AmayaStars

[rfgqqabc]

888 had massive server issues the last 2 sundays and party had a very suspicious cancellation when it looked like pokerfest might overlay. iPoker bot ring in plo being talked about too Nobody is coming to take stars on.

[SuuPRlim]

its pretty cute that all these 2+2 boys think anyone is going to boycott pokerstars.

Amaya CEO takes over, looks at his customers, looks at his prices realises 60% of them don't give a crap what they pay and out of the 40% who do care 38.5% of them will grumble and just pay anyway.

So he put the prices up! And he'll put them up again I would happily wager.

[The Camel]

Not that they will worry to much, but I think Stars has lost me as a customer.

I have about 150k fpps to use up, which I will spend on the odd tournament when I am bored, but the way I feel now, I don't think I'll be depositing again.

[tikay]

its pretty cute that all these 2+2 boys think anyone is going to boycott pokerstars.

Amaya CEO takes over, looks at his customers, looks at his prices realises 60% of them don't give a crap what they pay and out of the 40% who do care 38.5% of them will grumble and just pay anyway.

So he put the prices up! And he'll put them up again I would happily wager.

Why would they not put prices up?

They have the best product, by a mile, the best liquidity, the biggest prize pools, & the most players.

Any great business in that spot, with what amounts to a near monopoly, is going to squeeze their customers.

Boycott 'Stars? No chance. The 2+2 Crew said they'd boycott The Venetian this summer, but it was rammed to the rafters all Series. 

[tikay]

It's not like 'Stars will be the only ones to raise prices, all UK facing sites will ne re-aligning their charges, &/or adjusting their rake model, in the next few months. All of them.

I do think the "fun-player friendly" sites might weight the increases more towards the high limit players, & so cut some slack to the recreationals. But I'd be amazed if all sites don't follow suit in some shape or form, they'll just cut their cloth in different ways. It just happens that 'Stars announced first.

I suppose they are bound to get the most heat, as they are, far & away, the biggest.

I had to pause to take breath after I read this Post on 2+2, where, it seems, the guy think 'Stsars owe him the right to make a living. This Post made me gasp, on so many levels. Every paragraph contains a gem.


I am in the process of writing a long email to pokerstars with maths showing that it will now be mathmaticly impossible for anyone but SNEs to make a profit after rake back for the games im targeting at any stakes above $5 and that most of the SNES will now be turned into losing to the rake even after rake back for these games.

and that I am now gone from pokerstars. I am serious with this statement and currently preparing a spreadsheet and email to send to pokerstars regarding this and am happy to provide this information once i have completed preparing it to anyone that wants to challenge me on that point.

the behavior of poker stars now goes beyond all rational sense. when peoples behavior seems so irrational there is only two realistic logical conclusions that can be drawn.

1. they are totally incompetent. this is true the minority of the time note that.
2. there agenda is different to what you postulate and actually makes sense from there stand point.

thus i no longer believe that the pokerstars actually are trying to make profit but rather there new owners are trying to kill online poker this may sound absurd but seriously do not be surprised if Sheldon Alderson is involved somewhere.

[marcro]

Not that they will worry to much, but I think Stars has lost me as a customer.

I have about 150k fpps to use up, which I will spend on the odd tournament when I am bored, but the way I feel now, I don't think I'll be depositing again.

If you don't maintain at least silver star status you cannot use FPP's at their store.

Their price increases will probably result in them making a profit record and generate a 7 figure bonus for the CEO.

Pokerstars have always been shareholder driven to maximise profits, they just did a better PR job before the takeover.

[relaedgc]

If I had just spent nearly $5,000,000,000 - you can be sure that I am going to maximise on the size of my business to reap every commercial benefit that I possibly can from being the monopoly/market leader - whatever you want to call it.

I don't even think these are bad changes - they're obviously negative for people that are used to profiting from Stars, but I would imagine that the intention is to change the ebb and flow of $. Less of it getting moved between non depositing pro players, which doesn't generate income for Stars.

[doubleup]

I do think the "fun-player friendly" sites might weight the increases more towards the high limit players, & so cut some slack to the recreationals. But I'd be amazed if all sites don't follow suit in some shape or form, they'll just cut their cloth in different ways. It just happens that 'Stars announced first.

Stars is different from the "fun player friendly sites" as it is easier to make money on the smaller sites but the volume isn't there.  Stars winning players on the whole rely on volume and rewards for profit and can't really stand much in the way of increases.

btw have you any idea how stars is still catering to illegal markets?  Surely other UK licensed companies will start complaining to the UKGC or is grassing not the done thing in gaming circles

[tikay]

I do think the "fun-player friendly" sites might weight the increases more towards the high limit players, & so cut some slack to the recreationals. But I'd be amazed if all sites don't follow suit in some shape or form, they'll just cut their cloth in different ways. It just happens that 'Stars announced first.

Stars is different from the "fun player friendly sites" as it is easier to make money on the smaller sites but the volume isn't there.  Stars winning players on the whole rely on volume and rewards for profit and can't really stand much in the way of increases.

btw have you any idea how stars is still catering to illegal markets?  Surely other UK licensed companies will start complaining to the UKGC or is grassing not the done thing in gaming circles

Yes, I understand that 'Stars has a very different demographic to most Sites, & in truth, I don't much understand it I suppose. But we cannot be surprised that Amaya are trying to get more revenue, why else would they buy a mature company?

As to how they are still operating in certain markets (Russia?), from my understanding of the new UK legislation, I have no idea how they have managed that.

No grassing? Ha! Every poker site & bookie that advertises gets scores of complaints to ASA & the like - 99% of them from competitor sites.  Whether that extends to the GC etc, I have no idea. 'Stars are so different to every other poker site that it's hard to see how regular sites would benefit that much from harming 'Stars. Like it or not, 'Stars are good for poker - very good. We might not all like every last detail, (third party software in my case, but we all have different little gripes, & that's standard) but hell, they are extremely good overall.

It'll all settle down to normality within a few weeks, & life will go on exactly as before.

[The Camel]

Not that they will worry to much, but I think Stars has lost me as a customer.

I have about 150k fpps to use up, which I will spend on the odd tournament when I am bored, but the way I feel now, I don't think I'll be depositing again.

If you don't maintain at least silver star status you cannot use FPP's at their store.

Their price increases will probably result in them making a profit record and generate a 7 figure bonus for the CEO.

Pokerstars have always been shareholder driven to maximise profits, they just did a better PR job before the takeover.

Thanks for that, I didn't realise.

I'm gold at the moment, so I guess I'll have to have one last Sunday schedule before the end of November..

[Rexas]

Can someone who understands this stuff better than me just clarify a few points for me please?

As primarily a cash player, I can't see any rake changes that are going to affect me. The only changes relating to cash games seem to be coming in at $25/$50. In fact, the only part of this update that I can see affecting me is the need to manually top up every time I drop below my initial buy in, which I'm sure a piece of software will be able to do for me in the near future.

As for the stuff about charges for withdrawing etc, is it not as simple as converting all funds to the currency you want to withdraw in before you do so to avoid these new charges?

[AlunB]

I do think the "fun-player friendly" sites might weight the increases more towards the high limit players, & so cut some slack to the recreationals. But I'd be amazed if all sites don't follow suit in some shape or form, they'll just cut their cloth in different ways. It just happens that 'Stars announced first.

Stars is different from the "fun player friendly sites" as it is easier to make money on the smaller sites but the volume isn't there.  Stars winning players on the whole rely on volume and rewards for profit and can't really stand much in the way of increases.

btw have you any idea how stars is still catering to illegal markets?  Surely other UK licensed companies will start complaining to the UKGC or is grassing not the done thing in gaming circles

LOL

[AlunB]

its pretty cute that all these 2+2 boys think anyone is going to boycott pokerstars.

Amaya CEO takes over, looks at his customers, looks at his prices realises 60% of them don't give a crap what they pay and out of the 40% who do care 38.5% of them will grumble and just pay anyway.

So he put the prices up! And he'll put them up again I would happily wager.

Why would they not put prices up?

They have the best product, by a mile, the best liquidity, the biggest prize pools, & the most players.

Any great business in that spot, with what amounts to a near monopoly, is going to squeeze their customers.

Boycott 'Stars? No chance. The 2+2 Crew said they'd boycott The Venetian this summer, but it was rammed to the rafters all Series. 

There has been a lot of debate on this on the interwebs and, imo, a lot of people are sort of missing the point.

As a business decision this is absurdly easy to agree with. In the context of the wider online poker sector it's not even bad. And as you say I doubt in the short-term it will hurt them one bit.

But to potentially lose a large chunk of the goodwill and organic player advocacy you've spent 10+ years building up? That's surely a bit of a disaster.

[AlunB]

Unless of course the move is designed to alienate that player demographic and alter the overall ecology of the site. In which case WP NH.

[bergeroo]

Raking the rebuys and addons in MTTs is going to be a killer for me. This is also the first time I've heard of the rake being different for two players from different countries who are playing the same games.

Personally I feel like Stars are trying to grab as much from me as fast as they can, so I will be doing the same to them whenever I attend any of their events.