I historically am one of the posters here that aren't too critical about Stars and unlike let's say TimStone I don't believe online poker is dead yet, etc.

I'm gonna be critical in this post.

We used to have 60% or smth rakeback and we were playing tons of tables without much selection while having a yearly/monthly goal to look forward to.

Then you:
-cut all of that and about to cut even more rakeback this year
-you've increased the rake for people starting tables therefore you are actually punishing reg vs reg action
-you were slow to catch the bots and someone like pontylad, besides starting tables and being a poker player, has to also do the police work and identify bots.
How could I trust that most of those bots haven't moved to zoom where they are harder to track by other players?

To make matters worse bc of the nature of the game evolving regs and fish are better than before as well while having way less rakeback.
And then you seem somewhat surprised that people bumhunt, seat script and won't play tables without fish despite you forcing that with ideas like zoom only or seat me only or whatever you can come up with.

It's like you are trying to copy strategies from competitors that you were already beating by a landslide before with your sne system.

I and probably many others here would prefer to load the first 20 tables with almost no selection under the old sne system with a much lower bb/100 winrate like we have done for years in the past than having to select few good tables like we do now because of the issues mentioned above.
Why don't you try that on the .it skin if you're into experimenting and see how well it does for you profit wise vs the strategy you are trying on .es?

Thanks for your well-articulated and thoughtful comments. They have been shared with the PRM team.

for some reason the vip step display in the lobby is always on 2500 (100%)
how can i make sure i see where i am at stagewise with these starscoins?

I think the StarsCoin bar is broke just now but when they have fixed it give this a try as it seemed to update the bar for me.

Go to the Lobby and click on the Supernova badge beside the cashier button. That brings up the VIP Status box with your monthly and yearly VPPs etc. Clicking on this seemed to update my StarsCoin progress bar and I would see it jump up. Then hovering the mouse over the StarsCoins bar afterwards it would show the new % complete.

Keith answered already about this:

stars keep crashing while im playing sng and i've been having this problem for at least 2/3 months. Has anyone had this problem? How can i fix it?

I am Sinkarma on stars.com, the spanish guy who talked with negreanu via twitter, I just want to say a few things about these new changes they are testing on pokerstars.es.

If you understand spanish I talked about all of this in my youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szZkLJr4Blc

OK, let´s start, I´ve been in contact with the spanish community the whole time during this test, I am gonna tell you guys what we think before they move this to PS.com.

They started testing the system with no time penalties, people were opening and closing tables while they were breaking the whole time, Players trying to play were being grimmed and the system didn´t stop bumhunters, apparently they decided to do a really good thing, time penalties + minimum hands requirements to stop this. Let´s see how it goes.

One important thing you guys should know is that Pokerstars.es doesn´t have 1 / 2 + zoom tables, they can´t test the effect these changes are gonna have on pokerstars.com, probably a lot of players will move to Zoom decreasing a lot the traffic on normal tables. They also said that the traffic didn´t change, Ps.es regulars think this is not true, games are pretty dead since they are testing, at least on 0.50/1 +. In Spain Pokerstars is the only playable poker site, we dont have any other option, I think a lot of players will stop playing pokerstars.com because they will have other poker sites as an option, that doesn´t happen in Spain, so there are many things they can´t really test properly in pokerstars.es related with the traffic.

The main thing here is that Pokerstars is trying to force regulars to play against each other, this is not about protecting recreationals players, but obviously it will help, it´s just that there were many other ways to protect them.

In my opinion what they did stoping the VIP system increased the bumhunting, a lot of players who were breakeven opening tables now they can´t earn money and a lot of other players who were earning 1-2 bb/100 now they are breakeven, so they moved to other games / poker sites and they are more selective with the games they play, basically they are fighting against a situation they created.

I play NL500 NL2000 and I experienced how the traffic is getting smaller and smaller since they are making changes like increasing the rake and stoping the Vip system. For me it doesn´t makes sense to have an empty zoom lobby 5-10+ and an empty normal tables lobby as well, I think they should make all Zoom so we can have more games running instead of dividing the small traffic we have, but they want to do this, so let´s talk about this.

Since they stopped the Vip system it doesn´t makes sense to play with no fish on the table from micro stakes to NL600, the rake is just to high to beat if you are playing against other professionals. The main problem of this change is gonna be the traffic and the rake we have to pay playing those games designed to force regular players to play against each other.

I truly believe that they are going to earn more money if they copy the progressive rake bodog/bovada is using, if there is a fish on a table, it will be full always, with no fish we need changes in the system so we can play. they seem to dont understand that the problem is the rake, we dont play if we can´t earn money.

They can make more money if they decrease the rake we have to pay playing 1v1 3handed 4handed etc. They can create a good GAMING PRODUCT and players will come to play, traffic will be awesome again and poker wont be dead like it is right now. It will make the difference comparing pokerstars to the other poker sites same as before with the vip system, before, we really felt pokerstars was taking care of our gaming experience, that doesn´t happen anymore, please stop doing this, it hurts.

What pokerstars dont understand is what poker players want, we dont want new over raked games, poker is not fun if you can´t beat the rake. We want the dream of poker, we want to be able to compete against other players and we can´t do it with this system and no fish on the table.

Pokerstars really want to be like 888? or partypoker? on those sites only make sense to play a table if there is a fish on it, pokerstars was different because of the vip system, that was the reason why we had tables of regular players playing against each other and that´s what pokerstars took away from us.

Are you guys going to do something real about it? Vip system? progressive rake?

While this situation doesn´t change pokerstars wont be ever again the site it was before, you guys need to respect the players who dream about becoming winners offering good poker products and taking care of mid stakes and high stakes traffic so they can dream about getting there, what is good for poker players it´s good for pokerstars, it is that simple.

Guys did you get refund for PS lagging in some TCOOP events on 29.01?
I read on MTTs PS thread that there is a chance to get refund, so i am sending an email.
Was time was told that because i got some number of refund over the years, i can not apply for other. That was some months before when PS was crashing a lot.

Rocks_strato is pretty much saying the things I am.

At some point after black friday and some regulation issues the traffic started to decrease. Sure, it started to decrease even more for the competitors as well, it wasn't like 888/party/ipoker were stealing customers from PS.

Then someone at PS panicked and said "Our traffic is going down, let's do smth about it. I know, let's try to copy 888, party, unibet, etc the sites that we are crushing at the moment.
What do they have? well they have almost no rakeback, buggy software that ppl can't mass table on, slow and bad customer service, reputation issues bc the ppl complain about all of that online so it hurts their ability to get new players to join...while we are insanely good at all of that and everyone online is saying Stars is great 888 is crap.
Cool, let's drop what we do and do what they do, it obviously worked great for them!

It's clearly bad for us that regs grind 24 tables for 1 million vpps at 1bb/100.
We'd make way more money if those regs grind 100k vpps at 6bb/100 while bumhunting multiple sites, annoying the fish, using scripts, breaking tables, etc.
Instead of some new player opening 2+2 and reading <<Stars is amazing>> it's much better for him to see <<Stars is hell, online poker is dead>>. That will give him the much needed boost to join us!
Let's add some casino games too like 888 does without success, despite our name being POKERStars! People have surely run to join 888 bc of casino games, that is what the market is lacking, casino games that everyone already has!

Ok, we did that and surprisingly(?!?!) it got way worse: so let's copy 888 and party further.
They restricted seating scripts and forced reg on reg play but their traffic still decreased despite us chasing away all of our players to the competition.
The players run from us but still would rather stop playing altogether than join the competition.
Cool, let's copy that too and try to force Seat Me option on .es because regs will be stupid enough to play each other at monster rake."


Spoiler alert: that strategy is not gonna work, all your competitors tried it.
You know what proved historically to work best? your SNE system, your amazing customer service and your amazing software that used to handle way more players that it does now without bugs and crashes.

You had a strong competitor in FTP and you were still making huge $$$. Now you have basically zero competition and you do way worse.

An example of the current negativity that you've generated in us lately:
I am arguably the biggest stars nuthugger on 2+2. Out of the last 9 months I've had 8 running under EV and 1 barely above.
(I have a slightly better EV winrate than before)
It's ok variance happens and you don't see me posting about it in the "Rigged online poker" thread.
But now I catch myself thinking "well if that would've happened 3 years ago I'd be saying <<meh, variance>> but with how much hate they've had towards pro players lately would I even be that shocked if they started to rig it in favor of new players?"
For the record I 90% believe that you aren't doing that but 3 years ago the thought wouldn't even have crossed my mind.

End of rant.

They don't really want cash games to run. When Amaya bought Stars they were clear they wanted the database to transition players to casino games, that's what they're still trying to do (along with pushing "poker" formats that are closer to casino games).

As cash players we assume success for a poker site is how many poker tables are running (the classic "rake" measure of success). Stars in 2017 view success as retaining a players deposit without poker players like us getting near it.

Try hitting the withdraw button, on most days it'll flash up a warning that you're eligible for a bonus. Casino bonus. Not really a bonus of course, it takes real money, turns it into casino chips and gives you a huge wagering requirement to convert it back to real money again. But it must work for them or it wouldn't be there. Look at how hard they push Spin & Go's, Beat The Clock or whatever the next low winrate/huge rake format is.

I guess the point is that players/Pokerstars have very different goals. You mention all the stuff Stars used to be great at but that's when their goal was to be the best place to play poker. Telling them how to provide a better poker experience is pointless when it's not something they want to do.

Maybe RunItOnce will save us, who knows.

I understand that and I've tried to present the situation from a Stars profits point of view.
I doubt they are making near as much profit with casino/poker/sportsbook as they were before when the SNE program was on.
It was esentially a low winrate huge volume thing, most SNEs were breakevenish pre-rakeback.

And the thing that doesn't pop up in their numbers is the projected pokerstars image.
You can pay Cristiano Ronaldo a ton of $$$ to attract casuals but when that casual player reads anything online about Stars he will see a heavily negative opinion bc of the environment they have been creating lately and tend to stay away.

Or when that casual is playing at a casino and a conversation about online poker pops: gonna be a heavily negative opinion.

In the SNE days either live or online you only heard "Stars is amazing", players had blogs about it, etc.

If they try a SNE approach and a Seat Me only approach for 2 segregated markets and the Seat Me only gets them more overall revenue I'll challenge Jungleman at HU till one of us is broke

Bump.

I was hoping to be able to get more information other than an acknowledgement that we have a bug in the QuickSeat Lobby from the latest build. The team is aware, they are investigating, but at this point I don't know when it is expected to be resolved.

No probs. Ty

This is happening to me as well.

Amaya needs to be very careful if this is their approach. Many regulators throughout the world are dismayed at the loss of gambling revenue created by companies such as Amaya and are looking at introducing gambling legislation to restrict consumer access; all under the guise of 'protecting citizens from the evils of gambling addiction'. In the past, poker players (and casinos) have rightly opined that poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance. To some extent this has helped to keep the government hounds at bay, but the more sites like PS blur the line between games of chance and games of skill the more the regulators will impose sanctions.

Australia is a case in point where regulators are pressing laws that merge chance/skill games under a common gambling umbrella. 888 has already pulled out of the Oz market even b4 the laws have been passed, and I believe PS is on record as confirming they will also leave if the laws are enacted.

In this event, PS, 888, Party et al will have sanctioned their own demise.
/end of that particular rant

I lament the reduction in Sit n Go's. Ten years ago I used to play $10 18man FR SnGs. I'd play a bunch of them all day and I had to be quick on the mouse button because these events would fill up super quick. Now, I look at my favourites list and a range of SnGs from 9-27man, from a buck to $15 just sit there with one or two entrants. I wait 10 minutes and little changes so I go play with my cat. Ahhh, the good old pre-Amaya days.
/end secondary rant

Keith stated before that this is a learning process for them, so hopefully they will do just that and take these comments into serious consideration before their next moves. I suppose with new management you have to give them some time to adjust their beliefs to their client pool. I just hope they aren't the stubborn type...

Hi Keith, I found a new bug for you! These are the exact steps to replicate the issue. If I don't say I did something in between the steps, then I didn't do anything between the steps:

1. Open any number of tables (I found it while playing 2 tables, then recreated it simply by observing 1 table)
2. On a table, click the Options icon, and select "Manage Layouts..."
3. Select an empty table layout in the list.
4. Click "Save Custom Layout", enter a name, and confirm the save.
5. Select the newly created layout in the list and click "Delete". When the confirmation dialog opens, click "Yes".

Result: PokerStars completely closes.No errors, no further confirmations, it just closes. Everything, including tables and lobbies.

Upon re-opening the client and going back into the layout manager, the layout I just tried to delete still exists. If I try again, I can successfully delete the layout. While still in the layout manager I can repeat steps 3 to 5 (I had tables open by now) with the same results (the client closes).

I don't know if the above are the only steps possible to recreate this issue. I don't know if you must have tables open or if you must open the layout manager from a table. I did not test those scenarios, and I want to get back to playing (gotta chase that sweet $0.50 bonus!).

Hi Keith, my Stars account was unfairly disabled, I PM you details to see if you can help since Support and Security simply ignore my emails

Thanks for posting about this. I just tried following your steps and the client did not crash - it just deleted the new custom layout as expected. Manually closing and reopening the client shows that the deleted layout is still deleted.

I'm using Mercury tables, not sure if that has any bearing on it. I'm also on a Win 10 PC, .COM (Build 16193). I observed two tables.

I will share your steps with the team to see if someone else can repro the crash, but it might help if you can let me know your computer O/S, table theme and client build.

Good luck on that sweet bonus!

Thanks - I replied by PM.

Thank you all for expressing your viewpoints in a thoughtful and constructive manner. The team is monitoring the discussion and appreciates hearing your perspectives.

Thanks for posting, it's a known problem we are investigating.

The bonus was not so sweat, just the minimum . (But I did just notice The Deal jackpot hit for a sweet $3 something!)

Sorry, I should have provided those details when I first posted.
OS: Win 10
COM build 16193
Table theme: Black
Custom background (been using for years, never a problem)
Custom cards and chips (also been using for a couple years, never a problem)

I'm sending in my log files to support and asking them to forward them to you. If you need any more info, please let me know.

EDIT: Found something new! When choosing an empty slot, scroll down in the list and choose one in the middle. If you choose the first available slot in the list the close does not happen.

The client doesn't appear to be creating new HUSNG lobbies correctly.