If I had to bet and with the timing its most likely going to be Jaime and Jeff as part of the thirst lounge team or somehow involving bill perkins since bill was tweeting saying he wishes he could bet on whats coming next


Either they are joining the group of 10 who won the contest to be thirst lounge hosts on bills yacht or will be under a stream team / name of thirst lounge and able to play on all sites

(jeff has been a good friend with bill for ages, jaime has seemingly been friends with him since ultimate sweat 1 - makes perfect sense and much more sense than becoming cash grinders for runitonce lol)

Also bill can afford to pay the 50-100k a year or more salary that they were getting from stars (pure speculation on their salary, no idea tbh)

Tell me one bad thing, except for SE issue.

Beatable, fair, well-developed games. The rest of the industry is a joke compared to stars.

Increasing the rake constantly is a bad thing imo. And beatable games has nothing to do with stars itself. Or do you actually believe that stars provides the players you play against?

Stars attracting and getting losing players to play on their site has nothing to do with stars?

There are losing players basically in every network. So no it really doesn't have anything to do with stars management we are talking about. And if you say it does then I can say the same about every network. Like microgaming offers beatable games with lower rake.

Its fair to say other networks provide just as easy of games with lower rake if that is true. It is silly to say stars isn't directly responsible for the kinds of players who play on their site.

Might be I agree. She just made it sound like stars provides the players. And saying that rest of the industry is a joke proves that she is just a big fan of stars when major part of the industry is actually trying to make the game better for recs. Only thing stars management does is making the rake bigger so it's harder to win for everyone. And banning scripts five years too late.

kevin martin didnt stream in awhile, kind of like jeff and jaime did before their announcement.
maybe kevin gonna bounce too?

No need to ask in your case.

Kevin Martin has been in Australia, that is why he has not streamed.

In reality, what does a guy like Staples achieve for stars? (what is his value?) His viewership is bad compared to some other online pro's associated with stars, right?

well obviously not much, or they'd have him still doing it.

stars has decided to be more like the video game industry, and will now focus on sponsoring streaming players who are actually good and people want to watch

tonkaaa just parted ways with 888 so perfect timing here

He finally realised it's not ate ate ate.

Spot on! Called it 10 days ago!

I wonder if anybody out there is still naive enough to think these 3 guys left Stars not because of something absolutely ridiculous Stars did,

ohhhhhhh

Matt Staples signs to Party Poker

If you insist on drawing some correlation between those two things, it could simply be Stars tightening the belt to appease investors. Both things boost their bottom-line in the short term.

Seems far likelier than assuming these streamers have heaps of integrity, I mean they repped Stars to begin with lmao

That’s really great for Matt. He’s clearly very excited about the game and has come a long way in a short time. Opting to go back home and grind twitch, instead of traveling a bunch, has really paid off.

Dont be naive, people talk man, remember the huge stars scam and outcry a few rys ago to the elites? Well there will be another big outcry and these streamers just dont want to be a part of it. You think its random as soon as they left that the starscoins cut value by 55%? Its only gonna get wrose and worse too!

Why else would they leave? They still stream and still play poker, so why turn down a free paycheck? Theres gotta be a reason. Stars either F'd them hard, orrrrr will screw the players hard and they want no part of it

And my next prediction is Stars signs Arlie Shaban, I wish i could bet on it, im guessing 3-5 weeks he gets the patch.

Who said they left? I'm suggesting that the beancounters at Stars opted not to renew their contracts (I.E. fired them), to save money. And that they also cut player rewards, to save money. This is consistent with PokerStars' business philosophy and requires no big assumptions.

You're suggesting that a group of shameless sellouts suddenly found their principles and discovered that they work for a horrible company. After years of not caring about all the other times their employer made awful anti-player decisions. And maybe that they conspired together to do it at the same time? This is not consistent with their character and requires leaps of speculation.

Occam's Razor imo

more likely tho

Kevins a great guy, but I still have to agree with this. If they left, it's a business decision based on info they haven't put out yet, not anything to do with the ethics of the company. Jaime has had no issue his entire career with toeing the company line.

Otherwise, they were dropped by a mediocre company that doesn't find them valuable anymore (more likely for Kev and Jaime, less so Jeff).

I'd be interested in betting against you provided there's an escrow etc.

partypoker going to scoop everyone up?

Matt announced today ,

Jaime, kevin , jeff , tonkaa incoming?