Negreanu, the man and the conundrum

[rfgqqabc]

How do we know DNeg had nothing to do with the Rake increase being cancelled? I would be surprised if the public knows what happened in a confidential board meeting.

How do we know he did? Which one feels more unlikely to you? Negreanu had nothing to do with the rake cancellation or he did actually have something to do with it.

Personally, I think he had little to do with an increase whilst blindly supporting it* and had absolutely nothing to do with the cancellation of the increases. This feels like the only logical answer to me, unless you think Stars pros make business decisions.

(*and when I say blindly supported it, I mean posted an article that was obviously bullshit and couldn't possibly be true. I know he did say he would look into the rake increases, but I don't think he did, or could have had any affect on the situation if he had done so. He should have just ignored it, don't lie to your customers/fans. No other business would increase costs and ask for its sponsor to say they didn't.)

[UgotNuts]

Fact is we know nothing about what he did or didn't do. From experience of price increases from B2B and B2C I would be very surprised If the stars decision makers did not consult senior members of their sponsored players of their opinions. As players of the game and inside/first hand knowledge, their opinions would carry more weight than what you might think. 

[tikay]

This piece from PokerNews sums it up for me.


http://www.pokernews.com/news/2015/07/daniel-negreanu-falls-as-november-nine-dream-ends-22292.htm

Self-serving? Maybe. Does it matter, as long as he bigs up poker? No, not one bit.

Genuinely, if he made the Nine, poker would have been in the mainstream media, for sure, & for the right reasons. How can that be bad? 

The pros should welcome that, the poker economy needs a non-stop supply from bottom to feed the pros at the top. Danny in the Nine would have been a positive, without a shadow of doubt. Whether we like him or not is completely irrelevant. 

I gather his Twitter followers DOUBLED in number during his Main Event run.

[SuuPRlim]

dont really get why the fact he gets aid so much money, and yeah he gets paid SO much money(!), should be a contributory factor in how good he does at his job? He is paid to promote poker positively and he does so, very well, what happens to rake isn't really in his remit is it?

I like a world where people who are really good at their job get abso weighed in for it, just ask Mantis how much Brad gets paid.

[tikay]

dont really get why the fact he gets aid so much money, and yeah he gets paid SO much money(!), should be a contributory factor in how good he does at his job? He is paid to promote poker positively and he does so, very well, what happens to rake isn't really in his remit is it?

I like a world where people who are really good at their job get abso weighed in for it, just ask Mantis how much Brad gets paid.

He gets paid so well because he does his job superbly. Is it part of the job of a poker pro to promote poker. He does that better than almost any other pro, with the possible exception of Jason Somerville, who can actually quantify how many sign ups he has secured. I can't think of any pro who can actually measure his benefit to his site, as Jason can.

I have no idea, (nor do any of us) what his role in the rake debate was, but it's likely he gave his views. Whether they listened is another matter.

[rfgqqabc]

dont really get why the fact he gets aid so much money, and yeah he gets paid SO much money(!), should be a contributory factor in how good he does at his job? He is paid to promote poker positively and he does so, very well, what happens to rake isn't really in his remit is it?

I like a world where people who are really good at their job get abso weighed in for it, just ask Mantis how much Brad gets paid.

I dont get why its a reason to jerk him off. Well done, hes good at his job and well paid. He also comes off as a bit of a douchebag to me and I don't like him because of that. I don't think someone bigging up poker is enough of a reason to let them get away with the things he does and says. I find him extremely antagonistic and egotistical.

This is an excellent post that better explains why increasing the rake is not good for the poker games. (In case people are unsure, I know Negreanu was pretty persuasive.)

Bejamin1 here - this is just my theoretical take on the situation. Not like I can prove any of the conclusions I draw, but I have a feeling I'm not that far off. I hail from LiquidPoker as a casual grinder whilst I work on my Master's and work as a student employee. I'm going to present my point of view because it seems like there are a good deal of people who think raising rake is actually a good decision for Pokerstars. I think in all honestly it's simply an effort to generate resources to pay off the costs of an expensive acquisition and it has little to do with "improving the quality of the games" for players. Although I understand the merits of going through the expensive process of regulation. Really doesn't help people much if all you get is a segregated player pool. In fact I question how anyone can suggest it does if the end result is a segregated player pool then people from other countries see zero benefit from that process. The only winner there would be Pokerstars bottom-line long-term. Unless that bottom line was re-invested in ideas to actually make the games better. I digress.

So lets explore a little bit the world of Poker and in order to do that let's use the example of a zero-sum Poker Economy. A climate where no rake is taken from the games. What happens in this situation?

-Many players win
-Players brag to their friends about how much $$$ they are winning
-Friends deposit because "holy crap poker so cool easy money I'm gonna be the next Matt Damon like in Rounders man!"

That's the sex-appeal of the game for recreational players. That's what it's always been. The idea of bragging to your friends about how you're winning. Even just moderately average players can win in this climate because the rake doesn't gobble up all of their winnings on a weekly basis.

Now, obviously a rake free climate won't exist. However, an in-software advertising revenue generating model + greatly reduced rake would be the best possible future for the poker economy. Many players have success. Lots of word of mouth. Lots of bragging and lots of new deposits. That's how the game spreads and grows. If Pokerstars were less greedy, they'd make more in the long term AND the game would survive just fine.

Right now, something like what 5% maybe 1% of players will be winning players over 100K+ hand samples? Most casual players play maybe 15,000 hands in a year or some random number like that. They're still paying 10pt/bb rake too at that rate, except with their level of play most of them are dramatically losing players and only a few make money and cash out. That's not good for the poker economy. You want weak players, casuals, and fish to be winning fairly often and cashing out and bragging about it. That's hugely important to the poker economy to keep it growing.

Reduced rake is a win for everyone long term, including Pokerstars. They need to be more creative about their revenue. And frankly, they should eliminate the vast majority of "Pokerstars Pros" and support only a key few. It's ridiculous how many they are - vast majority of fish have no idea who these people are. I don't mind giving randoms on the final table 5k to wear a Pokerstars hat or whatever, but semi-permanently sponsoring a bunch of people who nobody gives a shit about is a waste of money. People know who you are Daniel, but very few people know who most of these "Pros" are. Yes they're good players, but they don't have much sex appeal in terms of actually bringing in more players.

Lastly - and maybe this will come as a surprise, but Pokerstars should basically eliminate Supernova Elite status and possibly Supernova as well. The FPP system should stay the same, but allow for the reasonable acquisition of bonuses at the highest rate for everyone. Make it work out to 40% rakeback for everyone or just two levels with Platimum being 25% RB or whatever it is and Supernova being 40%. Maybe you can have 50% for Supernova x2 or something, but even then it's getting into the same problems we've had in the past which I will now go into.

Why you ask? Well guess what, insane amounts of mass grinders does what to the games? It creates a climate with every reg sitting on 20 tables and playing mindlessly, not chatting, not interacting, etc... It creates unbalanced fish to regular ratios because people simply have to play this many tables to get decent rakeback. It creates a climate where no regulars want to play each other because it's almost impossible to have an edge especially at stakes bellow $200 buy-ins because the rake is too darn high and they have no edge at all. They end up seat scripting and harassing the weaker players chasing them around for action (really welcoming don't you think? Oh wait no, that's horrible).

If you just provide most players with good rakeback without having to play insane amounts (chopping off the 20-30% extra SNE grinders have been getting) then you will create softer games. There will be no incentive to play 50 tables. They'll be incentive to play 4-8. Play well, and battle vs. other regs/casuals. This is especially true in a rake reduced climate. The edges will be more reasonable so good players can actually play each other. Actual poker will be played. Good regs will battle each other and people will come online just to OBSERVE the games because how cool is that. Watching good players duke it out.

So what exists now? A climate of massive rake + the only good rakeback is Supernova x3++++

What does that do? It forces players to play insane amounts, for minimal edges, and essentially become rake churners. They win a bit of money, and churn most of the rest of it back into rake. It's a bad cycle for the poker economy and it's not good for anyone.

Pokerstars should be aiming to make the games great and to have as many people as possible bragging to their friends about winning. That's what keeps this great game going. It's not anything else. People don't want to see it as gambling and losing because nobody talks about winning anymore. They just talk about how hard it is and how its rigged etc etc etc. People want to hear about people winning, about edges being reasonable. And that you TOO can be a Poker Star if you put the work in. Build a positive climate where people realistically think they can win and regulars aren't forced to seat script, and play 10 billion hands to acquire rakeback. That's how you improve things. The rest of this is just bollocks.

Or you can be short-sighted and do what Amaya is doing... which is squeezing as much money as possible out of this game until it dies from being choked to death. They aren't helping anything, and they have zero long-term vision.

The only thing that will fix this is dramatic change from Pokerstars. Or unregulated bitcoin poker rising to power with the vision to use lower rake to attract lots of winners and people who can then go brag about where they won.

Any system that basically encourages regs to put in insane volume (to the detriment of their own health, well-being, mental sanity, and quality of the games) is a bad system. It creates a hostile climate for recreational players and does nothing except take the recreational players money and churn it into rake whilst the regulars make a small living off slightly beating the game (if they're really good) + RB. That's what's happening there. It isn't fun for anyone. Games should be soft, regular to recreational player levels and ratios should be reasonable.

If Pokerstars really wanted to increase the health of the games what could they do?
-Reduce maximum number of regular tables to 8, perhaps even 4 or 6
-Reduce maximum rake to 25 cents for all stakes below $25 buy-ins, and one dollar for all stakes 50$ buy-in to 500$ buy-in
-Introduce in software advertising, simple process, software launches unified adds for each limit that display on any active table once every hour or thirty minutes either one, everyone watches and then hands continue being dealt, similar to tournament breaks
-Eliminate awful bonus structures like Supernova and Supernova Elite - they only encourage mass tabling and high-volume (things which generate a lot of rake and $ for pokerstars, but have a hugely negative impact on the quality and softness of games and player experience)
-Eliminate seat scripting
-Stop providing hand histories - or update their format so often that players can't use the completely legitimate software allowed by TOS to play the game on such a high analytical levels
-It's cool to take notes - but you are supposed to use your memory and personal knowledge to do that - using these programs takes players to much more advanced levels and makes games tougher for everyone because you can make decisions that otherwise only the best most detailed note takers and game studiers would know how to make, those people would be one in hundred thousand players instead of EVERY REG as it is currently

So why won't Pokerstars make such obvious changes? It's because they're perfectly happy with the current climate of regs playing millions upon millions of hands. It's the best way to get rake. Most of the recreational players money won by regulars is churned into rake. It's a big fist pump win for them. It's not about the quality of the games. It's about money and stock value for the share holder

So lets get real Daniel. We could easily build a much better poker economy for everyone. Pokerstars isn't interested in doing that. THey're interested in maximizing profits for shareholders and that's about it. Its not about helping the players win money and having soft games where more players could be winners and brag to their friends leading to more deposits. It's about building a climate where people play as many hands as possible to make sure that recreational player money is churned into rake by mindless grinders.

I just don't want to be lied to. I understand Amaya has an obligation to try and make as much profit for its shareholders as possible, but I think they have/are/will succeed only in the short term and that should be an embarrassment.

I brought up the rake issue because I believed it was a prime example of him not being an ambassador for poker, but an ambassador for PokerStars, which people seem to think is the same thing. He has done some good for poker, I cannot argue against that but being famous and likeable on TV isn't particularly a reason to like someone. I don't like him, or certainly his public/online persona anyway. I think there are plenty of reasons which I have outlined now, and I just feel like I'm repeating myself so I will be trying not to post here again.

[Doobs]

Hello again Adam. 

As I said before, my memory is that he originally he said he didn't see a problem with the changes, but then changed his mind after a discussion and then said he'd bring up the issue with management. 

He also discussed it later in Chicago Joey's podcast, which you must have missed whilst you were out promoting poker.

http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room-news/26818-daniel-negreanu-raises-player-concerns-over-plo-rake/

Now he has agreed to raise the issue of Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) rake with the company’s senior executives.

Negreanu took part in a podcast broadcast in mid-March by Joe “ChicagoJoey” Ingram. During the discussion he mentioned that he would raise the issue of PLO rake with management at PokerStars. He was then prompted to take action by a poker forum poster to which he replied that he was in full agreement with the concerns raised.

“Totally on board and have been for some time on this issue. Coincidentally I have a meeting later today and was already planning on bringing this issue up again,” he replied in the thread. However, he cautioned the players that his ability to provoke changes is limited.

“Obviously I can’t make any promises since I don’t have the power to make these decisions,” he continued, “but I can promise you that I will do my best to make a case for an adjustment here.”

I am not some Danny Negreanu fanboy, I too find him a bit annoying at times, but I think you are wrong on this.  Hate on him for something else.

Would be very good if we could get him to work on PLO8, that must make the PLO rake look reasonable

FWIW I am not sure Tikay ever retracted his support for that rake increase on hypers!

[shipitgood]

He was the first poker player I really knew from shows like the loose cannon/ high stakes poker.

Looking back he was defo the best personality involved and made for interesting / compelling viewing.

He comes across really well and genuine too, would have been a big boon for poker had he made the top 9.

[ABO151]

seen him in IOM 'working' after busting UKIPT and in Barca not working after busting ME and it was two different Daniels, poles apart...nothing surprising here as he is clearly a good stars pro who also cares about his game and indeed the game - I think it would have been good if he'd made it...he's good at his job ...I like Sting's music but also think he's a bit of a twat!

[Doobs]

Brad Willis wrote this after he exited the main in 11th

"Been a long time since I’ve seen someone so wildly adored as RealKidPoker was here tonight."



http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/en/blog/tournaments/wsop/2015/wsop-2015-daniel-negreanu-just-misses-no-156845.shtml

it contains the opening line

"I have seen crowd favorites. I have seen them all over the world. I have seen hometown heroes, superstars, and Cinderella stories. I have seen crowds rally around a person for no reason other than it felt like the right thing to do at the time. I thought I had seen it all.

I have never see any person receive the kind of support Daniel Negreanu got here tonight. "

and yet for one person on here he is derided as a ruthless self-publicist and a hypocrite

in the light of the events of the last 48 hours, and the likely impact a november nine appearance would have had on the industry, it is time to change that view

Discuss

FYP

I do think it would have been good for the game if he had made a November 9 appearence, I also think stealthmunk would have been very good too, despite all the downside.

Pierre Neuville will be good for the game tho, and good to see another oldie at the table too.

I am just happy I can get the money off betfair that was backing the Negreanu lay.  Hardest 40 odd quid I have ever made on the exchange.

Late correction.  It was the hardest £14 I have ever earned.

Unknown to me I must have spent the last few months on the borders of the premium charge on Betfair.  Those scumbags* have taken £27 of my £41 profit.  So they borrowed £1000 off me for 3 months and gave me £14 interest and I was left exposed to the risk of doing most of that thousand if Danny won.  Since TfT had started I haven't bet that much at all there, and my commission rate is now 5%, so I was under the mistaken impression that I couldn't get premium charged (I thought it was 250 markets a year, but it must be over 250 lifetime. 

Given the speed my prices were getting beaten throughout the wsop, I wouldn't be surprised if a Betfair bot was at work either.   

14 years on Betfair and flutter and used to rake £2k a month.  Can't see how I can continue when faced with a 20% commission rate. 

* I don't know any other bookmaker that will take away two thirds of your profit on a bet when you have no way of realistically knowing that it was going to happen when you placed the bet.   I assume it was such a high proportion of my winnings as they don't take it if it is less than a set amount in total (£20?)

[redsimon]

They used to warn you before PC levied that you were close to incurring it. I'd complain if you definitely didn't get the email Doobs!

[Doobs]

They used to warn you before PC levied that you were close to incurring it. I'd complain if you definitely didn't get the email Doobs!

I have a separate email account that I never read.  Should be in there then. I will have a look later.  I am really quite shocked I got charged, as my volumes have been very low there recently, hence the 5% commission.  Guess my ROI on Betfair was much higher than I thought over the years. 

[Doobs]

They used to warn you before PC levied that you were close to incurring it. I'd complain if you definitely didn't get the email Doobs!

I have a separate email account that I never read.  Should be in there then. I will have a look later.  I am really quite shocked I got charged, as my volumes have been very low there recently, hence the 5% commission.  Guess my ROI on Betfair was much higher than I thought over the years. 

I have looked at my account on my PC (was on phone previously) and it seems I haven't been charged yet, just used up some of my allowance.  Panic over, and I can still use the exchange for a while yet.. 

[Marky147]

Changed from a roundabout 50p, to thin

Got to get that 10m bonus from somewhere...

[arbboy]

You never pay the PC as an ex arber!  One of the big bonuses of being an arber.  My bf account is worth a fortune to anyone who pays the PC still now from my bf arbing losses from years ago.  You also need to operate a high volume low margin betting model and then you won't pay the PC either.