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61  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 31, 2014, 07:08:13 PM
Having recreational players that play day to day or week to week a few hundred here and there are, I agree very important for poker and to make the economy exist. Not letting them know first hand by sending out multiple changes is IMO lazy and just highlights that the way the new owners do business is certainly not for the good of the player.

Like you say Tikay, so many recs won't know about these changes, from my circle who don't play for a living, they had no idea about the charges on deposits, do you think that's a fair way to go about your business?

I am not standing up for one side or the other, I am trying to state that all these changes in favour of themselves can never be good for poker, why do you think Rob has such a strong reputation and DTD is classed as one of if not the leading place to play live poker? Because he worked hard to build up his rep, he sticks to his word, and although it's a business and he's doing it to make money, he is also trying his hardest to find a balance where both player and owner are mutually happy.

If he thought sod all my regulars/pros, I'm just gonna go ahead and change everything for the better of myself, do you honestly think it would still be the leading place to play poker in 2 years time?

OK the charges don't affect us (if you even know about them), but they do affect people that are in a different country to use, is this fair? And the same goes for the format, it probably doesn't affect mtt players one bit (v.little if any) in the UK, but does that mean we should just say 'whatever it's happening deal with it' to all the ppl that have worked hard perfecting there style of format in poker for a number of years?

I believe the poker community should stick to together, after all that's what makes it so unique, players trying to look out for one another, the moment that changes and it turns to 'dog eat dog life' then poker will go downhill faster than a rat up a drainpipe.

Does everyone believe installing casino games onto pokerstars is going to be good overall for Online poker? Let's be honest, Full Tilt is a total farce hence why the need to try and appeal to the 'gamblers' and get them back on the site. Do any of you honestly believe that other sites are that incompetent they couldn't get a good schedule together? No is my answer, the bottom line is places like Coral, Ladbrokes william hill sky vegas/sky poker all have a massive base before Online poker boomed.

The betting shops are open till 10:00pm in the winter for a reason. I know many people myself included that have gone on tilt or had a drunken binge whatever you want to call it and gambled absolutely thousands of there cash in the casino games. Why would they start putting poker first? That is just an extra bonus for them IMO to earn some extra rake.

I specifically know of one good friend that religiously does at least £250 solely on Black jack. How many more do you think do the same on an average week?

Spin and go's are the same, the rec player absolutely loves them, same as the million, all these things imo are like buying a lottery ticket and seeing who can get the luckiest. So in turn the message the leading brand of poker is sending out is far from 'poker is a skill game' 'poker is equal to all'. Both these statements are absolutely not true when they have handled the changes the way they have.

If they really want to look out for there recreational's and other sites too then ban every piece of software and let's all start on a level playing field and see in 2 years time, who has been left behind.
62  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 31, 2014, 06:45:31 PM
Well hu play below probably 200nl is unbeatable now with the rake being doubled. So nice to see these sites punishing the regs and helping out the poker ecosystem like we need.


The currency charges won't affect you directly, they will however effect fish who don't realise these charges exist, as I doubt Stars will have a huge ad explaining the changes.

Give me somewhere to go and I will boycott stars. Give me a site that doesn't mysteriously cancel tournaments when they would overlay. Give me a site without numerous thriving bot rings. Give me a site that doesn't charge on deposits/withdrawals whilst using a currency none of its consumers can actually use.


Tikay if you think a site that is beginning to promote unbeatable games is good for poker then you should continue championing stars's current approach. It will be found wanting in 3-5 years when the long term effects of these changes take place. However, I do agree this is good for Amaya in theory at the moment. Just seems very short sighted to me. They are rapidly losing any credibility that poker is a skill game, and it will only continue down this path whilst people try to capitalise on a poker market they think exists but really does not. Stars's "poker ecosystem" is/was vastly different to the ridiculous iPoker 1/iPoker 2 accident. For some reason the powers to be in poker have taken one event, small skins from the network handing out huge rakeback deals and never advertising to a new thought process that winning players are bad for the game. If you want low winrates you want regfilled games and not depositing fish. Stars are absolutely killing the golden goose in the form of hyper turbos. Yes you might pay 55% of what you take back to the supernova elites, but they provide thousands and thousands of games of liquidity. These guys are grinding out 2% after rakeback and the fucking idiots in suits think that is too much? They must be crazy. The million/warmup have 5 regs registering 6man sats virtually every waking hour of every day. Once these 5 go we suddenly need 6 recreational players to all fancy punting a mil sat instead of one. They are absolutely off their rocker getting rid of SNE in 2016. They will continue putting prices up and having people hail them as business geniuses until it all collapses.  There is no possible way they can gain the volume of the SNE players with recreational players. The market is getting smaller and not bigger.

Stars have just gone from having a player base that loves them to a player base that hates them, and this will pass onto the recreational players too. I have never promoted an online site that wasn't pokerstars whenever someone asked me at the table about online poker. Why would I? No one had anything to offer, no one currently does. Party Poker has tried to do a similar thing over the last two years, has failed miserably and is continuing to wither and die. It is very hard to continue to make money when a significant proportion of your playerbase hates you. Pokerstars are getting that way, and the hate will only spread as 2+2ers are grassroots poker. People actually think its a bunch of online players, when the majority are people who just like poker. Over 98% of registered users are amateur players, possibly even higher. Blonde poker definitely has a pro to amateur posting ratio that is off the charts compared to 2+2.

Tikay highlights a post from some guy who appears to be an absolute crackpot. I don't really see the relevance. There are 700 posts in one thread regarding this on 2+2, it doesn't really surprise me that a few are absolute bollocks. I'm sure some people read my posts and think its just more of the same shite. You can admire amayas business practices, but don't try and say it is good for poker. Poker as a game is beautiful, and whilst you might not like online poker/poker professionals, understanding that a healthy online poker scene is incredibly good for the long term nature of the game as a whole. I feel more and more like a raving lunatic on blonde at the moment, and its not particularly fun for me, although I enjoy writing these posts to some degree. It seems like these changes are being well received on here, despite being absolutely horrible for everyone. People seem to be enjoying seeing pros get fucked over, and I can't really work out why. The general sentiment seems to be that the corporation is finally sticking it to these nasty professional players with their all powering software when the reality is many pros would rather not deal with any software or bullshit at all and just play fucking poker. Seating scripts are good for fish, it means they play hands with more players in, and lose money slower and stay at the tables for longer. Why do you think Stars haven't gotten rid of them? Yeah they look horrible, but they help out the sites preventing headsup action.

I just want to wake up, load up my laptop, make hundreds of complex decisions for thousands of dollars and go to bed. Why is it so hard?

11 new posts, probably should start being a touch more concise.

Excellent post
63  Community Forums / Betting Tips and Sport Discussion / Re: Tips for Tikay on: October 27, 2014, 06:01:11 PM
My friend is good friends with Clive Smith, owner of 'opinion' who won at Ascot earlier this year.

He has said that it's a solid each way shot at 50/1 ante post for the Melbourne cup on 4th November.

Gl
64  Poker Forums / Live Tournament Staking / Re: Student Punts In Bowl Comp; Things Happen..... on: October 27, 2014, 01:35:51 AM
Change of heart.  We've dealt for £6560 and we're playing for £200 and the trophy.

Brilliant well done and brilliant thread! So much humour Smiley
65  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: Moorman's Book of Poker on: October 27, 2014, 01:28:44 AM
I have never understood why the holy grail for many poker players is to be sponsored.

Work out the hourly for being a sponsored pro when you're being put into live majors every couple of weeks and getting 100% rakeback online in return for a few interviews a few extra stops on the tour. Backers usually stipulate that they want ALL of a players action when they are being backed and often want their horses to only play whatever they are being backed for. With sponsorship from a site, said MTT pro can also grind cash games on the side with 100% rakeback which as you can imagine would be pretty lucrative.

Most of the guys with big sponsorship deals think the same as you Keith and the sites know this, so they make the price right, and everyone has a price whether they'd admit it or not. Chuck in most MTT pros having far less money than their OPRs suggest for a variety of reasons and thats why everyone wants a sponsorship deal.

Of course this was all much more applicable a few years ago. Sponsored pros are dropping like flies these days so I can't imagine the deals now are anything close to what they were in FTPs heyday.

As I said, I understand why the vast majority of players would take sponsorship in a flash.

But, for example, Phil Ivey.

He obviously hates being interviewed, doesn't like making videos or meeting the public.

And he definitely doesn't like being in a place at a specific time.

He must be wroth 10 million minimum, so why would would he put himself through all the stress and annoyance being sponsored involves just for a few extra quid?

If I make the November Nine I'm a million to accept sponsorship unless it simply involves wearing "Fat Bastard Poker" patch for the duration of the event.

You know PI was getting $900k a month from FTP right?!

Jesus Christ.  He is cako.
66  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: Best games for us fish to play to have a chance of winning in the long run? on: October 27, 2014, 01:27:24 AM
Blackjack.

Only if you know that splitting two 7's when dealer shows a 6 is +ev and winning play in the 'long term'.
67  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 24, 2014, 04:03:06 PM
And now is the best time for the other sites to close the gap on stars. I don't believe they just starter putting on all these high guarantee mtts in the beginning, they worked hard to build their player base together with their reputation.

Other sites need to be doing the same. I've played ipoker recently and it's got a lot better. Not as many glitches with software and slowly building there guarantees. The multi entry is a very good thing imo. Sky is great for the fact it does not allow u to have any hem or other tools to help u make decisions and this would be the first place I would go for cash games sit n gos and maybe 5 mtts throughout the week. I would be happy to pay a little higher rake but know it was all fair game tbh. Only thing I would say is the time bank needs to come into play as I wouldn't feel comfortable having someone go all in for a thousand pounds and me have 30 seconds to make a decision...

I feel micro gaming could come back as they had good tournies when at Ladbrokes so again if Unibet/Stan James puts in some hard work they can only get better.

Apparently 888 is real soft for all variants of poker and yes they had some issues this week but I wouldn't be too worried, I'm sure it was just a few technical glitches which can easily happen.

If some of these networks got the right people in the know and did their market research then I believe you would see a much bigger change in who's at the top.
68  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 24, 2014, 03:38:39 PM
The sad thing is that most people really can't vote with their feet as there really isn't many viable other places to play at least for MTTs. I've dropped some stars tournies to be replaced by ipoker, but for example
the 888 client has been unusable this week due to crashes,
microgaming has very few tournaments of any size and also a shady past, ditto for ongame.
Party has awful software, also hidden fees, although the rake is often less.
ipoker has pretty bad glitchy software
Full Tilt is very reg heavy and also owned by Stars anyway
I like Winamax but this is our last week there
I like sky too but they don't let me play there when I am not in the UK, plus their tournies are generally not that big fields and also always 6 max and a lot of heavily raked bounty tournaments.
There are other tiny sites such as Unibet, but I don't really see any traffic at all.
PKR is pretty tough to multitable

That is literally all the choice now. Pokerstars have destroyed the market and most independent sites have joined ipoker.

Surely even the 'average Joe' knows you lose money by exchanging currencies. If they don't, maybe they should learn? Knowing everyday things like that have nothing to do with poker ability imo

This bit is very true and most surprisingly to a lot of people they will be the ones to destroy poker long term.
69  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 24, 2014, 03:33:18 PM
If this is what's to come you have to ask yourself what's next. None of the last couple of months have given me any confidence that pokerstars are trying to look out for their players.

Spin and go's supernova's/elites l, these charges and casino games in the future.

Amaya have taken over and unfortunately have a totally different approach to how they want to make their money. They are ruthless and in business the very richest are the most ruthless.

It's all about their profit margin and they will do anything they have to do to make it as big as possible and sod anyone who has a problem with it cos there is just another 300 thousand other players that will play on stars.

The rational group cared about their players and they had a very good way of balancing out everything to keep the players and themselves happy. They also had the best reputation and that is why they were so successful.

Gordon Ramsay is probably the biggest chef in the UK in terms of audience wise and I don't see him charging the earth for a tuna tartare or a beef dish. His restaurants use the freshest of ingredients the best quality but he's not ripping off his customers to an extent where they are having to pay for the privilege of sitting in his restaurant because he is such a big name.

That is my example, I may not be making my point clearly but I think it's about time we all stopped with the whole 'dog eat dog' attitude and pull together if it's something that you feel passionate about.
70  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 24, 2014, 03:20:31 PM
I used to feel a brand loyalty to Stars, but now it has pretty much gone.

Think about this. Bringing the currency conversion charges in just one week before hundreds/thousands or UK players are forced to withdraw their entire balances from Stars.fr.

The only way to withdraw from .fr is by direct bank transfer. As far as I am aware, although I will double check this next week. Even if you have a euro account with a UK bank, you have no choice but to convert the money to your domestic currency when you withdraw. So therefore, as you can only have a .fr account in euros, fitting in with these new currency charges, you have no choice but to take a 2-2.5% hit on the currency exchange, and I don't see any way around it. So in one swoop Stars have taken 2-2.5% of all balances of UK based Stars.fr players.

I'd like to believe that it is a coincidence that this has come in one week before Uk players are banned from Stars.fr, but I really don't. I'd also like to believe that they might do some kind of exemption or work around for the British .fr player, but I don't think they will. Reminds me strongly of the scummy way that Party brought in 3% charges for most withdrawal methods.

So many moves by Stars lately to squeeze extra money from players or cut costs.
- Heavy promotion of casino games on Full Tilt
- Heavy promotion/introduction or rake heavy tournaments like re-entry, progressive super KO, deep hyper turbos, deadline satellites
- Removal of WCOOP main event ticket reward for Supernova elites
- Cutting rewards programme of UK players


In the past Stars did a really good job of making players forget/ignore that they are making shedloads of money from us. But right now I'm feeling they are squeezing every last drop from me so I am acutely aware.

It is a pity that every other site constantly shoots itself in the foot and is pretty useless. The only one who in my mind provided consistently good software/service was Winamax, but I can't play there any more,.


Great post
71  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 24, 2014, 03:19:00 PM
I haven't given this too much thought, but at first glance, I don't see a big problem for UK players?  Sure, if you live in Poland (or any country for that matter that doesn't have CAD$/US$/GBP/EUR) then it's going to be an issue for those players.. and maybe there is a knock-on effect when that slice gets removed from the ecosystem.  But historically, providing fx is not free so Stars have been wearing the financial cost of such deposits/withdrawals.

Back in UK-land, it looks like it can be avoided by poker players learning to be more careful when moving money across currency boundaries.  AFAICS, you deposit in GBP, your Stars cashier gets credited 100% of that GBP.  You can then subsequently move that to USD to play games, profit, move back to GBP within the Stars client and withdraw, with no "line loss" whatsoever?

The only Uk players to suffer would be the ones who clumsily go to their USD cashier page and withdraw money to their GBP bank directly.  In which case, they deserve what they get.


If I have misunderstood it, grateful if someone can put me right, ty!

That's a big enough reason to drop them out if any. All well and good for the professional type player who knows all the angles of how to do this stuff but what about the thousand upon thousands of average joes rocking up on a Friday night depositing 200 quid after the pub?

They get hit 2.5% on every deposit which goes to stars pockets which in turn takes it out the economy. So for all the pros saying it's no problem I think it's completely the opposite as those players are their bread and butter, so the moment average joe loses money before he even played 1 hand then the pros/regs lose longterm.

And to say it doesn't effect the UK so it's ok is quite a bold statement. Do you think the same about the war ? That attitude will never unite anyone imho and although this is completely different it is something everyone on this forum and our Community is passionate about so I think it's good if the majority were voting with their feet not just their voice.
72  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Road to being a pro on: October 24, 2014, 04:08:46 AM
Spoke to HoneyBadger and he said get aggro with your bankroll so moved up to nl30 today. Seems like mostly the same players, just the better regs, one in particular who it feels like runs me over hard, at nl20 and some of the same fun players. Ended up up about 5 BIs didn't feel like I was playing that well just ran really good in a lot of spots. Had KK v AK all in and picked up a tell on the fun player to my right who always 2xd his bluff raises. Biggest pot was v him when he opens button to 4x I 3bet in the SB with KcTc to £3, he calls. Flop kk4 I bet, he calls, turn 5, same as flop, river 8 which brings the spade flush. I bet again he raises to 2x, I call and he has 3x3s. Had the nut straight in a multi-way pot as well and there were other good spots as well. Didn't even play that much as felt tired/ill after uni yesterday, nice to run good when you move up anyway. Bankroll is about a a grand right now and should get at least 200 in rb at the end of the month. Probably gonna shot some live games and and 40nl next month if all goes to plan.

Even though I bitched about it a load and wished it was over the rake race was probably the best thing for me and anyone else starting out in poker. It forced me to put in a shit load of hands with no excuses and with a safety net of even if I lose 15Bis, which I was definitely at at one stage, I'll be reimbursed for it at the end of the 19 days as long as I put the hours in. It's all about the hours/volume at the end of the day even if at the time it seems fucking stupid it's probably worth it at the end of the day. If I can keep up the work ethic I've had this month I'm sure I can get to where I want to be with poker. Will need to step off it a bit though in the coming weeks with uni work looming.

Keep it up and gl.

Oh and keep listening to ppl such as honeybadger and lildave,  u will realise in a couple of years the advice they are giving you now is invaluable to you for the future.

Gl
73  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: The Best In The Business on: October 24, 2014, 04:06:02 AM
Wp wp - just a grinding machine Cheesy
74  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: AmayaStars on: October 24, 2014, 04:02:25 AM
Just don't feel comfortable anymore Keith. I mean before these doughnuts took over it was all very much in favour of the players and improving the site to make it better for the players whether that meant better graphics table layouts or just better tournaments.

Now it seems like none of that is important anymore and it's as if they are saying "we have X amount of thousands playing every day, so now we are going to test the waters and see how much we can push out the economy". Seems very arrogant by them tbh and I don't think there is much love for making poker better with this company more so just to make as many bucks as possible before Internet poker fizzels out completely.

They are going about the right way of making it fizzle out that's for sure.

It's a hassle moving sites, I've always felt like it was my home but now I can't see that being the case anymore.

It's like if I go into a bookies and say take the price and it's 5/1 and within a second of her finding the race it's changed to 4/1 and they give me 4/1 because they can't do their job properly I'm not going back to them. Just on principle alone.
75  Poker Forums / The Rail / Re: Best way of marketing poker? on: October 24, 2014, 03:51:28 AM
Hi,

There are two separate issues being discussed in this thread, and I would like to address both. As someone who's worked on the EPT since 2006, and was heavily involved in the development and production of Shark Cage, I can provide an insider's perspective. But please don't consider the following to be the official "PokerStars line."

1) Victoria Coren Mitchell's win in Sanremo

Alex and Ryan are correct: we plan our TV coverage well in advance of the events taking place. It was never going to be possible to televise Sanremo. At the point the final table was being played, the TV set was being rigged in Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final.

It was incredibly unfortunate that the crowning of the European Poker Tour's first ever two-time champion occurred at a non-televised event. It was frustrating and annoying for the TV production team, as we've been building the "two time curse" storyline for several years. It's disappointing, for the programme-makers and TV viewers alike, not to be able to resolve this narrative thread.

One silver lining: the tournament was streamed live, and the replay of the final table has been archived online, so fans can still watch Vicky's amazing achievement, complete with my inane shouting over the last hand.

2) Shark Cage

I'm not surprised the first episode has been met with a certain degree of disdain from hardcore poker fans. Shark Cage is designed for a more casual/mainstream audience; it's clearly not a pure poker show.

The first thing to say is that we're not moving away from making pure poker shows! We think it's very important to provide entertaining and engaging content for the poker community. In 2014, PokerStars has invested a great deal of money into live streaming every single leg of the European Poker Tour. In addition, we’ve produced 38 hours of TV coverage from the EPT and PCA. In the first half of 2015, viewers on Channel 4 can look forward to highlights from the EPT 10 Grand Final, EPT 11 Barcelona, EPT 11 London and the 2015 PCA.

Now, in addition to appealing to existing players, it's also our objective to attract NEW players to the game. Shark Cage is obviously built for a non poker-savvy audience: people who don’t necessarily play online, and certainly don't post on 2p2. We know, from research and experience, that a winner-takes-all STT (which starts and concludes in the same episode) is the easiest type of game for a beginner to follow. We also know that these viewers appreciate seeing sports stars and celebrities at the table, and are also likely to appreciate a format that’s closer to a game show than a poker tournament. Anyone remember The Million Dollar Challenge? It’s not as revered as High Stakes Poker (understatement of the year), but it was a huge success.

We think it’s important to experiment and try new things. Our ambition with Shark Cage was to create something different; something less serious than the EPT/PCA. The end result is more of an entertainment show than a poker show, with a strong focus on the personalities and table banter. Personally, I think it’s a great advertisement for the game, because it shows people having fun playing poker, while competing for life-changing prize money. Everyone who took part in the first series thoroughly enjoyed the experience, expressing their appreciation for the shot clock and cage concept (conceived by Ike Haxton).

In an ideal world, I'd like to see Shark Cage broadcast in a different slot to the EPT, either earlier in the evening, or on another day of the week. It would be great to run the series alongside the EPT episodes, so that our core audience doesn’t feel deprived of their weekly poker fix. I really hope we can change this going forward.

Couple of specific things... In the first two heats, the players had buttons under the table (one for ‘Bluff' and one for 'Value Bet'). For the remaining six heats, the buttons were replaced by Bluff/Value cards. These worked much better. Also, we chose to simplify the graphics for this series, removing table positions and stack sizes to avoid bombarding viewers with too much information. Moving forward, this is something we can review.

In summary, I appreciate Shark Cage isn’t to everyone’s taste, but I’m pleased that many poker fans have enjoyed the first episode, describing it as “fun” and refreshing.” We value all feedback, positive and negative. I just hope that the show’s biggest detractors understand its purpose and possibly give it another chance.

James.


I appreciate you taking the time out to write an explanation in more detail as to what the aim was by airing this show.

I echo the others sentiments in terms of bringing in some pros with better personalities, I mean a couple of them hardly said a word on there (some guy in party poker logo) which doesn't show me that poker can be 'fun' if I was looking at it from a 'newbie 's' perspective.

I'm sure like pleno has said there will be bigger and better characters to promote the TV show as the series progresses.

I would agree that you should air it at a reasonable time I:E a 9:30pm slot for example. If you haven't played before then I doubt you are cruising the TV channels at midnight whilst working a 9-5 job...

Late night poker was the show that I started to watch that gave me an interest into what poker was all about and also there was another show which was a bit more light hearted but forgot the name of it.

The main thing I felt was wrong with this was that it looked far too staged and just made uncomfortable and boring viewing. Whenever I watch poker I try to look from a different angle. I remember Vicky getting a lot of stick for her commentary for example, however I think you need that sort of personality to come across when presenting and she explains it better than most when speaking to a wide audience at different levels imo.

You and Joe are good for that too, you more than Joe imo as he can often come across quite rude but I guess that's just his personality.

Personally I would love the UKIPT coverage to come back to our TV screens, I understand it may not be cost effective and actually have no idea of how much the total costs to film such events cost so obviously can't comment on that side, but I think the stories that come out of these tours are very good for poker and can promote it to a lot of the grass root players and also to people that are interested in getting into poker.

Defiantly think you should focus more on who qualifies in to these events from next to nothing rather than just all the regular players that play the tour, as the blogging and coverage is imo a great way of marketing the brand and getting new players signed up.

Getting women enticed into the game of poker is all about choosing the right people again, I don't think Jennifer T or Vanessa Rousso do a great deal in promoting it other than what there body parts have to offer so I would be more inclined to go with women players such as Vanessa, Vicky, Fatimo De melo all of which I think are very good players, but also have good personalities and I would imagine very fun to be around at the tables....

All of this is just my opinion ofc.
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