the death of Stars.

It's the little guys with their $10 deposits that drive the whole ecosytem that feeds indirectly to the top. Hurting the little guys means their money goes less and the drop off off these players will be more. That means less $10 deposits in the long run.

Winning players will turn into break even players, break even players will turn into losers and the majority who are losers will lose quicker. Each one of these play types will realise this sooner or later. It will stop little guys progressing and moving up the chain to feed the higher stakes.

I've always hung around the micros. 10 years ago I was a $10 6- 10 tabler reg, today I'm a $1.50 single table player. That's a lot of rake lost because I don't see much value in the site anymore. This move will just encourage me to play even less.

^ You're assuming that these "little guys" even notice the rake. Sure, they will notice it if you raise it to ridiculous levels, but if you increase it marginally, they won't care.

"Little guys" haven't been moving up the food chain for years. Most people who take the game seriously aren't capable of moving up the stakes. So how do you expect a recreational player to move up the stakes?

Most people who take the game seriously aren't capable of moving up the stakes.

So your saying every high stakes player started at high stakes? Of course they move up the chain. I regularly took shots at higher, something I don't do anymore. I could crush the micros but I was food for the better players also.

The game and players have evolved but this rake hike will just hurt players in the pocket more and there will be less and less taking shots.

A $1.50 SnG today is the same level as a $20 SnG from 10 years ago. 10 years ago I'd have played 50 SnGs in a day, today I'm lucky if I play 1 or 2 games per week. That's a lot of rake lost and this hike just encourages me to play even less. Maybe that's why Stars are increasing it, to replace the rake lost by players like me but they'll have to start raising it exponentially when more and more players drop out of the pool.

a) they moved up many years ago
b) they represent a tiny fraction of the most talented individuals in the world - it's like comparing yourself to Roger Federer in tennis or Tiger Woods in golf

Name me some players who have moved up from micro stakes to high stakes in the last 2 or 3 years. You'd struggle to find a single one. It just doesn't happen anymore.

Too bad! There's no site who can really compare to PS software and number of games running. But now I'm taking my money elsewhere, it's all about how much money you can make in the end. I think they will see a massive drop in customers soon no matter how many platinum passes they give out via Twitch.

I have no proof but I'm most definite your wrong. Hopefully someone will come on here and say they've done it.

It's so easy to learn nowadays. It took me years to work out on my own set mining odds, now it can be found with a Google. Pot odds, check raising, draw heavy boards etc. can all be learned in a 20 minute video. It doesn't take much to learn the game and it's nuances. I reckon any smart kid with a HUD and a zest for knowledge could do it.

The problem with this hike is it makes the job so much harder. I actually table select to a certain extent. I colour code everybody and avoid tables with too many ABC regs. That's at $1.50. I count myself as one of the better at this stake but I've been mostly break even (with low volume) for the past year with a 13% ROI overall (in 10k.)

This is another nail in the coffin for Stars. Unfortunately, and Stars know this, they knock socks off the competition where it comes to software but someday someone will develope something that will beat it and the players will jump ship in droves.

And by moving up the chain I did say indirectly feed the higher stakes. A $1.50 may move up to $3.50 and lose but that feeds a $3.50 player. $3.50 may move up to $7 and feed the next level up.

It's a food chain and the highest stakes will indirectly suffer from this hike.

You consider yourself one of the better players at the stake but you're breaking even? It's kind of a paradox don't you think? I don't want to sound rude but what is your reasoning?

"I have no proof but I'm most definite your wrong." Ok lol Just face it, it doesn't happen anymore. You can cling onto the idea all you want, but you're living in the past.

The catch is that it's so easy for everyone to learn nowadays.

If you were really that good, you'd have moved beyond the $1.50 level already.

Really? I consider it a nail in the coffin for professional poker players. Stars will keep churning about millions in profit every year, I wouldn't worry about them.

My Sharkscope is open, same username so you can see my graph.(Clicking on that link will use up one of your 5 free searches)

The game has become more difficult, rake is higher plus maybe I don't put the volume in anymore to understand where I'm at. I've probably just become another ABC reg but I don't put the volume in anymore nor do I study much. Still think table selection is the single most important part of poker but I only do it when I see too many regs in a game which without volume I don't know who the regs are.

If you were really that good, you'd have moved beyond the $1.50 level already.

I'm a nit, I'll freely admit it, I've moved down not up when the games became tougher. I like it easy but it ain't easy anymore even at the lowest level.

This rake hike makes it even harder imo.

But do you genuinely think there are players moving up from micros to high stakes in the current online environment? (similar to what guys like Dwan and Galfond did years ago)

I had it originally typed but deleted it so I'll stand by my delete.

The $1.50 move up and feed the $3.50 players, the $3.50 move up and feed the $7 players and so on.

That is the way the Ecosystem works.

The top players will lose out on this.

Enough of the derail please.

I think the motive for this change is to create a separation of player class.
Pstars can't implement a rule to prevent a winning player to play a $10 MTT so what they've done is to raise the rake to offer less incentive for a winning player to play these MTT's. The rec player might not even notice the rake hike.

If higher stake MTT players stop playing these it would make these fields softer for rec players which could offset the rake hike for the depositing player.
Not a bad argument that I'm sure Stars would agree with.

The problem is what happens when pro's still play these MTT's. In fact they play more of them to earn more money due to the extra rake they're paying. If this occurs then the fields at these stakes just got harder for the rec player.
Not a bad players argument to counter these changes.

As for calling them greedy is just stupid in todays world where Britain passed a law (maybe 5 years ago) stating that it's a criminal offence for a CEO to not act in the best interest of his shareholders.

lol come on what are you even saying here

That people who say pokerstars (or any business) is "greedy" are not living in the real world if by that they mean that said business should want to have less than the max.

People who by "greedy" just mean excessively short-termist are on the same team as the people who are using the kill-goose example and are actually saying something relevant to how Pokerstars should be run, so should try to express themselves in a way that makes it clear they are in this group rather than the first one.

You can be greedy and still be acting in the best interest of SH's. Most CEO's have performance incentives that naturally motivate them to maximize SH profits...this law isn't a reflection of 'today's world'.

Kind of a silly thing to say when the thread is evaluating Stars rake increase and how people feel about it. Your saying (void of stupidity) that a company aiming to maximise profits can't be greedy?

im confused. They increase rake but cant afford to offer super nova elite?

they can afford it but instead of giving 15-20 million dollars back to their biggest customers they prefer to give 15-20 million dollars into shareholders pockets

Did they ever say they can’t afford it?

I thought they were always pretty open about the fact that they got rid of the status because they don’t care for those players anyway.

One thing I'm interested in from a purely business perspective is the market segmentation they used:

1.Very losing players: -5 bb/+
2.Pretty losing players -2-4 bb/
3.Barely losing players 0--1bb/
4.Barely winning players 0-1 bb/
5.Winning players 2-5bb/
6.Crushers 6bb+/

Of those players, it's likely that most 1-2s barely follow poker online beyond maybe watching a stream here and there or watching some highlights, whereas the people that really follow online are 3-6.

And between them, if you're already a loser, losing a bit more doesn't hurt that much if we're being honest, whereas if you're barely a winner or barely a winner this crushes you, winning players (5) can somewhat weather it and crushers will keep playing no matter what.

So IF Stars thought they were just going to remove the 1-2bb WINNERS, this could actually improve the poker eco system in terms of making it even easier, however obviously I am not for it, but I have posted my graph and I crush at $5ABI so all this means for me is less turbos and no hypers going forward.

This is the sort of parasitic and seemingly spiteful move we are getting all too used to in the western world and it could be disastrous if people started some initiative where when playing they typed something like "POKERSTARS INCREASED THE RAKE, THAT MEANS THEY ARE TAKING 10% MORE FROM YOU THE PLAYER, COPY AND PASTE THIS SO OTHERS CAN KNOW" as news would spread quickly and a good chunk of players would find out and we would then see what the TRUE consequences, not just the consequences they desire, are.

I had a bitter laugh today when I checked a $3.30 turbo PKO lobby and found out that the bounty hasn't changed despite the rake increase. The BI used to be split into a $1.50 contribution to the regular prize pool, $1.50 bounty and $0.30 rake; now it's $1.44 regular, $1.50 bounty and $0.36 rake. Stars kept the bounties the same to make the rake increase less noticeable for customers

The biggest damage has been done to hyper MTTs. I was eyeballing them when the rake was 5%, now it's gone up to 10% (nanostakes) to 6-7% ($5-11 stakes), and I'm not sure if I want to play them anymore. I'm tempted to restart playing time tourneys instead (which is natural as I used to play Beat The Clock).

The increase from 10% to 12% in (untimed) non-hypers is less harmful: it doesn't matter much in the long run that your low stake ROIs have gone down from 30% or so to 28% or so.

It's actually 20% more

In 6BB per 100 crushing in NL???

Depends on the limit, depends on if it's zoom/reg tables, depends how hard you bumhunt.