blonde poker forum

A Russian mirror website hosted by Pokerstars leaked this today. It has since been deleted. The text comes from a Russian 2+2 user and has been translated by him/google translate. Credit to Coon74; from 2+2 Internet Poker (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=48536508&postcount=326 =Post)
(http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/supernova-elite-pursuit-thread-2015-related-chat-1500299/index22.html#post48536867)

Changes in the VIP-club in 2016

In 2016, VIP-club offers significant changes. The first serious change - is the introduction of simple and comprehensible system VIP-steps that will demonstrate how close you are to the next VIP-status. Learn more about VIP-levels, see here.

VIP-level - is undoubtedly a step towards ensuring that our VIP-club more understandable and accessible to more players. Especially the new system will appeal to those who play for fun from time to time, because with its help they can easily set goals and reach them in a single game session.

Awards received by the players, will also undergo some changes. Although they affect mainly the players of the highest VIP-level, they practically [almost] do not affect the majority of our players.

Most of the players with the status of BronzeStar to GoldStar will on average receive the same rewards that now. However, it is worth noting that some of them will get smaller, and others - more. The average percentage of winning status [rewards for those statuses] will remain the same or increase. For example, players will ChromeStar average observed increase in awards in the amount of 10%.

Awards for players with higher status will be reduced, and further reduced for those who annually earns more than 200,000 points VPP. We have always believed that poker - [is] a game that is played for fun and competition.

However, in the past few years, VIP-Club awards have become so seductive that we unintentionally started to influence why and how people play.

As a result, at the moment we are seeing a large number of players with high status, many of which play mainly for decoration [rewards], not for the sake of competition and fun that poker should bring. This group of players is growing faster than all other groups. So for the last 3 years the number of players with the status of Supernova and Supernova Elite has grown by 27%.

The objective of VIP-club has never been a fundamental change in the motivation to play poker. After analyzing the situation, we came to the conclusion that this situation has to change, despite the fact that it may disappoint some high-level players. Given this, we make a number of changes to our VIP-club, which could have a significant impact in the financial plan for the players who get our highest award.

In making this decision, we carefully weigh the "pros" and "cons". Within a few months, we have conducted a deep analysis and research to find the best model for the long-term viability of our poker "ecosystem." Read more about why this is important, as well as other changes, please visit our blog.

So, what will change for high-level players? On 1 January 2016 we will review the system of rewards, to limit the motivation to play just for the sake of winning. VIP-prizes for the players, who first achieved the status of Supernova, will still be 28% invested rail. However, for those who earn more than 200,000 points VPP, it will set the maximum award of 30%. Awards VIP-players PlatinumStar status will be reduced by about 5%.

Finally, to recoup significant costs (including the high cost of transactions for deposits and withdrawals) on offer cash games with high stakes, players will no longer get points VPP in Pot Limit and No Limit with blinds of $ 5- $ 10 and up, the gaming mix 8 games - with blinds of $ 10- $ 20 and above, and in other fixed limit games - with blinds of $ 10- $ 15 and above.

Below you will find a brief description of all the changes that will take effect January 1, 2016

All awards will be given in the form of a new currency - coins Star Coins.

Each coin has a fixed equivalent of $ 0.01.

All FPP points will be converted into coins Star Coins 1 January rate of 1.2 Coins Star Coins for 1 point FPP.

Before midnight on December 31, players can use their FPP points to buy cash bonuses, tournament tickets and a variety of goods at current prices in points FPP.

All prices quoted in the VIP-shop, including prices for tournament tickets and cash prizes will be updated on January 1 in accordance with the fact that the Star Coin 1 coin equivalent to $ 0.01.

Tournament buy-ins will also be transferred to the coin Star Coins.

All current awards, including points FPP, special VIP-bonuses and bonuses landmark, will be transformed into a unified system of awards - Coins Star Coins.

Click here to learn more about coins Star Coins for each VIP-level.

Players who have earned special VIP-bonuses and bonuses landmark in 2015, will be able to buy them in the VIP-shop in 2016.

On average, we plan to achieve the following awards percent compared with the current system:

Title   Average awards in 2016

BronzeStar   Without changes
ChromeStar   Increase to 10%
SilverStar   Without changes
GoldStar   Without changes
PlatinumStar   The decrease of 5%
Supernova   Decrease by 0-27%
200 000+ points VPP   The decrease of 44-60%

Multipliers VPP points for all licenses will be as follows:

5,5 VPP per $ 1,00 USD or CAD commissions [rake] paid, 6,5 VPP for € 1,00 EUR paid commissions and 8,25 VPP for £ 1,00 GBP paid commissions for any table, regardless of the number of players at the table.

Game mikrostavkami [microstakes]:

Points VPP per $ 1.00 of rake   Points VPP for € 1,00 in rake

$ 0.01 / $ 0.02   10   € 0,01 / € 0,02   12
$ 0.02 / $ 0.05   8.5   € 0,02 / € 0,05   10
$ 0.05 / $ 0.10   7   € 0,05 / € 0,10   9

These changes will increase the VPP multiplier for the UK, DK, BG, and SH.

These changes will reduce the VPP multiplier for tables with 8 or more players.

Players will not get points VPP in games Pot Limit and No Limit with blinds of $ 5- $ 10 and up, the games on the mix 8 games with blinds of $ 10- $ 20 and above, and in other fixed limit games with blinds of $ 10- $ 15 and above.

Earning points VPP, you move up the VIP-steps. Read more about the glasses [points] VPP read here.

VIP-Shop

Will be offered the following cash prizes with any VIP-status:

$ 25 - 2500 Star Coins
$ 100 - 10 000 Star Coins
$ 1 000 - 100 000 Star Coins

A few examples for tickets for multi-table tournaments, Sit & Go and spin-and-go:

Ticket for Sit & Go's with buy-ins $ 0.10 - 10 Star Coins
Tickets for the tournament spin-and-go or sit-and-gos with buy-in $ 0.25 - 25 Star Coins
Tickets for the tournament spin-and-go or sit-and-gos with buy-in $ 1 - 100 Star Coins
Ticket for Sit & Go's with buy-ins $ 1.50 - 150 Star Coins
A ticket for multi-table tournaments with buy-ins $ 3.30 - 330 Star Coins
A ticket for multi-table tournaments with buy-ins of $ 11 - 1100 Star Coins
A ticket for multi-table tournaments with buy-in $ 215 - 21 500 Star Coins

VIP-freerolls

Quarterly Freeroll $ 1 000 00 to Supernova will be no longer.

On the last Saturday of each month, will be held the following tournaments:

Tournament for BronzeStar + buy-in 25 FPP and prize money of $ 5000
ChromeStar + Freeroll with a prize pool of $ 20,000
SilverStar + Freeroll with a prize pool of $ 30,000
The freeroll for GoldStar + with a prize fund of $ 50,000

Every Saturday will be held the following tournaments:

Tournament for BronzeStar + buy-in 25 FPP and prize money of $ 2500
ChromeStar + Freeroll with a prize pool of $ 10,000

From 1 January 2017 VIP-Supernova Elite status will be abolished

Players who receive Supernova Elite status in 2015, to keep it in 2016

Awards for VIP-players Supernova Elite in 2016 will be reduced to a maximum of 28-30%.

To maintain status Supernova and Supernova Elite will no longer be required to be performed monthly on the conditions set points VPP.

Awards Hall of Fame

Prizes for achieving a mark of 5 million and 10 million points VPP will be available until December 31, 2016

Upon reaching the mark of 5 million points a player can choose one of two prizes: a Tag Heuer watch or a gift certificate to Apple's $ 2500

Concierge service will no longer be offered to players Supernova and Supernova Elite

Read more about the changes VIP-club and other changes, the purpose of which is to maintain the competitive spirit of such remarkable games like poker, read our blog.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BronzeStar   Without changes
ChromeStar   Increase to 10%
SilverStar   Without changes
GoldStar   Without changes
PlatinumStar   The decrease of 5%
Supernova   Decrease by 0-27%
200 000+ points VPP   The decrease of 44-60%

Pretty brutal stuff really, fringe benefits removed and a general hammering over everyone apart from the very highest stake cash players I guess. The corporate spiel about "Finally, to recoup significant costs (including the high cost of transactions for deposits and withdrawals) " is particularly cringe worthy, as a lot of these costs are paid out in  comission to Skrill/agents etc. Wasn't charging on currency changes enough?

Time for Isai and Mark to launch their new poker site I reckon.

No rewards or  fpps for high-stakes cash games is effectively a whopping rake increase. Will kill reg v reg action - likely fewer table starters + therefore fewer high stakes games to rail.

Will likely kill most 6max sng action above low-mid stakes where the average recreational player per table can be less than one.

Will force many players to focus on winrate, or move down stakes( not a bad thing in itself, but fewer games will run and games will be tougher overall).

Husng regs may take their reg battles off site again

Recs will find fewer games running to play, fewer big reg v reg games to rail and will find the games they do play to be much tougher as people increase focus on fewer tables and skilled players move down to their buy in levels.

I say this as someone who will likely benefit from the new system - I play part time from.the uk, so will see an increase in fpp conversion.I don't hit platinum and have a high winrate pre rake-back. Having mass volume grinders leave my games or reduce volume will be good for me - a lot of 6max sng regs will likely flock to my games (spin and go) as their games die -  but that's actually a good thing as they suck HU.

But for any 6max SNG players - be they reg or rec -@ midstakes + this isn't going to be pleasant.

I can't see it being + ev for stars either the way things are. A tonne of games will stop running, recs will have less choice and lose their money at a higher clip in the games that do run.

The fact that they have quickly pulled the page down is telling.

It might just have been an early draft that appeared on the site in error? 

I think the death of SNE has been well forecasted all year though.  Can't say I am too upset about it.  I hate it when you had somebody mass tabling the nlo8 Hypers.  It literally slows down every game you play.  The biggest culprit has moved to heads up, so the games are better now anyway. 

I personally dropped out of supernova in June.  Playing part time, I felt chasing supernova each month was probably bad all round.  I am pretty sure it was very detrimental to any possible profit at least.  I did also make the decision assuming supernova rewards were likely to fall in the new year.  I would personally be happier if they took the temptation away.  Looking back now, it was a really good decision, I am sure I am playing better now, and ironically I think I could still make money if I played at supernova rates now. 

Amazing this thread has just four posts.

There is a ton of changes to digest, something I missed first go around is FPPs changing to stars coins.

Someone did some digging into Amya balance sheets and seems Stars has around $100m of FPP out there amongst the player base

The value of these coins is around 25% less than the FPP were. So if you have any in your account make sure you use them by the 1st of Jan.

Most of these changes boarder on outright theft to be frank, it would not be so bad if their was a redistribution going on to rec players but they are also getting pretty screwed over.

I mean it is clearly awful news for regs if true, but I will hold my outrage until an official stars announcement.

Cba to read it all which is why this thread probably doesn't have too many replies. Cliffs would be good

Was confirmed yesterday afternoon.

https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/corporate_blog/2015/comprehensive-plan-for-enhanced-pokerstars-experience-158887.shtml

Decent summary here http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=48548309&postcount=233

It's not going to be fun for recreationals either.

It's not like money is being channelled to them, indeed.any rec playing more than a few 100 hands of midstakes cash or 100 or so midstakes sngs a week will see a cut in rewards

There will be much less choice on offer as games.dry up - regs drive action in many formats.

Those on offer will now be much tougher as regs reduce volume and focus on winrate. Also regs will.move down stakes it will.make games.much tougher for recs and aspiring improving hobbyists.

High-stakes action will drop. Cash games above 5/10 have been hit by a 40- 70% rake increase. High stakes reg wars in sngs, husngs, hu-cash and most cash games above mistakes will.be hit. No incentive to table start for regs or to keep tables running when a rec busts.

Fewer game to rail, fewer games to play, fewer reg wars to follow, fewer sick grind / high stakes $$ blogs / graphs to drool over and be inspired by, lose at a much faster rate in the games that do run, a cut in rewards, much tougher to move up - fewer high stakes games to aspire to.

Recs are not doing well.

Hey at least stars has a nice casino they are encouraged to use.

We all love poker here, our passion / hobby has  lost a world leader. A gold-standard market leader that matched any company in any field for innovation, service and not just understanding their customer but actually appearing as though their interests were aligned with their customers. and they made billions from us. What an achievement. Almost certainly worthy.of being documented by the buisiness press. A dedicated poker-room for poker people.

It's gone now.

The sky isn't falling, games will still run - I'll actually benefit from the changes - but poker has lost summat worth missing.

Generally speaking I am for getting rid of a lot of games that run purely for volume's sake and the current state of the games are awful for recreational players, but some of the points made by Ansky in that post are undeniable and well thought out. Probably best to ignore the rest of the 2+2 thread and read that one.

In particular the part about SuperNova Elite being a two year contract, which it totally is, nobody gets to SNE in year one and stops playing, it really is a two-year commitement.

I don't subscribe to this being an horrendous move or the death of poker or any of that nonsense. It's a simple business decision that they no longer want to incentivise certain types of players and games.

But one thing I would add is anyone who thinks Stars is unassailable and is too big to fail simply hasn't been paying attention to history.

My biggest problem with Stars in this regard has been the manner in which all these announcements have come, rather than the changes themselves. Not sold on all the changes but do agree with the ethos, but had this not been leaked on the Russian site god knows when it would have been announced, December 31?

Very good post by Ansky imo.  Very similar to all the backhanded/underground price increases betfair exchange have put on their 'regs'.  Just reads exactly the same tbh.  What do you expect when these monopoly style businesses who have huge chunks of a certain niche market are taken over at a huge price by corporations?   They are always going to do this to get back the huge price they paid to acquire their future cash cow.

What they have done tweaking T&C's though does border on theft esp the 25% devaluation of the fpp's.

This.

Remember Paradise Poker?

Has Negreanu told us all how good these changes are yet?

Yes

All but confirmed people have been using HUDS on the anon tables of Bovoda. Not sure if its just table by table, which I would presume, or manages to get past the anon to track accounts.

Anskys post was excellent. I do wonder what the next step is. There is virtually nothing I can do that wouldn't have a huge effect on my income. I guess its time to hope someone else emerges. This feels like a big gamble by Amaya when they have such a great deal at the moment.

If Amaya said they would drown 200 puppies a day, Daniel would find a way of supporting it.

Arse licker.

Wish Keith would get off the fence about Negreanu

Something tells me if Negreanu saved the life of 200 puppies a day, Keith would have a problem with it.

200 less puppies a day in the world could go towards feeding 200 babies a day

not that i am advocating it just saying what Mr N might come up with  when stars go that way

Seriously I have no clue why he's so popular.

Why can't people see just how disingenuous he really is.

Every word that he utters about a slightly contentious issue is uttered not for the good of poker, it's said for the enhancement of Daniel Negreanu.

He's a two faced, arse licking, vacuous scumbag.

I heard a very strong rumour that the reason he stopped criticising Howard Lederer over Full Tilt was because if he didn't Howie would reveal a very large skeleton in Danny Boy's wardrobe.

I wonder what it is.

cupboard skeletons ITT

the worst thing about playing on stars is undoubtedly receiving emails plastered with that diseased ***** smug face and self-satisfied smug-to- the-verge-of-creepiness-smile tellling me about the latest exciting promotion.

what a rotter.

QFT

I personally think he's great for the game. A genuine superstar, great talent, friendly and has adapted his game to stay at the top.

So what if he's self serving. I see that as a quality too

Never understood the aversion poker folk have to A) a sponsored player being self serving and B) an online poker room trying to max their profits.

It's remarkable how many people on 2+2 have posted to the effect of 'I guess we have learned PokerStars are only doing this for the money...'

What the hell else is a business doing it for? Given they have staff as well as shareholders, I'd be mortified if they weren't trying to make as much money as profit. You should of course complain about the way they make a profit, and especially if what they are doing is short sighted for all parties, but complaining because a business is motivated to do the exact thing it should be motivated to do is silly.

And everyone complaining about Stars wanting to make as big a profit as possible is complaining because the latest changes are stopping them from making as big a profit as possible. Nobody 24-tables hyper turbos for the love of the game, so why does everyone demonise Stars for wanting to make money?

btw not directing this at anyone here, all of it directed at the many ludicrous comments I've seen on 2+2.

I don't mind that people are self serving.

It is the way he tries to market himself as voice of the poker player at large which really annoys me.

He's the voice of Daniel Negreanu and Pokerstars.

I happen to think 80% of his views in poker are correct.

However, IMO when he gets something wrong, it is because he thinks he knows what is best for poker, when in fact he is thinking about what is best for him and his high stakes buddies.

His Hall of Fame views for example. Plus his view that we should get rid of low buy-in bracelet events, even though they clearly are what 99% of poker players want. He ripped into PokerNews a few years back about their live updates, but what he proposed as a solution would only really have appeased his fanboys and him.

So while I actually like the guy, I think I get what you are on about Keith.

His refusal to condemn Erick Lindgren for his disgraceful behaviour was the thing which really got me.

If that had been someone he didn't like we'd never have heard the end of his moralising condemnations.

But as he's part of Danny's gang he got a free pass.

Be consistent or STFU IMO.

Guess how many twitter followers your mate has Camel? 

+1 I was trying to remember that, deffo his lowest point IMO. It wasn't even his refusal to condemn, he actually supported the victim notion and said it was 'kinda ok for old school players'

Less than Joe Sebok!

I'll have a stab at 200k.

You do actually wonder? Or do you know?

It's higher than that.  380k.  I was expecting him to have 1m+ followers tbh.  Just shows how few people relatively are influenced by these types imo when it comes to poker.  I think he is having Stars' pants down with the deals he must have given how few twitter followers he has relative to other famous stars in other fields.

Find it hard to believe he drives that much traffic to Stars from new players who wouldn't have a clue who he is generally.

I don't know, but I could have a few eduacted guesses.

I should write a blog post which only appears after I die which reveals all the sordid facts I know about various famous poker players!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cemDklK3ap0

Made me LOL

I absolutely agree that businesses (public companies anyway) should act in a profit maxismising way but there has to be boundaries somewhere. There are plenty of reasons to complain in these situations. Whilst I hate to trivialize much more serious situations, do you have the same reaction when you read about the Apple factories in China? (I reread your post and I think you cover this tbh kinda but dont want to delete) Personally, I think it is unethical for a company to provide a games service which should be beatable, but cannot actually be beaten, and this is where Amaya is going. Pokerstars will lose the dream of professional poker play, and after that I'm not sure why people would be particularly drawn to play. I'm sure even the worlds biggest degen will be turned off by a product that will suffer so much bad press. I guess the Spin and Go side makes up for some of this but surely not all. I don't think they realise how good they have actually had it.
o
When Stars lower my rakeback I will do 2 things; 1) Never battle a reg/reggy lineup     2) Bumhunt more. Both of these negatively affect Stars bottom line. Less hands will be played and winrates will actually increase unless something else changes. I can't imagine it being good for Stars to dissuade me from playing games where I have a small-negligible edge. This is in fact what they want! The changes Stars have made may affect one of their best USPs at the moment. Any stakes/game and you can find what you want. In not so long that simply won't be the case. I don't understand the logic of buying a company that has better margins than anyone else in the business with higher revenues and presuming that I can leverage capital and take over this company before forcing that extra 10% out of it. The seller always has a huge informational edge in this situation. (I guess the Scheinbergs retirement could be a factor). Furthermore, would you even risk changing the businesses strategy in such an offensive manner to your player base. Amaya really are punters. I can't believe they managed to con someone into giving them money for this after how hard they managed to butcher Ongame.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntncu_LfT3g

Ansky went on Joey's podcast to talk about it yesterday (dicussing it from the start)

Lordy Lordy. These guys don't do themselves any favours when they trot that nonsense out, do they? Why & for what exactly do they think 'Stars - or any Online Poker site - exists?

And they make changes because - with the data they have at their disposal (which we don't have) - they think they will make more money long-term. I've no idea if they will, but if I had to back one side or the other to be right, I'm backing the guys who run the business & have all the data.

very few people are disagreeing that stars motives arent in line with the players.

lots however are angry about losing a dedicated poker room that was unrivaled in terms of spread of games, traffic, software, low rake etc etc.

so much of that is being erroded. and people justifiably feel a loss.

pokerstars losing the pre amaya ethos is a genuine loss to poker.

i cant understand poker players not lamenting that and instead stating the very obvious to the point of being bromidic line of "well they are doing what is best for themselves"

imagine DTD sold to a casino chain. imagine it started acting like a run-of-the-mil casino, increased rake, put slot machines and automatic poker-bot machines all around, altered tournament structures - lost all the individual poker specific touches that makes it the best at what it does. many would be right to lament the loss of a world class dedicated card room, even if the casino chain was right and increased its bottom line.

anger often follows a sense of loss, the fustration that goes with it.

poker is currently losing a standard bearer. if you cant feel some sense of sadness about that then i'd argue you dont love poker.

All very good points, I think we are in agreement, just may differ on the severity of the (current) changes.

Completely agree poker has to be beatable for it to be packaged the way it is.

But surely by this logic, it should be beatable by everyone and not just SNE's.   The issue is then a rake problem not a SNE problem.  I think SNE and rake races have always been bad for the long term future, so can't fault Amaya there.  There doesn't seem to be much of a problem with the technical aids either.

What should happen is a reduction in rake on the "unbeatable games" or higher rewards at the lower level to compensate for the loss of SNE.  I'd much rather that happened than the status quo was maintained.

I really would not trust the guys with the data, look what happened to ongame when Amya took over. Look at what happened to Party poker when it became a PLC, same with paradise poker way back in the day. These were all giants they all had data and smart people working for them and they still royally messed it up.

If anything we have learnt that when a company is beholden to shareholders. Long term stable profits go out of the window in favour of short term gains which guts the site.

Stars are really not to big to fall, its happened before in this industry no reason why it cant happen again.

Also you are right their are some complete NVG tards on 2+2 but for the most part people are smart.

They realise that stars is in this to make money, but feel betrayed because there was an unofficial contract between the players and stars. It was built on the players trusting that stars had the long term health of the game in mind even if that was only so they could go on milking the cow so to speak.

Now they see this approach gone completely out of the window and these actions without the reduction in rake, or redistribution of rewards to rec players really could just kill online cash games and especially high stakes. 

I agree Stars isn't too big to fail/fall. In fact I said so about two pages back. But these are different times to back then.

The amount of data modelling that goes on in the major online gambling firms is incredible. They will have looked into this very deeply. It won't be a decision made on a whim.

That said I do agree the main shift from private to public is a shift from long-term to short-term growth. There will be a lot of pressure there for short-term results and that can distort the analysis.

Also wtf is this chat about them "breaking" ongame? It was thoroughly and utterly broken when they bought it.

From what I heard they finished it off with the changes they made, and it was a half playable site until then. I can be wrong of course but I have heard this lots from various people.

wrt to short term profits. It really does not help Amya massively overpaid for stars and mortgaged themselves up to the hilt to buy it. That's likely weighing heavy on the balance sheet hence them taking some debt reduction measures like slashing FPPs values.

Yeah definitely. Mind if Russia collapses they will save themselves $400m.

Pressure from investors is probably just as a big a factor though. PE firms don't invest $1bn in something to just make 5% on their money.

New CEO at PokerStars

Rational Group, the company behind PokerStars and Full Tilt, name Rafi Ashkenazi as the new CEO.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/New-CEO-at-PokerStars_94289/

Amaya must have expected to be back in the US market by now, wouldn't they?

I still don't understand why they are spending all this time and effort trying to get back in. Well, I do, but in the short to mid-term it's an absolute money and talent drain.

The entire US market is worth < $200m at the moment. The online poker sector is worth probably < $50m

PokerStars to launch sportsbook BetStars http://buff.ly/1WBrU5h

stand alone, not on the client

Story should really be PokerStars (probably) looking to go with BetStars over Stars Bet as brand name for already launched sportsbook with its well recorded previously announced plans for standalone site and app.

Bet Stars seems more coherent.

BetStars
PokerStars
CasinoStars
BingoStars
FantasyStars
etc

This could be the thing that finally brings Stars down

why?

Oh, I was trying to be funny.

Why?

Chronic people pleasing I think. Daddy never hugged me.

first for everything but failed again

can I join the club

This x1000000

Let's just see how this all pans out shall we.

the aversion is the same aversion people have to any price rise.

to any company patronising or outright lying to their customers

any company whose customer service drops [esp when it had formerly been an industry leader]

any company whose interests do not appear to allign with their customers.

any company who suffers regular sofware outages [esp when they were market leaders formerly]

more importantly poker folk will have an aversion to a world class card room becoming merely better than average.

i cant understand why poker folk would not have an aversion to this, much less feign surprise that others do

if DTD upped their rake, cut promotions / guarentees and encouraged poker newbie / recreationals into  newly annexed and heavily promoted pit-games then i couldnt  fail to understand why DTD regulars would be unhappy

I hope all poker folk would mourn the demise of a world class poker-focused live card room.

what i cant understand is poker folk not lamenting the change in its online equivilent.

pointing out that amaya likes money is bromidic, frankly

the high stakes rake changes are absolutely terrible for poker games on the internet, and it's not because Anskey is going to loose out ~$50k p/y in rewards lots of individuals will lose out when changes like this come in, that's pretty much just HEY HO...WHAT CAN YOU DO.

You have to understand the ecology and development of cash games, if we go back a relatively short period of actual time, but a fricking lifetime in poker terms, to 2010 the ecology had a rather different look to how it was now.

Firstly, and most crucially the standard of poker throughout the stakes was generally a bit poorer, if you had a strong-ish mindset and good-ish work ethic and a little bit of talent/aptitude you would really not have struggled too hard to make money at the $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 levels online, after a bit of harder work and development as a player and ofc a little run good then you could be playing $2/$4, occasional $3/$6 and making pretty good money. Naturally next step was $5/$10 and most people would wait for some run good at 2/4~ levels and then have a little shot at $5/$10, see how it goes you could afford a 10k~ go at that level because if you didn't win then you could drop back to 1/2 and 2/4 relatively unharmed and win the money back, have another go later.

Once you get to 5/10 and are bankrolled and beating that game your next big hurdle was 25/50, and if you got there the next big step would be to the 50/100, 100/200 tables... Not many people actually got to be playing this limits bankrolled properly ofc but lots of people tried...myself included. You could afford to lose 30k trying to hit the big time because you could win it back lower.

Slowly, since then fewer and fewer people have been trying to move up past 5/10 and 10/20 level, because the games are tougher and the rake is higher... This means that players who ARE good enough to be beating 25/50+ now play 5/10, this makes it very difficult for the 2/4 and 3/6 guys to break into 5/10....

This then makes it much more difficult for the 0.50/1 and 1/2 guys to break into 2/4, which in turn makes it very difficult for begginning players to get stuck into 0.50/1 and 1/2.

THIS IN TURN MEANS LOW STAKES RECREATIONALS ARE GOING TO BE PLAYING MUCH MUCH MUCH TOUGHER GAMES

THIS IN TURN MEANS THEY WILL LOSE QUICKER

These changes are just going to 5x this problem, now incentive to move past 3/6 has been even more reduced, as a player with RB at 3/6 will likely find similar winrate and much less variance than at 5/10.

Other sites, ipoker/888/sky etc will have regs from stars flooding in and make those games tougher too.

Every other move from Amaya might have been tilting but seemed to have some solid business thinking behind it...this one though...baffles me.

also r.e DN...I heard he gets paid $8m a year to promote stars...

Who would do anything differently?

and here he is!!!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHRLy-aCbLE

one hour 43. blimey

cliffs?!

One hundred and three minutes listening to Negreanu

(http://cdn.instructables.com/FG3/ACB1/HJ6010K4/FG3ACB1HJ6010K4.MEDIUM.jpg)

I have max sold your post minutes on here at 2 minutes.  Done my nuts.  Made up at 22!

Ha had to watch the first 10 minutes so as not to pre-judge poor Danny.

Good post Dave. 

Tikay Skypoker must be liking this short term because your volumes are going to pick up at the higher stakes but longer term the casuals on your site are going to get butchered even quicker than they already do at the higher stakes.  A few online cash grinders i know pretty much only play on sky and they are killing it at the mid level stakes so your casuals are going to take even bigger beatings surely with this stars news.   Is that good or bad news longer term?

I've not bothered to watch most of it, but Daniel seems to agree that what is being proposed currently doesn't help anyone, but there is some secret plan (which obviously he can't go into detail about) that stars have for 2016 that will make it all better.

Morning Argue.

I don't really buy that stuff.

Poker is subject to fashion, & trends, they come, they go.

The concept of "soft sites" has never made sense in my mind, though of course 'Stars, by it's sheer size & dominance, is deffo tough. People play there because of the liquidity, as well as the superb software, it's where the big action is. 

The Big Boys, who take it serious, are out to earn as much as they can, & so they should.

So they hear about a so-called "soft site", & they go play there. Word spreads round - they rarely giq - & soon shed loads of them migrate across - & soon they are back where they started. It's a self-levelling equation.

I've seen, many a time, players saying "I would never play on whatever.com, the software is shite".

Really? I don't think so.

If they can win more money, more easily, they'd be bonkers to be put off by inferior software.  Poker players, by nature - perhaps many of us these days - are becoming more & more intolerant of trivial irritations, but if it means a 25% increase in profits, most with common sense would tolerate it.

It just how poker is, people move around, things change, they move again.

It's remarkable how many good players ignore game selection in this way. Why do they insist at playing at the Venetian, when the softest game is at the Flamingo etc.

Shit software + reasonable traffic usually = soft games with players who don't know any better.

Super slick software optimised for 24-tabling, not so much.

Just as an aside, this was quite thought provoking, or it was to me. Are you familiar with the author? Writes well, imo.

http://www.parttimepoker.com/value-comes-from-interactions-not-individuals
 

He only came onto my radar this last couple of months actually, what I have read of his has been very good.

He is slightly touching on the relevant point which is that the gambling industry in general (including poker pros) is too much interested in finding new whales to gut as quickly as possible and not enough about providing value for money entertainment.

Betfair introduced the premium charge on those with, in their opinion, super-normal profits.  The purpose of the charge, so it said, was to promote the exchange and continue to find new customers to bolster the super-normal profits.  So instead of looking at some of those making these profits and considering whether their practices (courtsiding, "trick" bets, laying fallers etc) were in the long term interests of their business, they decided to just take an extra cut and find more shark food. 

The peer to peer industry has to accept that it merely provides a facility for people to play poker or bet against each other.  Its long term sustainability is not about finding new victims to feed to sharks, but about doing its best to stop any practices that lead to excessive skill differences and about charging a reasonable amount for their services.  They should realise also that although their objective might be to reduce skill differentials this should be by education and protection not by structural changes.  For example, new player deposit bonuses are usually designed to get the new player to play as much as possible in a short period - how about bonuses that are dependent on watching some instructional videos and completing a questionnaire afterwards?

I think that the rake structure should be completely revised.  The present structure is based on the structure for live limit poker, which isn't surprising as online poker started as limit and at higher blind levels than the average nl/pl of today.  This has resulted in some games being over raked and almost unbeatable.  A far better structure would be a charge every time a hand is dealt.  Something like a 1/10 of a small blind.  This automatically adjusts the table rake for short-handed play and ensures that tight player pay as much as loose players.  The relationship with the small blind also stops over raking at smaller stakes.  No flop/no drop obviously no longer applies but I don't think that is an issue given the advantages of this change.  This charging method also emphasises that the poker site is being paid to deal cards and has no interest in the winners and losers of the pot.

Just to clarify betfair introduced the premium charge for customer who made profits 'too fast' and were not paying what betfair considered a suitable % of their profits in commission.  A lot of people are misled by the bf PC.  You can be a huge winner on betfair in cash terms and not pay the premium charge if your 'churn' is such that you still pay a relatively high % of your profits (i think it is 30%) in commission to betfair.  Conversely you can be a relatively small profit maker in cash terms and still pay the premium charge.

If you win £1m a year on betfair but in the course of doing so pay £500k in commission on your bets then you will not suffer any PC.  If you win £20k a year and only pay betfair £2k a year in commission your profits will be subject to an additional PC on top of your £2k commission payments.

The PC is designed to stop people who are not position takers usually and literally just suck money out of the bf ecosystem in various methods (usually using bots) without paying bf a sufficient fee in their mind to cover the cost betfair incurs to attract the 'losers' to the site to replaced this liquidity.  I actually agree with the premium charge on principle.  I also think a premium charge model could easily be adapted to pokerstars (more so for cash games than MTT's) who are just bum hunters and win at rates which are too high and not good for the ecosystem for example rather than giving action generally and winning at a slower rate.

Sorry for the derail.  Back to the poker.

Most sites have bot problems so it's not just shit software. It certainly has affected my decision to play I poker because the level of tilt I have to endure affects the other games I play.

A new account opens and has £10k on the favourite for the Gold Cup at 3/1.

It wins and he doesn't have another bet, will they charge him PC?

no has to be 250 markets I think also there is a rule about excluding one big win that I can't precisely remember.

An interesting take on how those strikes went, & at the same time, a snapshot of online poker liquidity.

http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/19247/impact-pokerstars-boycotts-online-poker-liquidity/

I don't know if everybody has signed up, but the new vip steps challenge looks like it could be ok, and not the usual $500 freeroll with 20k entries.

I signed up and got 10,000 stars coins ($100) on reaching the first target.

I am Platinum at the mo, and am on supernova target this year if these things affect the bonus.

Yeah tis a worthwhile promo for all.

Encourages volume, has clear goals and actually has a decent $ev

Just completed it.  100 starcoins.  FFS!

Got 10000, thought it equated to $10 for some reason.

Nice surprise when checking the cashier.

Just done the 100 levels for 500 coins.   Original optimism clearly misplaced

New rewards scheme announced

https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/100447/ (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/100447/)

Cliffs:

*No more traditional rakeback
*StarsCoins across poker, sports and casino
*More focus on in-session rewards rather than monthly
*Launches in Denmark in May, rest of world in summer
*Players being emailed with how its likely to affect them
*As much as 85% less rewards for some players, but most will not notice difference, according to OPR http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/24732/pokerstars-vip-rewards-changes/ (http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/24732/pokerstars-vip-rewards-changes/)

When is Daniel's video out?

:)

Why this is win, win no doubt*

* for Daniel. 

Feckin hard to win on stars now.