You should write to support and ask them directly..

They're probably using some kind of machine learning to optimize for long term revenues across all their platforms. Good luck reverse engineering that.


This is the new thing, it's called machine learning. Try opening new facebook accounts from different locations, IPs and browsers, or just go on a site like blackhatworld and read what actual professionals who make their living off facebook accounts think about the algorithms. Calling it complicated is a superlative understatement.

The new Stars system is probably not on that level but I would bet players will be surprised at the levels of disparities that exist between accounts, even where most things are equal, and the seeming difficulty of pinning down exactly what's going on.

Not only will you have the random nature of the prize structure itself, the underlying distributions will be hugely disparate from one player to the next. This will make it extremely difficult to decipher what's happening with any certainty.

My guess is there are four customer categories

That's based on previous promotions. In certain European markets they are required to "show their workings" as it were and give more details on personalization. In the past customers have fit into four buckets. This can be observed right now with Golden Button Challenge in FR/PT/ES.

TBH i think machine learning would be over-engineering the problem. I'm guessing there are a few bucket types (low stakes casual, serious professional, whale, etc) and then run simulations to tweak the boundaries of each.

I could be wrong, but that's my speculation.

They stay, no change in value or redemption. They already expire if your account is dormant (six months I believe).

Yeah I expect you are right.

I've found there are two main categories: 4% an 10% rakeback (approx).
Which I think means they are going to knock everyone down to at least BronzeStar rakeback.
Pros/regs get put down further (4% = approx 1/2 BronzeStar)

90% of all chests will be less than ~$20 & the maximum chest EV available is ~$20 (which is around low SilverStar rakeback, as a max for everyone).

So I guess the other two buckets (categories) will be for depositing players and maybe casino->poker transition players?

I think they are doing this to pay off the $2.5billion long term debt.

I'm from Italy. This year I had a monthly rakeback around 700€ to 1k €, grinding MTTs at the highest ABI possible and some cash game between nl50 and nl100.

After 20 days of June, I totalized around 20 euros of rakeback, with the same grinding volume of the last months. It's funny how you try to understand how many chests you need to open to upgrade or how much rake etc. It won't change a ****ing thing, rakeback is practically 0.

On the other hand, traffic is the same as before if not improved. There are new regs at nl100, I can't understand why but this is a fact. It must be said, though, that in Italy there are hardly other sites worth playing, since everyone there is playing stacked by some school and the playerpool from nl25 is almost full reg.

It is highly unlikely that they will increase in value. So if you are worried just convert them to cash.

I don't see why you would ever save any significant balance of Starscoins, especially after the debacle where the cash rebates disappeared from the store for a week. Pretty sure they have no explcit monetary value and Stars could wipe the value off them at any time (unlikely but wouldn't put it past them). You can convert them for a minimum of $10 at a flat rate, so just convert them, no reason not to as far as I can see.

Stars obivsoluy remove Vip tournaments( Chrome, Silver and Gold). They have introduced new weekly tournaments(saturday 8 p.m. accessible by tickets form chests). 3.5 k gtd, 1st place around £400, over 4k of entries. This is another way to give back anything.


Inviato dal mio HUAWEI LUA-L21 utilizzando Tapatalk

Popped Stars an E-mail as the communication has been non-existent and got this reply:

"At the moment, our new rewards program, Stars Rewards, is not yet available in your area and you will continue to earn VPPs and complete VIP Steps as per usual until it is launched. There are still no informations about the release date in the platform .UK but rest assured, that all the players will be informed."

"no informations about the release date" ten days before launch ?

how clueless for stars support, lmao

greedy amaya cunnts. oh well, rip pokerstars rakeback. i can play there as a canadian but i dont want to contribute to their disgusting company.

here you go, GOLD chest:

https://clips.twitch.tv/ImpossibleCo...NerfRedBlaster

lol

and another one:

https://clips.twitch.tv/RockyBoringStarBCWarrior

This is corrent. Just got it confirmed by stars.uk

Do you guys think pokerstars will take any significant hit in traffic after these changes or will it be another dust in the wind?

The only positive outcome of all these absurd changes is that they are handing the rope for other sites to potentially grow and take some traffic.

I told a guy that was a hardcore player this years ago. Every change the sites have made over the years have ruined various cash game formats or slowly destroyed tournaments. I remember thinking the sites only would tolerate subsistence Eastern Euro wages ie 1 dollar an hour, but now I think they don't even want as the site is swapped with those players.....

Reduced traffic, inflated profit. They don't give a **** about regs if their profits increase. Yearly spending went from 14 million per year to 4 million, and that was BEFORE the chests were introduced.

Pokerstars giving me a good reason to quit poker.

Decided to play on Friday evening after the work week
Flop cbet success: 28% - no fold equity
two pair -1,232 bb/100 ran into 5 sets out of 14 two pairs at showdown. Sure.
one pair -1709 bb/100
AA -1,305 bb/100

I'll just quit when the chests arrive.

The more regs leave the better the fish to reg ratio will be. I suspect nothing big will happen for now. If someone comes up with a very good platform (excellent reputation, anti-bots, GUI, rakeback, withdrawing/deposit options and speed, availability to lots of countries, very big exposure/promotion) then they can take them out completely but considering how hard each of those things are to accomplish it's very unlikely it will happen.

Wow. Im stuck in DOJ desert for poker, so Stars was gone for me long ago. I think Party is seriously trying to get back on top. This move by Stars is almost designed to kick the semi-pros to the curb. Or, those players will have to play less tables and make straight up profit, and rewards is just extra profit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They will lose traffic. There's just no way it's not gonna happen. The impact is immense, you have to be dellusional to think this won't change anything.
All rakeback pro won't be able to win anymore or so little that it won't matter. These people won't even have a choice : they have to move or stop playing. There's a chance they might kill higher stakes full ring cash games for good and high stakes sit and go completely.

A lot of regs even winners, especially mtt/sng regs will move anyway because they will just calculate that pokerstars isnt the best place anymore. I suspect some fish will leave too, not all of them like getting ****ed some actually try to win.

We can speculate on the scale of the loss they will endure, but they will lose people for sure

Not to derail, but 2.5 Billion in debt? I would hope its the good kind of debt and not the bad "maxed out the credit cards" kind of debt!

Wow, I never dreamed Stars would be in debt, 12 years ago.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Debt from the takeover. Amaya was a tiny company with no money so they took out huge loans (secured on Pokerstars) to buy Pokerstars. We then have to pay that debt back for them while they try to ruin the "poker" part of Pokerstars (pocketing our money along the way).

That should be you all caught up

I just watched a couple of Twitch clips with some dude opening "chests" and I can't wrap my head around what the f..k is happening.

I play z200 nlhe and rakeback has already gone down from 2016 (was playing z100 back then and made more rakeback with just slightly bigger volume). But those chests? What the actual f..k?