*** PokerStars VIP Rep thread ***

[PokerStars VIP]

Hey, i am very glad to have found that there is a ps rep available here.

My situation is that i am from Belgium, and want to chamge my acc. back to the .com site. As i will not come in my country for about 9 months, and i will get an postletter i have to evrify in the month coming.

Anyway, i am working around the world, everytime i move in 3 months to another location for my job. Can i make a new acc. or change my country in the ps client to were i always am atm?

Like in a way like many Americans moved to canade etc.

Or what exactly do i need for pokerstars to make this change?

For example, i could prove my being in other countries due to sending stars an work contract every time, is that enough?

TX

Hi Springplank,

Good question - sounds like you have an exciting job.

Essentially, the answer is yes, it is possible to play on the .COM client if you are no longer living in Belgium. However, the one snag is that we can't simply migrate your .BE account to the .COM client. A new account would have to be created.

To do this, you will have to provide proof of your new address. This typically requires:

-Government Issued identification (if not already provided)
-A recent utility bill or bank statement containing your new address and name. I believe an official Lease signed by both parties will also work.

You should contact [email protected] explaining your situation and they can help you with this request. You can also send them your documents or you can upload them via the PokerStars client through Help > Contact Support / Upload Documents > Select Category > 'Security' > Sub-Category 'Documents'" and you will be able to upload documents with a size up to 5 MB.

Let me know if you run into any issues with this, and best of luck abroad!

Dylan

[springplank]

Hey, ty so much for the info and help,-)))

I will surely contact security@ pokerstars, and explain them what i want, in the future.

tx

[Micro2Macro]

hey man, theres this german reg who keeps joining tables where 2 people are about to play heads up to play a button and leave.

he does NOT play any blinds. he will sit out immediately after being dealt a button. he will not play a hand if he is not deal the button first for 3 handed play when a table starts.

is this against the rules of stars? his SN is supersonic_h. can you plase report him to security cuz i havent slept in a day and i cant remember my password for my email

cheers

[PokerStars VIP]

Hi M2M,

While I can't comment on another players specific account, deliberately avoiding to pay the blinds is considered by PokerStars to be a breach of our Cardroom Rules, falling under rule 13:

In the event that PokerStars deems that a User has engaged or attempted to engage in unfair play, including without limitation, engaging in any of the activities set forth above or any other game manipulation, PokerStars shall be entitled to take such action as it sees fit, as described in our Terms of Service.

Thanks for the heads-up, I will following up on this with our Game Security Team.

Get some sleep!

Dylan

[QSCMNT]

Hey Dylan,

I just have a suggestion for the PokerStars client which I believe does not require all that much work and is quite essential to poker. A way to sit up and then sit back down somewhere else on the same table, without having to close the table. This would be beneficial to people that wish to increase their positional advantage. If there's a rock to your right and a fish to your left, and there's an empty seat to the left of the fish, then one would normally want to change to that empty seat, but it cannot be done without closing and re-opening the table, which is risky and hard to do when multitabling. I believe that FTP had this feature before it got shut down.

Thanks for your time!

[daven]

Hey Dylan,

I just have a suggestion for the PokerStars client which I believe does not require all that much work and is quite essential to poker. A way to sit up and then sit back down somewhere else on the same table, without having to close the table. This would be beneficial to people that wish to increase their positional advantage. If there's a rock to your right and a fish to your left, and there's an empty seat to the left of the fish, then one would normally want to change to that empty seat, but it cannot be done without closing and re-opening the table, which is risky and hard to do when multitabling. I believe that FTP had this feature before it got shut down.

Thanks for your time!

i hate this idea - FTP did not have this feature

[jyms]

They used to, but got rid of it during an update a while back.

[Micro2Macro]

Hey Dylan,

I just have a suggestion for the PokerStars client which I believe does not require all that much work and is quite essential to poker. A way to sit up and then sit back down somewhere else on the same table, without having to close the table. This would be beneficial to people that wish to increase their positional advantage. If there's a rock to your right and a fish to your left, and there's an empty seat to the left of the fish, then one would normally want to change to that empty seat, but it cannot be done without closing and re-opening the table, which is risky and hard to do when multitabling. I believe that FTP had this feature before it got shut down.

Thanks for your time!

Fuck this bullshit. This just encourages bumhunting and makes fish feel targeted, which kills the games.

[rpm]

yah + 1 to above. i was actually going to post a link to the thing m2m has linked in his signature

[daven]

apparently you can e-mail [email protected] and they will tell you how many vpps you would have earned this year under the old (dealt) system so you can see how much the new system is fucking you over.

[PokerStars VIP]

Regarding QSCMNT's suggestion (being able to change seats on the fly), I'll definitely bring it up with my colleagues, but I'm not aware of anything like this being in the pipeline for changes. As others have mentioned, there may be a predatory aspect of it that takes some of the fun away for players; that's in no one's best interest.


Regarding Daven's post - Yes, players can email [email protected] if they would like to know how many VPPs they would have earned under the old assigning system.

Dylan

[Micro2Macro]

I was under the impression Stars did not tolerate players who instantly sit out when a 'mark' leaves the table and then instantly sits back in when one returns. Well that's what your fellow PokerStars pros like to do (along with yaojing83).



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

What a great example for a POKERSTARS PRO to be setting. No wonder predatory bum hunting is so common today. I am all for good table selection, but scum like this just have to take it to the extreme. Then again, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

***Both yaojing83 and wizardOfAhhs were playing on other tables that had 'marks' on them, and this behavior has been consistent and constant in their play (they aren't just taking a quick break together - though that would be suspicious). The least they could do is just leave the table until a 'mark' comes along, but they make it all the more obvious to the recreational player that they are only there to prey upon them and just wait until one sits before instantly sitting back in play again.

[daven]

^ re what m2m said
get rid of these scum
1st offence = warning
2nd offence = 1 week ban from all games at the stake the offence occurred at
3rd offence = 1 month ban from all games at the stake the offence occurred at
4th offence = ice them

[daven]

are stars having another meeting with player reps?
sounds like it
e.g. Two Plus Two Poker Forums - View Single Post - //**** Official 2012 uFR Pokerstars Regs Thread (NSFW) ****\\
Two Plus Two Poker Forums - View Single Post - //**** Official 2012 uFR Pokerstars Regs Thread (NSFW) ****\\

could you get a rep from FTR along? my votes are for m2m and keith
edit: + renton

[Micro2Macro]

digger the dog? lol? does that guy even play poker anymore?

10k posts doesn't mean you know jack shit about anything.

also daven nice solution i like it.

[PokerStars VIP]

Happy Monday gentlemen. I'm going to try get back to you soon with more information on future player meetings and the selection process.

Your concerns regarding our sitting out policies will be considered. M2M, I e-mailed you this afternoon.

Dylan

[daven]

digger the dog? lol? does that guy even play poker anymore?

pretty sure he played only 70k hands in 2011, and zero in 2012 thus far. A risk with non-players is that they no longer have a vested interest in outcomes that benefit players

10k posts doesn't mean you know jack shit about anything.

qfmfetc

also daven nice solution i like it.

cheers bro, i got heaps of ideas, but don't expect to be hitting the manx surf anytime soon
Maybe time to start posting more in this thread

[daven]

Happy Monday gentlemen. I'm going to try get back to you soon with more information on future player meetings and the selection process.

happy tuesday, I'm impressed with how you are managing this thread - nh

[Micro2Macro]

yeah Dylan does a great job here imo.

[PokerStars VIP]

Update: Regarding player meetings.

March meetings are being held for 'General Discussion' and players that are attending are being invited by PokerStars, not elected by any community. It's my understanding that these meetings are already nearly full.

April meetings will focus more on the subject of Rake, and these attendees will be elected or suggested by the community. The exact mechanics of how this will play out is yet to be determined. I can put your names 'in the ring', which I will certainly do, but I can't make any promises as there are obviously a lot of interested parties and just a few spots.

Let me know if I wasn't clear on anything here.

Also, a sincere thanks for the vote of confidence. I learned how to play poker on FTR, I'll always love this place.

Dylan

[Keith]

could you get a rep from FTR along? my votes are for m2m and keith
edit: + renton

Thanks for the vote Dozer. Somehow,after some of the threads i have made recently critcising stars VIP system for micro stakes players, I don't think stars would be too happy to invite me . From the last reps visit sStars played a blinder. They gave the reps a miniscule budget to reallocate knowing full well that it would be the reps that got ripped to pieces and blamed for the outcome leaving Stars reaping the rewards without the blame.

Whats the point of the milestone promotion except to generate a massive increase in rake and pay back a miniscule fraction to the milestone winners. Very few people actually benefit from this. Why not actually attract the fish.Offer small ($100) monthly reload bonuses (maybe with a restriction that you can' t take a bonus if you made a withdrawal in the previous month) to persuade the fish to continue depositing and give them a perk.People will still play to clear the bonus, it will help players move up and generate extra rake ,and the bonus will get redistributed around the system and people taking out of the poker economy will be penalised to a certain extent.

Or how about doing something truly radical and getting rid of rake and rake caps altogether and make it so that you pay 1bb to play so many hands at a table (30 ish would work out at ~3 orbits at FR or 5 orbits at 6max and 3.33bb/100 hands).Maybe have a counter in the corner of each table saying how many hands til the next rake payment and an auto rake check box that you can turn off when you intend to leave at the end of your session. This would penalise ratholers as any hands not played would be forfeited. This could also be trialed with these sort of tables running alongside traditionally raked tables.Would this appeal to the fish. they win a 40$ pot and see 40$ in front of them , instead of 38$ after the rake has been taken.

How about working together with other poker rooms and set up some sort of player id system. Players then just have to prove their id,address and banking info and no doubt mac address info could be included as well) and then get a poker id that is shared between rooms collobarating. Players then found to be colluding/cheating/card fraud,transfer scams,running bots etc would then find themselves banned from all the cooperating rooms and not just from the room they get caught on. the AJB4/punkybeau/ cheating may well have been caught by security rather than players if the sites could see when individual players were playing together across different rooms with different screen names if all those screennames had to be linked to a player id or poker passport when signing up for the account. Sharing the cost of security is bound to have a financial benefit to the individual sites by helping to deter fraud and preventing cheating . Individual computers playing 24hrs a day across multiple sites could then be investigated for bot use etc.

If you increase the deterrent effect for people getting caught, i.e you can't then open accounts across the cooperating sites and any existing accounts get shut down this should cut down the amount of fraud going on and reduce the cost to the individual rooms. Players benefit as they would only have to prove their identity and details once to the central "passport" issuing department making life easier for the players making withdrawals/deposits.

In such a situation though it is only fair that just as the sites get greater information about the players , the players should also get greater security for their money they have on the sites, which would require the sites cooperating to abide by some fundamentall rules to protect the players deposits.

1. All player funds held by the sites should be segregated and seperated so that players fund can never be stolen by the sites managers/seized as company assets as has happened at fulltilt /cereus and the current uncertainty about everleafs deposits. Stars actions after black friday repaying the usa players fund as they were identifiable as usa players funds should be the minimum that we as players should expect and the licensing authorities should regularly inspect the fundson deposit and in players accounts to see that players funds are indeed safe.

2. ONLY THE PLAYER WHO is the registered poker passport holder for an account can DEPOSIT to and WITHDRAW from that account via methods that the account holder has previously registered with passport control.Ths should then stop hackers from making small deposits to an account and then withdrawing the whole balance to the hackers account.

3. only cleared funds should be allowed to be used to play. If funds aren't cleared then players have to wait until they can play with those funds.

4. If multiple sites are cooperating,provide players with a free RSA token /tokens that can be used across all sites on the cooperating poker rooms. I.e one free RSA token for a main computer and secondary (purchased) token(s) for use with a laptop that are then linked back to the players passport.

[Micro2Macro]

just about all those ideas are too unrealistic for a business to actually put into practice

[Keith]

lol...what better way to make the games better than to encourage fish to deposit by incentivisiing them (and everyone else) to do so by giving them a bonus and ensuring that the games are fair and that the deposits are safe (except actually at the table).

To the public it would appear like any other form of entertainment , you pay a fee and get to play for a certain period of time.What is different between this concept and say a track day at a racing circuit. you pay a fee to enter and get to race your car round a track. the track provides the marshalls for safety and if you do something stupid and crash your car you have to pay the costs of repairing it. There is a direct analogy for a business using this concept.

The latter things about the sites should be something we as poker players should be demanding from the sites. Full Tilt ultimately went down because of fraud caused by the owners dipping into players funds and by letting players play on credit.This involves the reported cases of the pros collectively owing the sites millions and not paying back what they owe and the US players who kept depositing with echecks knowing full well thatthe funds were not being taken from their bank accounts and then withdrawing those funds or chip dumping them off to a friend to withdraw.

The situation at everleaf at the moment should not happen. They have always claimed that the players deposits are seperated and segregated , and long cash outs to US players are understandable in the current climate. But there is no excuse for a moneybookers withdrawal for players in the rest of thje world to be taking over a week.ITs electronic for gods sake,

why shouldn't the sites cooperate to root out the cheats and scammers that cost them money. they have an incentive to do so and by cooperating with other sites and the players they can cut the cost of policing their games and have fairer games as well. Also why not introduce a poker passport and link RSA tokens to it to help protect against hackers accessing players accountsand spread the cost by allowing one RSA token to be valid accross multiple cooperating sites.This will help to cut out multi accounting, help with actually idenifying players as the RSA token would have to be sent to the players address and once the player has set up their passport and verified there bank details it would save having to keep proving your id to withdraw from your account.

Anyone who has run a business , knows that driving sales/generating revenue is not the only way to increase profitability. minimizing the costs to your business are just as important. Its more profitable to spend 3$ to save 9$ of fraud costs than to spend 1$ and save 2$ of fraud. By cooperating the poker sites can make the fraud prevention more effective and also cheaper to implement.

If the players accounts are protected by rsa tokens,and deposits/withdrawals can only be made by methods approved of by the player who has accessed the site with the RSA token,password and username tha chances of hackers stealing money from accounts is drastically cut.In these situations the sites usually say tough luck , you let your password known to somebody and its your loss. By cooperating and spreading the cost of the rsa token they can use it as a positive to attract custom by promoting the fact that the players money is safe in their hands. At the moment their is a climate of fear regarding how safe players funds are , especially with sites serving USA players.

Using the RSA token and computer ids can also then be used by the sites to crack down on multi accounters and help to promote the integrity of the games in the cooperating rooms making them more attractive to recreational players and therefore improving the games for the regulars.

[Micro2Macro]

The problem with working with other poker rooms on game security is that it could actually make security worse, much harder to control, and open up sensitive information of customers to more people/firms than necessary (not to mention create a ton of red tape). Why should a player who solely plays on PokerStars and trusts PokerStars with their personal information have multiple other poker clients holding their information?

It's a sites choice whether or not to implement RSA and it's the customers choice as to whether or not they will play only on sites with RSA identification or take chances on networks with less secure log in parameters.

It doesn't matter if you can come up with a perfect way to make this work, it won't happen. Stars security isn't broken, so it doesn't need fixing.

[Keith]

where did I say personal details would be shared with sites that players hadn't signed up to. I'm suggesting an Independent body who do the initial checks on id and issue the poker passport. Then as a player signs up to extra sites the screenames are then attached to that passport. The only thing that the sites will see is the screennames of that player on other sites not their personal information.

How do you think security is done on merge , ipoker and ongame. Its centalised and personal data isn't shared amongst all the rooms on the network.You are arguing against something that happens on every network .I'm talking about making networks cooperate on security for the benefit of the players and the cooperating sites.

By coopeating and utilising a single RSA token for all the cooperating sites they can spread the cost and make it more convenient for the player and provide greater safety for the players funds and make the cooperating sites more attractive to players than the sites without the extra security features.

As for stars security isn't broken, only in the last week there has been a post about stars refunding money after a collusion ring was busted
Collusion ring caught at Stars' 9m hypers? - Internet Poker - Online Poker Forum . You don't have to be a genius to work out that these scumbags are either going to move to another pokersite and do the same thing, or try creating new accounts and do the same thing again at stars.What I am tallking about is making it much harder for them to move to another site as once they get banned on one of the cooperating sites they get banned from all the other sites as well, combined with making it much harder for them to create extra accounts in the first place. The deterrents will therefore help to protect honest players as they will be less likely to cheat in the first place and once they have been caught, their options to move elsewhere and cheat other players will be reduced. Money is refunded to the victims of their scams but noone knows what the actual % of what they have lost is returned to them.

[Keith]

Similarly , why should players have to put up with having a stars RSA, and Ipoker rsa, an ongame RSA a merge RSA,an everest RSA, a full tilt RSA and juggle between them. GIve the players an option to make life easier for themselves and just have one RSA token securing all of their sites.

[bikes]

in no way shape or form would i want only 1 rsa. let me have my like 5 because if i lost the one i'd be screwed. that's a horrible idea.

[Keith]

from the original

4. If multiple sites are cooperating,provide players with a free RSA token /tokens that can be used across all sites on the cooperating poker rooms. I.e one free RSA token for a main computer and secondary (purchased) token(s) for use with a laptop that are then linked back to the players passport.

I'm suggesting that you can purchase extra RSA tokens and link them to your passport so that if you lost one you can still log in and use your accounts, and the client software should then also have an option so that if one of your rsa tokens was lost/stolen you can disable it to help prevent access to your sites. Even if someone tries to use your RSA token to hack your account they still then have to get your login and password details.

[bikes]

i had this really long post written up but i deleted it.

the short of it is. cheaters bots and collusion on other sites is good for pokerstars. if the other sites are riddled with these things more people want to play on stars. it's good for business. why would stars want to hurt their business?

as for the rake changes? Stars has a monopoly on this business. yes you can claim blah blah blah i get 60%-70% rb on ipoker. but really Stars doesn't care. Esp since you play micros. And even with ipoker and ongame with their redic rb numbers if you played midstakes or small stakes stars knows their software is not as good, their support is not as good and the same amount of games aren't available. I'm pretty sure the entirety of 25nl and below could dissapear and Stars wouldn't even feel it. That being said Stars takes absurdly good care of its SNs and SNEs which is why a huge percentage of players played and play on PS.

Stars has its business model pretty perfect for maximum profitability. Any crutch we had of competition died with FTP. Stars can pretty much do whatever they want and most people would still continue to play there. You can complain all you want but at the end of the day it's this. "Will this cut into our bottom line? Yes? To what degree?" If it's anything more than minor to appease a community as small as 2p2 you can prolly count the change wont happen because at the end of the day PS exists to make money.

[PokerStars VIP]

Keith - you definitely have some interesting ideas and I appreciate the 'outside the box' thinking. There are quite a few things that you touch on that I'm personally not in a position to authoritatively comment on. I agree with M2M that some of your suggestions may not be realistic at this point in time. PokerStars provides industry leading security and keeps player funds segregated and secure.

Regarding one of your suggestions -

"Offer small ($100) monthly reload bonuses (maybe with a restriction that you can' t take a bonus if you made a withdrawal in the previous month) to persuade the fish to continue depositing and give them a perk.People will still play to clear the bonus, it will help players move up and generate extra rake ,and the bonus will get redistributed around the system and people taking out of the poker economy will be penalised to a certain extent. "

While we do offer a deposit bonus and in the past have offered reload promotions, PokerStars doesn't explicitly differentiate in how we treat 'professional' or 'recreational' players. I don't foresee a change here as the VIP Club prides itself on a transparent system.

I'll bring up some of these topics with my superiors and see if any of them pick up any traction.

Cheers,

Dylan

[daven]

@ keith
i think rake fee/hands played tables are an interesting idea
i think the across sites information sharing won't happen for the reasons bikes and m2m described
i think that any bonuses etc have to be available to all players equally. There is currently a '100k deposit freerolls' promotion on stars, where players who deposit get access to daily freerolls but lose this access when they withdraw from their account (something like this anyway, i'm hazy on the details) which sounds a little like your suggestion

[Keith]

I'm not saying to discriminate between recs and regs witjh the deposit bonus but make it available to everyone so long as they haven't made a withdrawal in the previous month. We want losing players to keep depositing so give them an incentive to do so.

whilst stars security is indoubtedly catching and banishing the cheats ,its unknown how many cheats,scammers and other general scumbags are still flying under the radar. the AJB4 case on merge has shown that they were pulling the same dodgy tricks at cake,full tilt and i think everleaf were mentioned as well, together with a lot of suspicion pointed at "passthesalsa" at stars post BF and suspicion was postulated about their play at stars pre BF. Collabooration will increase the sample sizes for analysing individual players colluding/soft playing and hopefully leaf to earlier detection.

as for the rake free tables the only prolem i can see is if the table breaks. Anyone leaving a table could then join a different tab;e with the same number of hands left to play but with the same stacksize they left the previous table with. this stops the ratholing, but lets players leave a table early if necessary

[Micro2Macro]

lol @ rake tables lol @ poker competitors cooperating with each oother L O UCKING L AT MAKING DRASTIC CHANGES TO A BUSINESS MODEL THAT ISNT BROKEN CAN WE PLEASE JUST GET THIS THREAD BACK ON TRACK TO WHAT IT IS INTENDED FOR: POKERSTARS. IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT MERGE BOTS AND OTHER BUSTO UNTRSTWORTHY SITES START ANOTHER THREAD

[bikes]

I agree with drunk and tilted m2m

[Keith]

i had this really long post written up but i deleted it.

no need to delete anything , I'm happy to debate any points you make.

the short of it is. cheaters bots and collusion on other sites is good for pokerstars. if the other sites are riddled with these things more people want to play on stars. it's good for business. why would stars want to hurt their business?

And who says that Stars isn't riddled with cheaters,bots & colluders as well?. Else why did stars limit the number of chinese players able to play at the same time, kick a load of bots from their system and repay some of the money confiscated to players affected. Why did they refund players last week . Stars is probably just as riddled with cheats and scammers as any other site. In fact , repaying the customers draws attention to the cheats and scammers on stars.

as for the rake changes? Stars has a monopoly on this business. yes you can claim blah blah blah i get 60%-70% rb on ipoker. but really Stars doesn't care. Esp since you play micros. And even with ipoker and ongame with their redic rb numbers if you played midstakes or small stakes stars knows their software is not as good, their support is not as good and the same amount of games aren't available. I'm pretty sure the entirety of 25nl and below could dissapear and Stars wouldn't even feel it. That being said Stars takes absurdly good care of its SNs and SNEs which is why a huge percentage of players played and play on PS.

What's this bullshit thats perpetually spouted about Stars support being the best. They havent even got a phone number so that you can ring them with a problem. They don't have live chat in their software so that you can have a real time chat with a support worker. Stars support may have been far superior to Full tilts abysmal support , but its third world compared to the sites offering phone numbers and live chat. Is it any wonder that the sites offering that standard of support tend to be the big bookmakers who have a history of actually interacting with their customers. A happy customer is one thats going to give them their money.

If the micro players as so unimportant to stars, how come the money given back from the increased rake across all players had so little effect when spent back on the micro players. Its because the micro players are raped with the rake and given pitiful rewards. If they lose the micro players it will have a big impact on stars profitability which will then impact on the supernovas + as they won't have the money to direct their way..

Stars has its business model pretty perfect for maximum profitability. Any crutch we had of competition died with FTP. Stars can pretty much do whatever they want and most people would still continue to play there. You can complain all you want but at the end of the day it's this. "Will this cut into our bottom line? Yes? To what degree?" If it's anything more than minor to appease a community as small as 2p2 you can prolly count the change wont happen because at the end of the day PS exists to make money.

I'm not complaining , stars can structure however they want and target players however they want. My point is that for the vast majority of micro players they would be far better off playing elsewhere. Once stars loses its micro players it will be to the detriment of all stakes further up, and stars themselves as the money will no longer be flowing up from the bottom , players working up the stakes on other sites will them probably continue to play on those sites and you will end up with just high volume regs playing against each other. Just look at M2M's post up above about wizard of ahhs bumhunting , that will just become the norm as good players refuse to play other players of a similar standard to themselves.

[Keith]

lol @ rake tables lol @ poker competitors cooperating with each oother L O UCKING L AT MAKING DRASTIC CHANGES TO A BUSINESS MODEL THAT ISNT BROKEN CAN WE PLEASE JUST GET THIS THREAD BACK ON TRACK TO WHAT IT IS INTENDED FOR: POKERSTARS. IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT MERGE BOTS AND OTHER BUSTO UNTRSTWORTHY SITES START ANOTHER THREAD

so if this business model isnt broken how do you explain

fuck u pokerstars i hope whoever made these stupid fucking cjhanges dies in a fucking grease fire and im not even fucking kidding srsly go fucking die and take ur fucking family with u u fucking scumbag fucking crook

and

admittedly what I said here the other day was probably out of line

however, it is a pretty low blow to grinders to fuck them all over when the business is clearly netting millions and the ceo's are very likely taking a big raise after all this.

too bad stars wasn't a publicly traded company because at least then there'd be some transparency with where the money is going. it surely isnt being used to make the user's playing experience any better.

and

PokerStars Player Representatives Report - Internet Poker - Online Poker Forum

My faith has been restored in PokerStars. This is how you run a company.

when this restored faith in pokerstars is by bringing in the changes that you ranted about in the earlier paragraphs except for chucking in an extra carrot for the supernova+ players.

As for untrustworthy sites , how many of ipoker/ongame sites flouted US law and allowed US players to play and are currently indicted for bank fraud as a result? Many of the big UK bookmaking sites are public companies , published accounts, stock traded on stock exchanges, and strictly regulated financially as a result. That is why they withdrew from the US market because their financial regulation prevented them from engaging in the bank fraud necesary to cater to the american market. They have the financial reserves and they are in other cash generating businesses as well. Just because Stars repaid the american customers does not mean that you can automatically assume that the big uk bookmakers are untrustwothy. I won't say the same for some of the smaller ipoker sites, but sticking to the large sites with plenty of financial backing players funds are as safe or safer than stars players funds.

[Keith]

I signed on with PokerStars 4 years ago. This was a 'fail' and I quit.

Not sure why then it did not occur to me to look for support as I have done this time when I return 4 years later.

I sent an e-mail to PokerStars suggesting that they may wish to sweeten the pot for my continued investment. Result = nothing, really. Entitlement to enter a draw for some chips, or something.

I like PokerStars (opinion subject to further exposure). What alternatives are there and which are recommended?

I am United Kingdom player.

this is an example of what i mean about offering reload bonuses to micro players. Offer him an "up to 100$" reload bonus clearing at 20% and you make 400$ out of him initially, and then continued income down the line. Its moronic to offer nothing and then have him look around to see what other sites offer.

Its been commented on at 2+2 that each signup to a site generally costs 500$. With stars mass market advertising and larger budget they probably get economies of scale to reduce the cost of a signup. Here they had a chance to generate income and blew it for the sake of a discount on his initial rake .

[Micro2Macro]

i mean yeah im pissed that stars gave me something like a 6k pay decrease but at least they responded to player outrage instead of just ignoring everyone. I think they do a good job at taking players opinions into account, it just seems like they dont to some because outrageous demands aren't met.

also just because customers are unhappy doesnt mean a business is broken. it's not like making the changes has just sent everyone looking to play elsewhere. alot of players aren't moving and just dealing with it.

[Keith]

heres an example of what i mean by offering ongoing bonuses to the players . Up to $250 in monthly bonuses in our Lord of the Grind promotion!

in effect its a rip off of the "take 2" promo at full tilt just as stars zoom is a rip off of rush. The interesting part about it to me is that it looks like its ongoing , its ontop of the standard vip scheme and its looks to be a way of generating brand loyalty, players will always have a bonus to clear and in doing so they generate more bonus to clear the following month.
The lower bonus levels look like they are clearing at the first deposit bonus rate and then at a declining rate as the bonuses get bigger.anyone going after the bigger bonuses would be better off on a rakeback deal elsewhere on the network and after chatting with Binky in the early hours of this morning, perversely this deal isnt really suited to him either. As he is playing 2nl at limited number of table for a limited time each day , coupled with players only earning points at Titan on pots over $0.6 , his limited number of hands coupled with a lot of those hands not actually generating points because of pot size, mean that he and other similar players are unlikely to generate the points in the first place. Secondly he would have to deposit, so deposit bonus would clear first for two months negating a lot of the advantages of this scheme as the pending bonus would expire for the first couple of months before he got a chance to clear it.
Get to 4nl or 10nl and combine it with the cardrunners HEM deal/month free and then have this running after the initial bonus is cleared and keep generating points to cash in and theres a lot of value to be had here . Any higher and rb is probably the route to go.

The timing of this promo is also interesting when set against the timing of the zoom poker introduction. Is it designed to retain their player base and slow down defections to zoom.

[bikes]

keith all i can say is make SN if your unhappy and Stars treats you absurdlhy well.

i have never been mistreated by stars or felt anything was unfair in my 4ish years of playing there. Granted I made SN every year so my opinion may be biased. I also wasn't concerned with things as trivial as a few points of rb at tiny stakes because I moved up pretty quickly though them. Possibly because I didn't spend so much time analyzing trivial shit like a few points of rb.

[d0zer]

Keith, if you spent half the time getting good at poker as you do providing armchair marketing to pokerstars, you might have tens of hundreds of dollars by now!

[Keith]

By the time wife kids and work are factored in, I will always be a recreational player. I don't have the time,inclination or quite honestly the ability to make SN and the same will apply to many players at stars and elsewhere. I'm not jealous of the rewards that SN+ players get ,they have put a serious amount of time in to achieve it.I'm also not so immature and lacking in self esteem that i have to belittle and insult other people.

For me and many of the micro players , poker is a hobby , a form of entertainment. in effect its similar to choosing which cinema to watch a film at , one is dearer normal price but you get 50% discount voucher for all the films you watch, the seats are a bit less comfy but adequate against a cinema with a slightly cheaper priced comfier seats but only offering a 10% discount voucher.

The difference is not trivial and most of the micro players probably don't even realise that the rewards for them are better elsewhere. Stars have lost my custom along with many other people. I'm giving feedback why and in the long run the SN+ players will be hit if there is a mass defection of micro players to other sites as there will be a reduction in money moving up from the micros into the small and midstakes and less rake to fund the rewards that the SN+ players are getting.

[daven]

IMPORTANT NOTE: In all cash ring games, points are credited at the end of a hand. So if you leave a table before the hand is completed, you may not receive the VPP for that hand. To ensure that you are properly credited, please ‘Sit Out’ until the start of the next hand, and then leave the table..

when i stack a fish and he leaves before the hand is completed, do i get his share of the vpps for the hand as well as mine? or do these extra vpps just disappear into a void?

i can give you some hand numbers of examples if that helps

[PokerStars VIP]

when i stack a fish and he leaves before the hand is completed, do i get his share of the vpps for the hand as well as mine? or do these extra vpps just disappear into a void?

i can give you some hand numbers of examples if that helps

Hi Daven,

Good question. The 'lost' VPPs are split amongst the remaining players as per the weighted contributed method of assigning VPPs. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions regarding this.

Dylan

[daven]

Hi Daven,

Good question. The 'lost' VPPs are split amongst the remaining players as per the weighted contributed method of assigning VPPs. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions regarding this.

Dylan

sounds good
a follow-up.
What happens with VPP allocation when i stack someone HU and there is no next hand because they leave the table?

[Razvan729]

why is Toni Judet a PS player and he has a "Play with the Pros" table at PS when he is such a bad poker player and he really does not represent what poker in Romania is, when there are players( just 2 examples) like 0Human0 for cash games and Ramondemon77 for MTT's that have huge succes on online poker? t

[PokerStars VIP]

sounds good
a follow-up.
What happens with VPP allocation when i stack someone HU and there is no next hand because they leave the table?

You would get all the VPPs allocated for that hand if they left before the hand was completed.

Dylan

[PokerStars VIP]

why is Toni Judet a PS player and he has a "Play with the Pros" table at PS when he is such a bad poker player and he really does not represent what poker in Romania is, when there are players( just 2 examples) like 0Human0 for cash games and Ramondemon77 for MTT's that have huge succes on online poker? t

Hi Razvan,

I will pass along your feelings here to our Team PokerStars manager. Team PokerStars pros obligations extend further than just their play on the client - for online play we have PokerStars Team Online.

In the case of those players you mentioned, they are welcome to submit their cases for consideration when applications for Team Online are open in the future.

Appreciate the feedback,

Dylan

[daven]

gidday, I have a question.
What happens to the confiscated balances of cheating players who have been caught?

see, e.g., the e-mail i received this morning, about a week after reporting a couple of obvious russian scum reg cheats i had been playing with. If their account balances were confiscated, then did this money simply become part of poker stars' profit line? or were the cheats allowed to withdraw their funds? Or did it go into the slush fund from which VIP freerolls and etc. are funded?

this money should surely be distributed among all players who have played against the cheats, pro-rated explicitly on the number of hands played at tables with these players. Their presence and their cheating costs all players at tables with them money, even if i am in profit against them individually, and a pro-rated distribution of their account balances would be an effective way to compensate players for this.

I'm not too worried about this specific case, but I am very curious about the general approach taken by poker stars in cases such as this one.

Hello

First allow me to apologize for the delay in responding to your report.

We have concluded that the play of 'xxx' and 'xxx' violated the integrity of our games. They have been informed that they are no longer welcome to play on our site.

While we appreciate your vigilance in bringing this case to light, unfortunately we have been unable to offer you compensation in this case as you had a winning record against the colluders. {ok - this is the point that i consider to be absolute bullshit, please provide stars' reasoning for this?}

The integrity of the games at PokerStars is of paramount importance to us and we will not abide unfair play in our games. We work hard to police our games to assure our players of a fair, secure place to play. In the rare cases where violations of our Terms of Service have occurred we make sure that any players affected are compensated appropriately.

[rpm]

yeah that sounds like shite to me. just because you were good enough to beat them despite their cheating, doesn't mean they weren't bleeding your bb/100 any more/less than anybody else's, right? your bb/100 vs them was just higher to begin with.

[Micro2Macro]

but you ran good and took their money, so whats the problem?

if you took a huge amount off them you may end up giving some of that back to help iron out this average payout you want calculated to every single player who played them.

[bikes]

but you ran good and took their money, so whats the problem?

if you took a huge amount off them you may end up giving some of that back to help iron out this average payout you want calculated to every single player who played them.

this.

so if you won a bunch of monies off them should you be forced to give it back?

[daven]

@ bikes/m2m, yep, you both make a good point. I merely want to know the position held by stars on this type of situation. Sure, i may be up against these players, but their cheating has cost me money.

Note the weird implications of a payout of confiscated balances that is not pro-rated by volume against the cheats. Imagine the perverse incentives in place if i find someone who is cheating, check and realise that I am up $ against them, choose not to report them but instead monitor how I am doing against that player - including doing way more messed up stuff against them cos I'm freerolling - and postpone reporting them until at any point I end up down $$ against them.

I'm really curious what stars' approach is in this type of situation. Hence the questions in my previous post in this thread.

[PokerStars VIP]

This is a good inquiry. I can assure you that funds seized from colluding accounts are used to reimburse players adversely affected. Daven and others have brought up some interesting points but unfortunately I'm unable to disclose the precise method we use to determine how funds are redistributed (I suppose you can get a broad idea of it based on Game Security's email to Daven).

Edit: I'm looking into whether there's any more info we can share with you guys on this...

Dylan

[OngBonga]

I would love to see some lower stakes HU tables.. I've never been one for the HU-SNG's so would love it if I could play 10NL and 25NL HU.. i'm sure people would be keen for 5 as well, though i think that and 2nl would be far too much of a crap shoot for my liking..

This, I'd really like to see some $2, $5 and $10 PLO HU rooms, and some $10 NLHE HU would be nice too.

[bikes]

rake trappppp

[OngBonga]

rake trappppp

Probably, but I'd expect to have a significant advantage over the average micro NLHEHU bonks, so I'd hope my winrate more than pays the extra rake I pay.

And as for PLOHU, I just wanna play some HU PLO, but I can't because I'm not rolled for it. Again, so long as I'm in profit, which I'd expect at $2 stakes, then I'm happy.

I don't give a crap about rake so long as I'm making money, the fish pay my rake, not me.

[PokerStars VIP]

Update on the seized funds from collusion. Yes, 100% of funds seized are distributed to players, and in some case we give extra funds to compensate players but as I suspected we do not disclose the method we use to allocate the funds.

I'll throw the low-stakes HU table suggestions to the Ring game guys and see if any interest comes back.

Dylan

[Rage2100]

Hi Dylan,

Just a minor point, but I think it may help out some players.

Imagine the screen being split into four quadrants; top left being quadrant 1, top right being quadrant 2, bottom left being quadrant 3, and bottom right being quadrant 4. If you have two tables stacked in each quadrant and save the layout, when you open the tables next time, they open in the following order, no matter what order you put them in the user.ini file:

Quadrant 1
Quadrant 1
Quadrant 2
Quadrant 2
Quadrant 3
Quadrant 3
Quadrant 4
Quadrant 4

I sometimes only open six tables and so end up with no table in quadrant 4. I can save another layout for six tables, but if I played 20 tables, I would end up with loads of different saved layouts. Could you add a checkbox so the tables open in the order they appear in the user.ini file?

I would really like the tables to open in the following order:

Quadrant 1
Quadrant 2
Quadrant 3
Quadrant 4
Quadrant 1
Quadrant 2
Quadrant 3
Quadrant 4

I've written a little AHK script to move my tables around the screen, and there are various other programs that will do this, but it would be nice if this was added to the Stars software.

[daven]

Update on the seized funds from collusion. Yes, 100% of funds seized are distributed to players, and in some case we give extra funds to compensate players but as I suspected we do not disclose the method we use to allocate the funds.

cheers Dylan. You are faster than poker stars support

I've added the elaboration from support below in case anyone is interested. I have italicised the part that i disagree with, just cos.

Thank you for your email, which has been escalated to me for response.

1 - are the account balances of these cheats confiscated by stars?

Yes, they were.

1a - in general, does stars confiscate the account balances of cheats who
have been caught?

In cases where confiscations are appropriate, yes we do. In this case it was appropriate.

2 - if so, what happens to the confiscated balances of cheating players?

Confiscated funds are used to compensate those that are harmed by collusion. In this particular case, the confiscated funds were insufficient to compensate players appropriately, so PokerStars contributed funds to the distribution pool from our own resources.

The fact that I am in profit against these players is irrelevant, their
very presence at the tables has cost me money.

In tournaments this would be more true than it is in ring games. In ring games every hand is a completely separate event, not having been affected by the hands before it, and not affecting the hands after it. Each hand needs to be weighed individually for effect, if any. This is what we did.

Harmed players were compensated.

[daven]

. If you have two tables stacked in each quadrant and save the layout, when you open the tables next time, they open in the following order, no matter what order you put them in the user.ini file:
.

what happens if you save the layout, then go to view->apply active layout ?

[Rage2100]

what happens if you save the layout, then go to view->apply active layout ?

Nothing!

I think this problem only occurs when you have more than one table in the exact same position. Stars seems to open all the tables at the one position before it moves on to the next position. This is ok if you always play the full amount of tables, but not ok if you decide to play less tables every once in a while.

[daven]

from 2p2, noting that many of the major cheat catches are by players rather than security

would be cool if stars had some kind of bounty for players that catch cheats

[Micro2Macro]

There are ways you could abuse the system by having a bounty if you knew the value of it. There are often 250k players playing poker at a time, not everyone can be monitored closely by pokerstars staff.

I think the entire poker community is just way too greedy and is always expecting a hand out for doing something that benefits the community as a whole. If you see a group of players whom you highly suspect are colluding, then the right thing to do is send an email to support outlining all the evidence that is relevant to the issue. It's ethical, and it helps maintain integrity with the games. It sets a good example to the rest of the poker community to aid pokerstars in policing the games, and overall should deter colluders if they know that other regs are being vigilant. The moment people start a trend where no one bothers to report these issues because they 'arent getting anything out of it' is when the system begins to collapse.

I imagine the player who posted that last sentence is a busto, lazy, ssnl grinder who just wants money to fall into his lap in the easiest way possible. You never, ever see hsnl players whining about not receiving rewards for catching players cheating, but that in a way is what separates the best from the rest. It's likely he was just trying to be creative in thinking of solutions, but if he thought about what he said he'd realize it makes no sense because it won't happen.

[daven]

There are ways you could abuse the system by having a bounty if you knew the value of it. There are often 250k players playing poker at a time, not everyone can be monitored closely by pokerstars staff.

I think the entire poker community is just way too greedy and is always expecting a hand out for doing something that benefits the community as a whole. If you see a group of players whom you highly suspect are colluding, then the right thing to do is send an email to support outlining all the evidence that is relevant to the issue. It's ethical, and it helps maintain integrity with the games. It sets a good example to the rest of the poker community to aid pokerstars in policing the games, and overall should deter colluders if they know that other regs are being vigilant. The moment people start a trend where no one bothers to report these issues because they 'arent getting anything out of it' is when the system begins to collapse.

I imagine the player who posted that last sentence is a busto, lazy, ssnl grinder who just wants money to fall into his lap in the easiest way possible. You never, ever see hsnl players whining about not receiving rewards for catching players cheating, but that in a way is what separates the best from the rest. It's likely he was just trying to be creative in thinking of solutions, but if he thought about what he said he'd realize it makes no sense because it won't happen.

good post

[Keith]

I think the entire poker community is just way too greedy and is always expecting a hand out for doing something that benefits the community as a whole. If you see a group of players whom you highly suspect are colluding, then the right thing to do is send an email to support outlining all the evidence that is relevant to the issue. It's ethical, and it helps maintain integrity with the games. It sets a good example to the rest of the poker community to aid pokerstars in policing the games, and overall should deter colluders if they know that other regs are being vigilant. The moment people start a trend where no one bothers to report these issues because they 'arent getting anything out of it' is when the system begins to collapse.

I think that you're being a bit harsh with that comment. Certainly sections of the community are too greedy , but to class the entire community as being too greedy to altruisticly benefit the whole community ignores the work put in by mods/admins of forums, better players responding to beginners hand history questions and individuals who try and help in cases of fraud/scams (like clamper at 2+2) etc.

[Micro2Macro]

Saying the entire community is greedy was an over-exaggeration. There are certainly a large amount of people in it though that are greedy, while another portion who are quite generous.

[PokerStars VIP]

Nothing!

I think this problem only occurs when you have more than one table in the exact same position. Stars seems to open all the tables at the one position before it moves on to the next position. This is ok if you always play the full amount of tables, but not ok if you decide to play less tables every once in a while.

I'll be passing your feedback regarding how the layouts are saved to the software team this week. It's appreciated and I'll let you know if they have any followup questions or a response to the issues you've run into.

Dylan

[daven]

so, if you need someone to work in stars security lol....
busted some more for you

First allow me to apologize for the delay in responding to your report. This particular case was quite involved and more time than usual was required for the review.

We have concluded that the play of 'xxxx' and 'xxxx' violated the integrity of our games. They have been informed that they are no longer welcome to play on our site.

In addition, we have 'rolled back' hands in which they won money unfairly and redistributed the funds to the players who were affected. Overall, you

[PokerStars VIP]

Nice one Inspector Daven!

[daven]

creditadjust transactions where stars sends you money from busted cheats count as deposits => no withdrawing funds for 48hrs. Seems a bit weird, and a pain cos i'm due to make my regular withdrawal, but instead it looks like I won't be able to do so until i get back from holiday.

[Keith]

How about a vip level boost for a month for Daven as a reward?

[PokerStars VIP]

creditadjust transactions where stars sends you money from busted cheats count as deposits => no withdrawing funds for 48hrs. Seems a bit weird, and a pain cos i'm due to make my regular withdrawal, but instead it looks like I won't be able to do so until i get back from holiday.

Hi Daven,

You can email [email protected] and they will immediately lift this restriction once they confirm that it was a credit given and not an actual deposit.

Dylan

[rpm]

yo dylan, now that we can choose to sit out from any given table or all tables, this hand or on our next big blind, via the session options box, i think it would be cool to have the option of getting rid of the "sit out next hand" and "sit out next big blind" tickboxes in the bottom left corner above the chat box. the less unnecessary clutter the better imo.

edit: as well as the "fold to any bet" tickbox. i understand there is no "fold to any bet" option in the session options box. but if it's not being used...

[Micro2Macro]

Is it possible to have every hand history for the past couple years emailed to me? Or how far can I request back hh's?