Daniel Negreanu Is Upset About PokerStars Broken Promises:

This shouldn’t be terribly surprising to anyone. Daniel is a guy that wears his heart on his sleeve, and to be the players representative for PokerStars while they are knifing players in the back isn’t very cool. Listening to him talk about the situation it is easy to sense his frustration may be starting to boil over. Now that Amaya has taken over, I can only imagine how many meetings he sits around in with PokerStars corporate types who don’t know the first thing about poker. Of course, he is being handsomely compensated to be the voice of PokerStars, which I am sure helps. However, Daniel is a talented guy, not likely to be a yes man forever, and may prefer to exit the stage before he gets the boot!

Will PokerStars Fire Daniel Negreanu?

We shall see…. If he doesn’t leave before his contract runs out with Stars it stands to reason that PokerStars will be relooking at Daniel’s compensation. I doubt they would just fire him outright, but after hacking all the elite players rakeback, VIP service, etc, etc it is easy to imagine them cutting back on money spent on pros like Daniel. Would Daniel stick around PokerStars when they want to cut his pay massively? Yeah, I doubt it….

I’m sure the decision about whether to maintain Daniel’s existing contract will be a cool and calculated business decision. These guys from Amaya are hard nosed businessmen, and are not messing around. There is no room for things like friendship and loyalty, Amaya acts in a very utilitarian manner and will not be swayed by emotion.

When Is Daniel Negreanu Leaving PokerStars?

It is always tough to say with these kinds of things. I talked at length about PokerStars Rake Increase in 2014 and the potential resulting death spiral. We have seen the rake increases, but have yet to see the death spiral. These things take time and it is difficult to set a timeline for them. However, I think it is fair to say Daniel is much closer to leaving PokerStars today than at any time since he joined the company. It may surprise some of you how quickly this happens….

PokerStars New Marketing Campaign

In recent chats Daniel has been hanging his hat on PokerStars apparent backroom promises to invest a significant amount of money back into the ecosystem. I for one, will believe it when I see it… Apparently, this is going to be done through some extensive marketing campaigns, which are not yet public information.

I am curious what exactly these new, brilliant, and classified marketing strategies are. I suspect PokerStars may squander a good deal of money that they used to give to Supernova Elites on ill advised marketing strategies that fail to address the core problem in poker today. New players lose money TOO quickly. That’s it! Of course, the solutions to this problem are not as easy to determine as the problem itself.

The ironic thing is I don’t disagree with PokerStars that giving less rakeback to high volume rakeback players is a bad idea. However, what I don’t see from them is a wholesale revamp toward what is truly required to kickstart the game again. For example, cutting the rake at microstakes games is apparently a non starter according to Daniel. Why? Because management doesn’t like the idea of making any moves that reduce revenue. This despite the fact that having an incredibly high rake at the lowest games is a terrible idea for the game. So, perhaps the death spiral may be in their future after all….

Where Can Daniel Make The Biggest Difference?

Daniel, if you are out there somewhere reading the little ol PokerCapitalist don’t fool yourself into thinking that you need to be on the inside at PokerStars to be helping out fellow players. In fact, you could be the face of a significant movement away from PokerStars. The poker industry has been in a giant depression now for nearly a decade. As a result of this there has been very little innovation in the industry and hardly any disruption. No entrepreneurs are interested in getting involved in this space anymore. The time may well be ripe for a new disruptive model, and somebody like Daniel would be a great leader for that.

That is all for now. As I always mention at the bottom of my posts don’t forget to pickup a copy of my book Exploitive No Limit Holdem please today! Best book ever, of course ;).

–ThePokerCapitailst (No nonsense, no ads, straight talk on poker)

The post Daniel Negreanu Leaving PokerStars? appeared first on The Poker Capitalist.

Why Has PokerStars Screwed Players?

Well, there is nothing like money to make business dirty and Pokerstars VIP changes are entirely about money. After Amaya took over I warned about how sinister Pokerstars might become in my article PokerStars Rake Increase @ A Death Spiral. That article does a pretty good job of describing why PokerStars might destroy the brand entirely. Bottom line is that PokerStars needs cash and they need it now. Their financial results have been extremely subpar in the past couple of quarters (hurt dramatically by a rising USD). As far as I could tell Amaya has some debt coming due in 2017, but most of it in 2020. The company is extremely levered, but should probably be able to make enough cash to pay back creditors, IMO.

With no more market share growth to be had their only option is to take advantage of their monopoly power to squeeze poker players margins. Amaya will extract every dime they can from the poker community and much of it will end up in the hands of the creditors.

That was a quote from last year in the article I wrote. So here we are about a year after I first wrote that article and SURPRISE PokerStars is squeezing ever more morsels from players how are already dealing with a declining industry. Ironic too since many suggested to me that my article was a bit silly at the time. Funny how that works……

PokerStars VIP Changes Cuts Player Benefits

The highlights of PokerStars VIP changes are.

1) Supernova Elite will be gone by 2017. Just to rub salt in the wounds they weren’t

2) $5/$10 and higher cash games will no longer have VPP’s. This is particularly frustrating for high stakes players. The irony of this is they are essentially telling all high stakes guys they don’t want them around. Yet, their very identity is build around creating “PokerStars”. This is truly a sign of just how far the apple has fallen from the tree.

3) They are going to devalue FPP’s by approximately 25%. This is terrible for players who had build up huge stocks of FPP’s but don’t have a great status on the site right now. They may have been planning on playing a ton in the New Year and building up to Supernova status before converting – now they just lose. Who wins? Amaya of course :). Who loses? Naturally, all of you fellow players. Not surprisingly if you think about what VPP’s are from a balance sheet perspective they are a liability, and we all know that on a balance sheet liabilities need to match up with assets. The beautiful thing from a business perspective about what Amaya is doing is with one wonderfully nasty stroke of the pen they are wiping out a huge chunk of liabilities. By my estimates there is about 100 million in VPP liability (feel free to correct me if you have better data) so with one little WHOOSH 25 million went bye bye. Not bad work if you can get it….. Wouldn’t it be sweet if you could devalue your mortgage or credit card debt like that? lol

4) Supernova quarter million guarenteed tournament will be discontinued.

5) PokerStars concierge service for Supernova and Supernova Elite players will be cut. Just in case you thought the “perks” of playing at Stars were nice, that will no longer be the case. PokerStars is cutting down to the bone….

6) Just to really be a stalwart company PokerStars also will not be honoring w

Pokerstars Supernova program has long been held up as the penultimate accomplishment for a poker professional. Lavish parties are hosted for you, concierge service provided, and most important some pretty sweet rake back and cash rewards. Today, that is no longer the case and it is time for players to move on. If you have some FPP’s left cash them in and head for the hills.

PokerStars Spin Machine Is Plain Insulting To Our Intelligence

Perhaps the most infuriating thing for players is to have to deal with the grossly disengenuous spin and PR that Amaya is using. PR gets a bad name precisely because companies like Amaya/PokerStars use it to flat out lie about what they are truly doing.

“We are introducing these changes to move towards a more balanced long term poker economy”

Make NO mistake about it. Nothing and I repeat None of the PokerStars VIP changes had ANYTHING to do with building a “more balanced long term poker economy”. All of these changes were done to squeeze more cash out of PokerStars right now! Oh yeah, and to further mess with poker players minds and try to confuse us they decided that a few red herrings thrown in the mix might throw us off the scent of what they were really up to. So, they decided lets talk about how technology is ruining the game and the need to control third party software.

People have differing views on where the line around third-party software in poker should be drawn; it’s certainly something that we constantly debate and review. Technology can aid, but it shouldn’t take over.Today, we want to make clear that the line will be drawn to preserve poker as a battle of wits and a test of heart. This will only have a direct effect on a small proportion of players and builds upon our responsibility to provide a level playing field for all players.

Lol, this really is quite hilarious if you are not effected by their changes. Sure it sounds reasonable at first glance but it is just PR bullshit written to distract you. Of course we all want “to preserve poker as a battle of wits and a test of heart”. What the heck does that have to do with jacking up the rake and eliminating player benefits though…..? Nothing of course.

We are confident that these changes will improve the playing experience for all PokerStars players and will drive increased play and more players to the ecosystem.

Again, I think given your behavior of late PokerStars it is very clear that this is an outright lie. The money that you are taking from your long term clients is not being reinvested in the “ecosystem” or into marketing or anything of the sort. This is pure and simple a money play because Amaya is calling the shots and they need to pay the bankers. For once please lets just call a spade a spade.

Where Should PokerStars Players Go? 

In light of recent PokerStars VIP changes, the answer at this point is anywhere but Stars. It was pretty clear to me last year that PokerStars was not going to be a very player friendly environment for regulars anymore. It has taken sometime for this to come to fruition, but the trend is not your friend when it comes to PokerStars. Here are a couple of key points to keep in mind about PokerStars VIP changes, and where to go from here.

1. Don’t waste your time investing in silly VIP programs that may or may not exist in the future.
2. Don’t stake your career on them giving back to you and then tell yourself they will never cut the program.
3. Yes, we all love the great software and the nice payouts from them, but at some point it is simply not worth it. That point has arrived with recent Pokerstars VIP changes, and now its time to find a new network. I would probably look into a European network or perhaps an American one offering good deals.

The Poker Dream Is Dead

At least on PokerStars. They just decided to slap all high stakes players in the face despite the fact their entire brand it build on creating “PokerStars”. I think many players who are involved in the game have harbored some dream of someday being able to play in the “big games”. If PokerStars was truly interested in the good of poker and the ecosystem eliminating high stakes games (which is what will effectively happen as all but a few games gravitate toward $2/$5) they wouldn’t be gettig rid of the high games. How many people railbird a $1/$2 game? I have seen tons of people railbirding $100/$200 games though… They are simply more interesting, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Players need something to work toward and by slapping all high stakes players in the face you are effectively slapping the entire community in the face.

Amaya Stock Is Down

This is more of an interesting side note than anything. It really speaks to the pressure of being burdened with a huge amount of debt when certain macro fundamentals turn against you (namely USD appreciation). Oh and there is one other little gem out there too. Amaya is being investigated in Quebec for possible securities fraud related to insider trading. The back story there is that the stock traded in an EXTREMELY unusual manner immediately before the massive acquisition of Rational Group. This kind of behavior is consistent with insider trading, which set off the regulatory investigation. Why am I not surprised that these wonderful characters at Amaya would be wrapped up in this cloud of darkness.

(Update to ^ as of January 2017, Amaya is becoming shadier and shadier. See this post by Canada’s Financial Post on Amaya Insider Trading .

Btw, I have created a special little piece to say goodbye to Stars! 

A PokerStars VIP Changes Ballad

The year was 2006, you are a poker pro and life looks awful good.

Players Were Ballin, Vegas were callin, and the money was so good.

Then came UIGEA, our ports became safe, and Daniel was known as the “kid”.

PokerStars Oh PokerStars You Were Once So Loved.

The year was 2011, Full Tilt is a Ponzi, Only Stars is left.

Lederer is a dud, Scheinberg is a stud, and Isildur is on a quest.

Along came Pius Heinz, he won it all, but who can remember his lines.

PokerStars Oh PokerStars you were once so loved.

The year was 2015, online poker extinction was feared, only PokerStars remained.

Amaya was lurking, insiders were cursing, and Pokerstars became hairbrained.

Supernova was gone, bankers had the brawn, and Daniel appeared cosntrained.

PokerStars oh PokerStars you were once so loved.

 The year was 2016, Extinction had neared, and rake went ever higher.

Regs went to work, Stars was a jerk, PR read like a flyer.

Tables were silent, Stars screwed the client, all that was left was the pyre.

PokerStars oh PokerStars you were once so loved

That will be the first and last bit of poetry you get from me (if you can call it that, haha). Well, that is it from me for the evening. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news when it comes to PokerStars VIP changes. Knowing how difficult the game is I feel bad for all players affected by this, and I wish them all the best.

Please support me and this blog by purchasing my book, Exploitive No Limit Holdem if you haven’t already!

ThePokerCapitailst (No nonsense, no ads, straight talk on poker)

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