They are already there - the fact the will accept less money doesn't mean they dislike more money!

Pokerstars is making insane money, the motivation for taking a bigger piece of the pie is not because they have to cover increased costs, it's because there are no competitors, and so their customers have little recourse.

this... they're making HUGE money. And they want to make more

Amaya is not a particularly profitable company.

In the first six months of the year they earned 98 million (excluding Amortization of intangible assets which is a non-cash item) on revenue of 657 million.

They're still in debt 2.6 billion dollars.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...521727711.html

The reduction in VIP level is an attempt to get winning players to do more winning by way of maximizing their winrate rather than increasing their volume. This is being done so that recreational players have a better chance of having a good experience and making the maximum amount of deposits.

I'm sorry that losing VIP rewards takes such a hard hit on your obviously meager winrate, but it's not PS fault. It's yours.

You said the same thing in internet poker, I don't see where you are getting the 98 million figure from exactly.

+1

Support stars its unbelivable how blind you are.
How will they have better experience if they will suffer from reduced VIP as well? They're taking money from everybody.
Re-read the post, I don't rely on rakeback to win. I was never a volume player, never reached SNE despite playing 1k/500z so stfu about that.

Do you really think there was no other ways than straight rob the players? They robbed everyone, even devalued the value of FPPs. That's to help the recreational players as well? Reducing plat. star is to help them as well?
Conversion rates on deposits is to help recreational players?
Casino games, sports betting is to help recs as well?

Stars brainwashing is working. I can see them in the office, laughing on their chairs of the guys like you that truly believe the motivation of all this is to help recreational players

If they want to improve poker ecology, why not stop charging so much rake?
More money for themselves thats what they want.
also without rakeback on 5/10 it will all lead into preflop 3bet/4bet wars and no preflop flats coz there is no rake preflop, how does that correlates with all what they said is another question.

Wrong...

The word that is killing the industry is "segregation."

I don't have a problem with what Stars claim to be trying to do. The theory is solid imo, we see that sites that have actually taken such steps to protect the recs (see Unibet and Bovada) have grown while others have languished (except ACR I suppose).

The real problem, which you point out, is that Stars is only paying lip service to improving the poker ecology and using it to try to throw the wool over our eyes. This is a money grab pure and simple.

On Bovada, the reg to rec ratio is like 1:3. There is an unbelievable amount of players with 30/8 stats, who will call you down with a gutshot for two streets, and then call your river bet because they hit a pair. At a final table there will still be players who size their bets based on the strength of their hand. They'll min bet bottom pair, and shove 2x the pot with a flopped straight.

But there is no rakeback, the rake is very poor for 50 NL and below, and the entry fees for turbo tournaments is the same as the ones for regular structures.

I'm not sure what Bovada is doing right. Perhaps CasionStars will become like Bovada: anon games and table limits.

SHOCKER. a publically traded company wants to make more money than they are making now. what exactly is your point ?

for someone that says they don't need or care about rakeback.... you come across ITT as someone that seems to need or care about rakeback quite a bit.

Hipothethic scenario: If you would have a salary of 10k, then out of the blue u were told u were making 3k because the company want to help and raise the salaries of the new guys that come in, you could live comfortably with 3k right? Of course y ou would, but that doesn't mean u weren't robbed. Only in the poker world this things can be accepted and considered normal by brainwashed people, it doesn't apply in any scenario in other life activities.

aha, before you were all about the recreational environment, poker economy stuff. Now they already made these changes to make money?
Logic is strong on you.
The only reason I still answer and consider ur opinion is because I think u are a stars employee sneaking in the thread for feedback, and to calm the waters. That's the only justification I see for you defending them till death

The issue people need to understand is that there are other factors in Bovada's success. Factors that are far more significant than anonymous tables.

People always attribute Bovada's success to anonymous tables. In reality, nobody cares about anon tables. Not the regs, not the recs. NOBODY. Except for a few HUD babies who can't use their HUDS and seat scripts (2% of the market). Recreational players never cared about huds, or their losing stats, or the fact that opponents could see their losing stats and berate them over it...EVER.

If a losing recreational player wants to avoid being berated on a site allowing names all they have to do is turn the freagin chat to OFF. No anonymous tables are required to prevent that kind of harassment and it was a myth that it was created by the dummy at Bovada that came up with this system. In fact, chat box berating is more rampant on Bovada then every other site in existence because the *******s who do it now have the time to do it because they're restricted to 4 tables. Back when those guys were on Stars playing 10-20 tables they never had time to berate people in the chat box. I rarely ever saw chat box berating on Stars in it's prime. I see it all day every day on Bovada. It's horrible.

They only thing online poker players care about is to have large player pools in cash games (lots of fish), big prize pools in tournaments (a product of more fish buying in), and getting their money quickly if/when they win. Bovada has all 3 and it has absolutely nothing to do with anonymous tables. Bovada's competitors are Merge (can't pay their players fast) and WPN (worst software problems in online poker.)

THESE FACTORS ARE THE REASON BOVADA IS SUCCESSFUL. THE ANON TABLE MYTH NEEDS TO STOP. ANON TABLES HAVE DONE NOTHNG TO ATTRACT FISH.



I firmly believe that Bovada would have more recreational players and fish than they currently do if they ditched the anonymous tables and synchronized their breaks during MTT's. I don't care if they ditch anon tables personally as it really changes nothing for me because I was never a HUD user in the first place. However, they would definitely have more players on the site if they did. Anon tables actually scare fish away because fish are the type of people to be scared of RNG rigging, bots, house bots, and collusion. Anon tables only fuels their paranoia.

I think anon tables scare fish away personally. The fact that Bovada has more fish than other American sites is due to fast payouts, good tourney selection, large cash game player pools, and incompetent competitors (WPN and MERGE) in the industry. These are the only factors in their success. Nothing more.

well. pretty sure that many on this forum could confirm what you allege about my employment or even any current affiliation with Stars is pretty lol.

but anyway, you are not an employee of stars. they don't owe YOU any salary or benefits. I am sorry you will make 3K less playing poker but if you don't like that then don't play or don't play on stars.

The continued assertion that any company owes you an environment where you can make money is absurd.

Agree with leakychips. Ipoker and other sites had/have anon tables for years. It's not a competitive advantage whatsoever. It's a myth. Bovada is not a case study, as the reasons for its success are limited to the US territory online situation and are preety basic as the user above described. Nothing that a good to mediocre management team couldn't do. The problem is that these industry is filled with amateur people in the poker sites, so Bovada just by being better in simple things like cashouts, win to the competition. It's not that Bovada's recipe is something that only a genious could think of.


Other myth is the huds make winners. Huds exist for ages, some people think that getting rid of those is the magical thing for them to either be winner or for the games to profit. And these are the people that bought them, and use them, with little to no results. So with the huds they won't win, and suddenly the huds are gone and they will win? or the games will be easier? They will get crushed either way, the same way they got crushed in anon tables in ipoker for example. The reason is that they got the wrong approach, lack fundamentals and can't blame themselves for their failure. They just don't want as much as we regulars do. If I didn't spent time playing and off the tables, I would suck as well.

Another myth is that fish players are afraid of huds. FISH don't care about huds, all they care is loggin on and play as fast as possible. They just want to click buttons, its a HOBBIE. I'm playing golf I don't care about which type of club I got, I just want to play.

I'm so worried of rakeback that I don't even have an idea how much I'll lose.
Supermarkets owe you nothing, gas stations owe you nothing. If they raise the price 20x because they want, they don't owe you nothing as well right? Or not, they owe you in this situation? LOL

Again, this logic only applies into the poker world because of that bull**** of poker ecology/economy and pseudo stars employees like you.

If you're not a stars employee, you'd prob be receiving a PM very soon by the same guys that are laughing their asses of in stars HQ right now; because guys like you buying their story of a "friendly poker environment" with these measures

170,371,000 - 72,912,000 = 97,459,000

well, your "logic" and apparent drug induced state aside, its irrefutable that the changes that appear to be coming will make the sites more money and a portion of their player pool less money. Its also irrefutable that Stars is doing this to, well, make more money.

what is puzzling to me is your assertion that they don't have a RIGHT to do this based simply on the fact that it hurts YOU or anyone else.

There are businesses that at are in business to make you money... Perhaps call your local Mary Kay or Amway rep.

I agree with all of this.

If no extra money is spent on the bottom tiers then how can this be good for anyone? If the money is well spent then it would help the ecosystem... but I doubt that will be the case.

This was my first thought. This is my favorite one because it carries the connotation that the "Poker economy" is some kind of self-sustaining closed system that doesn't require a constant influx of money from somewhere else.

If you look at it closely, Stars is just doing the 2010 - 888 style, and that site had a lot of bad players back then, before it got 10% more competitive..


Btw, FTP 6m SupTurbo Satellites are rakefree up to [50$->250$ ticket] right now, but it's not giving em heavy action, FTP still could do way better in the MTT section.

It's a complete new twist of the game when regular 7bets for 250bb deep get born.



Btw, was this the November Promotion they announced some days ago that replaces Micro Millions?

When you look back at your life on your deathbed, you will regret wasting the fifteen minutes it took to make this thread.

^^^ same as I will regret having read it