it's great that you back up your failed logic with made-up numbers.

it's also funny that you criticize "comparing loyalty schemes that aren't comparable" while you failed horrible with your electric bill/gym comparison. PS doesn't sell you anything. they charge you for using their tables and they offer a loyalty programme as well as promotions.

no one says with the 'new system' the recs will be winners. it's just a smart move to offer promotions like the 'puzzle challenge' where some random dude can win $1m just b/c he was lucky, than giving a big bonus to some hundred players. 1st promotion attracts tons of players, 2nd promotion only a few.

it seems, that you not only don't have any clue, how the industry works/evolved, but you also don't have any numbers or data. you just make claims based on the fact, that PS cut bonuses.

Amaya is a public company any you can check, how much money they make. IF (!) i'm not wrong, some numbers of the old PS were made public (i think it was b/c of the NJ licence) and if my memory doesn't deludes me, the old PS made more money than Amaya.

but even if Amaya would make more money. who are you to tell them, what they are allowed to make? it's an open market. you can choose any provider you want. no one says it's fair, but that's life. ppl lose their jobs all the time, b/c markets shrink.

one last thing about the HUDs. i think no one (smart) claims, that a HUD makes you a instant winner. But players use it, to maximize their winnings. it doesn't matter if the HUDs are more important in Reg on Reg battles, or in general play. it's just simply a 'money grab'. And if PS really bans HUDs (or make them less efficient like PP or MPN are planning), than it's their decision.

Nerdsuperfly,

You don't have a clue what are you talking about. Another stars employee?
OFCOURSE, they can do what they want. They could even invent negative rakeback.

Every other business where you're a customer, THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT.
I know they want to MAXIMIZE THE PROFITS without taking into account the players.
And what, the right posture is to look at this, stay and do nothing? If it's what you and other stars pseudo employees do, don't count on me.

What I'm arguing is, POKER is the only industry where this happens and people seem to take it lightly and applaude it and even act like stars trol employee acounts like you.

Banks don't owe you anything as well, they could just grab the whatever return they agreed to conceed on your investment and change it. There are ways to do that and not get prosecuted if they want. But do you think the banks will do this? And those who did/if they did, they think people applaude and took it ligthly?

This attitude of "they know what they're doing" "#pokerecology" is incredible. They're laughing when they see guys like you defending them.. With customers like this poker is the best business out there, where customers are fooled and robbed and still clap, and even defend the company


"no one says with the 'new system' the recs will be winners. it's just a smart move to offer promotions like the 'puzzle challenge' where some random dude can win $1m just b/c he was lucky, than giving a big bonus to some hundred players. 1st promotion attracts tons of players, 2nd promotion only a few."

Do you really think the goal of these is to give back to the amateurs and capture new players? LOOL ahah, please tell me how they're doing that with the measures they announced

you lost me right about there. skipped the rest.

btw... your gas rakeback blows. might want to spend less time looking foolish ITT and more time researching gas cards. I think I get 5% back and free tanks all the time. but I don't need the gas rackback cuz I am Zoom500 wizard and crush

yeah, such a RB pro I am playing 60k hands per month

@PTLou,

I can completly understand why you only play/deal with live poker. The skills that u lack to win online are the same skills that you don't have to understand the serious of the situation and the impact it will have on online poker if the industry leader decides to go this way.

enlighten me please.

If by "online poker" you mean... ability for one to earn some sort living playing "online poker" then you are prob correct.

Sadly, creating a job for you is just not in the corp charter of any online site I am aware of. like I said before maybe Amway or Mary Kay would be more up your alley. they def help people make money.

but first google gas reward cards cuz your current one sucks really badly

Thread still lame after 26 hours. Needs more tiffs over vocabulary spoken by someone someone knows.

These types of programs are amended on the fly constantly across all industries, with the goal rarely being to put more money back in the pockets of consumers. Anyone who asserts that the online poker industry is the only business landscape where someone could get away with these reprehensible acts sounds naive.

It's called a bonus program for a reason - as in it's something above and beyond what you are entitled to in the scope of your transactions with Pokerstars. You deposit your money and are entitled to having a secure & fair place to play poker, with a rake structure that you agree to by loading up a cash game or registering for a tournament. You're entitled to receiving the same amount in a cash out as you requested. You're entitled to not have someone go in your account and take your money while you're not looking, etc. You are not entitled to X amount of rake back, or X amount of a value in loyalty programs. Those can fluctuate at any point and then you have the option as a consumer to decide whether or not to give the site your business.

And that's not even touching on the fact that Pokerstars is maintaining that these changes are being done with an eye towards widening and maintaining their active player base, something that they're certainly within their rights to do and is pretty much imperative for their long term sustainability. If you're skeptical about their true motives… go nuts. But even if Pokerstars came out and said "We are slashing the bonus program in half because we want to make more profits", it certainly wouldn't elicit a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings towards them but they wouldn't be doing anything wrong or illegal. And just like above, you'd then have the choice as a consumer whether you wanted to give them your business after that information.

you can rant as long as you want, you fail to understand, what i wrote. you also fail at bringing up an argument, to make a point.

i make it simple for you

- is PS the first operator who goes for the rec players model?
- is using a HUD a way to maximize profit?
- is the market shrinking or growing?
- is PS making far more money than three or fives years ago?
- which is more important, rake or deposits?

bonus question: explain what a bonus is


yes .. they cut bonuses and hand out bonuses in other forms (like the puzzle promotion, which i mentioned and which wasn't the only "rec promotion" this year) or they use the money to sign megastars like CR7 or Neymar (which prolly won't be cheap), which attracts more players than promising SNE ... it's pretty simple actually.

and even if Amaya would keep all the money and make 100-times more profit. they still don't owe you anything. play or don't play

Nerdsuperfly,

Read the post again. I've explained a thousand times why "stars doesn't owe you nothing" is ridiculous. By that point of view, there's no company that owe customers anything so they should just rise 100x the price and disrespect their customers.

You probably have no idea the importance of customer retention, loyalty, support and brand image. They're not honoring their words of 70% r.b for snes, and cutting it to half or whatever. This is a scandal LOL.. not to mention the 5/10 no VPPs.
I couldn't believe when I read that blog post entry. But I could hardly predict the stars employees that would emerge from the foruns.

Also, regarding marketing budget poekrstars has signed stars in the past like Nadal and Brazilian Ronaldo.
Realisticly, I see no other arguments from the stars employees of the forum other than

-stars owes you nothing

Regarding huds. Huds importance is ZERO, comparing to the 2016 VIP scandal.
I don't give a **** about huds, they can ban and I'm fine with it although they won't solve nothing, and losing players will still lose. I played on the anon tables on ipoker and the pace the less skilled players were losing was exactly the same. You don't need huds to win vs fish. Period. That's pure illusion, its the thought process that HUD is a tool that if everyone uses it well will lead you to highstakes its ridic really.

prob worst fred in history, and by nvg standards that's something

The fact that you refer to a scale back of a bonus program as a "rise in price" pretty much sums up that you're not looking at this correctly.

Killingit

I do not wish harm on anyone and feel bad for you and others whose way of life might be changing a bit. I have a lot of respect for winning online grinders. its not easy.

There are five stages of dealing with loss and grief

http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/

Maybe you should just skip to #5.... Acceptance.

@PTLou
LOL, yeah you should accept anything that hurts us def. Never fight for nothing, let's just accept everything and don't question nothing in life.

I imagine you in the prision getting raped by an inmate and thinking about acceptance. That's what essential what stars are doing.. and in here the players are not the inmates.

"..the wisdom to accept the things I cannot change"

Well if he is stronger than you and has his penis up your ass it's probably better to try to enjoy it.

People who post this drivel are either losing players or don't play at all. You're useless. This is the same thing as just straight up jacking up the rake and surely everybody can agree that that's not good for the games.

russians

no its russians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTIiuGKwB8g

WTF at all people defending stars and being glad that we get fu cked ... Dont you realize that EVERYONE is getting screwed, not only the high volume grinders? The biggest issue with stars is the fact they have a monopoly, competition is why other companies cannot decide to increase their prices out of the blue. Hopefully other sites will step up, players will start playing elsewhere and than legit competition will start benefiting players like in the old days once the players start putting volume on different sites.

+1

I mean, ppl defending stars is the most ridiculous thing i've seen on this forum. I suspect most of them are stars employees, its the only reasonable excuse

Wells stated op, if Stars ever comes back to the US I'll be sure to stay away. Seems like they only care about their bottom line. If they gave back to the recreational players then all these changes would make more sense, as is it just seems like Amaya is lying to us in the worse lie you could ever tell a group like us. It's just sooooo transparent, it's like when you lie to a 5 year old or something and you just expect them to believe it.


I feel like Amaya thinks poker players are like ****ing 5 years olds lol. Why do business with such an entity? Just another business putting profits above their customers, **** em......

Wow wtf at this thread, how is anyone on Amaya's side in this argument?

I think its pretty transparent whats going on.
They raise prices (lower rakeback = rake increase) and this always creates negative reaction in any userbase. The best way they can do to make it sound at least somewhat more innocent is this "poker ecology" term, there is no better way to present higher rake or lower rakeback in poker and they use it.
It's clear that it's just some sauce, there are no explanations, no actual mathematical breakdowns about anyone's benefit from this except the poker room.

And what's funny is that it works. If they simply said "we raise rake for grinders" far less people would find this news good.

Theres something on my mind that I've been thinking last 5+ years. The rake is insanely high, but so far it was beatable and it was accepted. If a point is reached where even top players cannot beat the rake, will they actually lower the rake or let the format under question die? (It's clear that MTTs have bigger potential than SNGs in this regard for example)