Daniel Negreanu is deaf and blind ?

In Baazov-speak consumers are people that 'consume' technology gaming products. Consumers always pay money for a product they consume. Consumers don't make money from consuming. That's like paying someone to consume something that you have paid money to make. That's why winning poker players have no place in the new Stars under Amaya. If you don't lose overall you are not a real consumer.

This is why Baazov is unsuited to managing an online poker site.

There was no misuse. Give the devil his due.

Would someone get BigSalmon back in here? The questioning was not through.

[QUOTE=Chili;49173087] Well, IMO it is exactly the reason they did not ask him before.

Because he is an intelligent man, but!! also a poker player that would not agree with the decisions that are taken strictly for financial reasons IMO.

And again IMO the decisions are made to get rid of as many players that are taking money out that not comes back because they are players that make their living or a big part of it playing poker.

In contrary to the recreational players that maybe win in an mtt or so or having a good run in the cash games, but lose most of it again in the next days or weeks, while many regs/pro's do not, they use the money for rent, food, bills and so on so that money does not come back on ps, so [to many] winning players are not good for business in the long run and recs are, because they keep the money circling if! they lose it to other recs that is, that is what I think at least.

Anyone checked the claim that Lederer and Ferguson are co-owners of Amaya?

Can you describe the process (even though it doesn't matter much I suppose, I'm just curious): so you press a button to indicate you want to ask a Q on the call, and then what happens? Do you talk to an operator who takes your info? And then...what, he/she tells you that you'll be put in the queue and to wait your turn, and then you just wait while other analysts get put on, and then Baazov says 'time's up, thanks for all the questions!' and then the call ends?

What have been the questions you intended on asking if you were allowed to get through?

And just bumping my Q from earlier, since I'm still curious about what was 'obvious' and why.

No.

Not going to wade too far into this one, but I believe Baazov was trying to make a point (that has since been sort of abandoned) that the player base could be thought of as more than just a collection of poker players / gamblers due to the sheer size.

All of Amaya's formation docs, etc are available via SEDAR.

Yup, that's it, more or less.

We had a lot of questions about KPIs, their FX adjustments, how they plan to double poker, product roadmaps, cross-sell numbers. Nothing smoking gun.

Again, would stress that it is not unusual for a company to present the best face possible on these calls. It's a show.

Sorry, missed this one.

Yeah, it really wasn't more than that. We have models for casino, poker, and sport revenue. Obviously poker is the lion's share. The model isn't that complex and there's relatively good data available about various traffic (cash, MTT, etc) at Stars, and the revenue (rake) is relatively fixed, plus we got a look at a couple years of Stars' books thanks to the acquisition.

So we looked at our models early in 2015 and lined them up against guidance, we said something like "this isn't happening unless (some combination of) poker grows OR casino just takes off like wildfire OR sport takes off like wildfire."

We didn't believe poker was growing. The early returns from casino in 2014 in ring-fenced and on FTP were encouraging, but didn't suggest the money would just come rolling in. And sport is an incredibly challenging vertical even if you have a robust platform, which Stars didn't.

After the first Q they needed huge numbers from poker to make guidance. After the 2nd Q they still weren't revising even though sport was immaterial, casino was off to a solid start but definitely handicapped by a minimal product and lack of external marketing support, and poker was looking challenging (at best).

I think the FX adjustments are part of a general pattern of presenting numbers in unnecessarily complex contexts.

I don't think it's damming or a smoking gun, but it makes it harder to take things at face value.

Again, this is not unique to Amaya.

Amaya's Q1 report last year

Infact I've seen little decline in mtt traffic.

But they didn't have Spin n Gos the year before... and since Spins are labelled as MTT's it's no wonder "mtt's" have doubled. Not coincidently Sng's and hypers dropped significantly over this period.

^^^ basically

Will these meetings continue in the future? There's no point if PS openly shows they could care less and aren't willing to work with players. Its not like ansky made some drastic over the top suggestions and it sounds like PS shrugged it off. I think its time to face reality and except this is how its going to be from now on.

I honestly don't understand why you guys made the effort to sit down with those guys. You were told prior to the meeting that there would be no changes to policy as a result of the meeting so why even bother? Also, Daniel has already proved to be a chameleon with no integrity as all he's concerned with is appearing to be the good guy. He couldn't give 2 ****s about the players; he just wants to have the image of giving 2 ****s.

It's like a rape victim negotiating with his rapist, being bent over, then asking to meet again.

This younger generation is nothing but a bunch of pantywaists.

Thanks, good stuff.

Don't know why Dani and some others keep referencing a "rake increase" because VIP benefits were lowered or even VPPS taken away in some games.

*** NEWSFLASH ****

You were not getting rakeback. The rake is the same even if they complately remove the VIP system. You were getting a VIP system that can be altered at any time. If this is how you lower your rake to play games then too bad. Beat them or don't play or move down to a stake you can beat without the VIP or play live or go to another site.

As far as what Ike referenced in them potentially adding "slimy cashout fees" or even deposit fees. Of course this is possible. Welcome to what a lot of non stars ROW (especially US players) have been dealing with for years.

Don't be surprised when this happens and I don't think it is a matter of IF it is a matter of when. Welcome to the real poker world as you guys crawl out of your Stars Cave that you think should be catered around you.

Another newsflash, enjoy what you have for now because it ain't going to get any better. Props for giving this a fight but they are just going to slap you down

Only thing people got really "screwed " on was the SNE thing. Other than that VIP system is fair game. Enjoy it while it lasts

And if the high limit guys want to quit over this (which is doubtful because they make so much money) then there will be a flock of players ready to move up and take your "positions" in the ecosystem

-cheers

bigsalmon must be 3 days old cause he stinks like ****. am i the only one who enjoyed OPReport wiping the floor with him in such a cool and boss like way? it was like watching a proffessor schooling ******ed child. a lot of popcorn was eaten.

i particulary liked how bigsalmon felt the need to keep reminding OPReport he is an analyst only to be crushed be new wave of facts. i also enjoyed how he decided to use hyperbole when he started loosing the ground under his feet.

what i took out of this convo, being independent in this whole amaya/ps story is that OPReport knows what he is talking about and bigsalmon is either stupid or paid by amaya...oh right, i forgot his houskeeper makes more money than most....wow. who says that? only a ****ing moron could say something abnoxious and arrogant like this.

Thanks a lot guys for all the work you have done. I use to drive by the Amaya office on HWY 40 everyday. Hopefully stars is proactive in having similar meetings in the future.

Cheers

We were not offered such an opportunity, nor would it have been possible to do prior to signing the NDA.

We did make such requests ourselves and they complied.

The data that was shown to us was in fact in line with the arguments that they were trying to put forward. However, we all had issues with the data that we were presented:

1) We did not really agree with the conclusions, and further did not really agree with the proposed course of action to address the issues even if the conclusions were true.

2) Beyond the conclusions drawn, there were several instances where we took issue with the way the data was presented and selected, as well as overall issues with data analysis methods. We voiced these concerns.


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Generally speaking, I'd like to make a few comments with regards to the data that we were presented as well as the overall competence of the PS staff when it comes to data analysis. My frustrations with regards to this have been growing over time, so these are going to be rather negative. However, I would like to preface by saying that Shawn, Severin and Baard certainly exceeded my expectations that I had before the meeting. Eric was not super involved in the stats analysis and that is the only reason his name was left out – his contributions and input at the meeting were also above what I expected going in. So this is not at all an attack on their character, this only pertains to the data analysis in particular.

While we were going over data, there were several instances that I had very strong doubts in the validity of what we were being presented (not because of fabrication, but because of the data analysis methods used). On multiple occasions I suspected that the PS/Amaya staff in the room either did not understand (or elected to behave as though they did not understand because it suited their needs) relatively simple probability, variance, or proper data analysis methods. On several occasions data was presented to us (this applies to both the prepared slides as well as impromptu requested data) which implied things that I knew either intuitively and/or empirically to not be true. On some occasions I was unable to pinpoint in real-time exactly where the faults were in the data analysis methods. On other occasions we had specific objections to some of the data because we were able to identify specific flaws. I strongly feel that these objections were not addressed properly and there was a definite lack of effort on their part to attempt to present data in a different way that would have been less subject to the identified flaws. Mostly, objections were met with blank looks.

Unfortunately, I'm still not really sure what to think of it all. Maybe they are just incompetent. Maybe they aren't and it was all methodical, but they were unprepared to deal with the caliber of our objections. I'm not sure which is worse.

Because it is strictly a rake increase for the overall player pool, and nothing more.

Just to clarify, is it your position that a 5bb/100 winner is beating the game at a higher rate than a 3bb/100 winner who plays a completely identical game that is raked at 5bb/100 more?

Yeah ok, hard numbers eh?

On November 12th you posted this regarding shares in Amaya

So the next day you took a "substantial personal position", which was November 13th. Price on that day per Amaya share was 21.81. The price as I write now is 14.54. A whopping 33% loss on your "substantial" personal wealth.

I hope your friends and family ignored your absolutely terrible financial advice, there are several new posters bigging up Amaya stock in some way on this forum. God only knows why. They are an utterly terrible parasitic company who will run stars into the ground trying to make a cheap buck. It will end in disaster for the site and the shareholders.

Its too obvious. If they didnt change the amount they rake from each pot then the rake has not increased. Thats a fact

Anyone can try and lump the vip system in with this and spin it any way they want because their earn rate is getting cut but the bottom line is they have not changed the rake structure.

They have adjusted the rake in these games in the past but this is different.

Stars has posted a response to the players' statement for those interested: https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/c...g-160176.shtml

Can you expand on the above, in general terms if need be? You don't have to give specific #'s here. But please do give an example of something that you guys tried to convey to them that they simply did not understand (or did not make an effort to understand.) Or something that they presented that, to use your words, you knew not to be true.

Those are important observations, but understand that they're rather difficult to weigh for anyone who wasn't there. There must be a way for you to further unpack those statements without disclosing the sensitive numbers that you can't talk about.

Maybe a told you so post in the future, the way amaya stock is going would be wise not to keep large amounts on there.

I would like to say thanks to Daniel D, Ansky and Ike for attending this meeting and putting the players concerns across in an intelligent manner. A lot of hard work went into that which is appreciated, as is all the organised and outspoken criticism of the changes that they were involved in before hand.

I think making a priority of discussing the removal of the 2nd year of SNE benefits was the right idea and should be continued to be concentrated on. It was an advertising fraud in my opinion. The rest of the changes might be pretty nasty but they are fair game, the advertising of what benefits you receive continuing as a SNE up till Nov 2015 was fraudulent. It is no surprise Amaya basically told them speak to the hand but at least it was the correct tactic. I do believe Amaya would lose a court case in the UK if a SNE tried to take them to court here (see hoover free flights promotion judgement).

As much hate as DNegs gets on here (and being fair his blog on the changes was ridiculous) he does deserve some credit for getting these meetings in my opinion so ty for that as well. Even if Amaya have a talk to the hand attitude.

Do you understand that if a $100+$10 6max SNG goes off with all players with 70% RB that effectively they pay $3 in rake each and Stars makes $18 from running the game, but if you cut everyone's rakeback to 0, the players now pay $10 (as in 7 dollars more in rake), and Stars makes $60 from the game (as in forty-two dollars more, meaning they increased the rate at which they rake said game by more than 200%)?

I'm going to think of how to best structure my answer and do my best to answer this. I have to step out for a bit now, later tonight.