I expected a lot of things getting worse when I heard Stars wants to change the rakeback program.
Well it got even worse than i thought it could be .
As a Hyper Turbo Sit and Go Player around 30% of my profit is made by Rakeback. So todays update hit me very hard.
Instead of the VIP Steps , you now have to complete progress to a reward chest ... so far everything seems to be the same . Well it is not . instead of haveing fixed reward you now get a chest with a random reward .
There is already a lot of variance at Poker. Do they really think it s good to add variance to rakeback too ? I don t think so but well.
I played a few games so far and generated around 15$ of rake . That gave me the chance to open 4 chests ... Yey ! There is nothing better than wasting my time opening chests ...
Here is the last chest I opened: 
Yeah it does look good. looks like this chest is worth a lot :D
I had to pay 5.6$ rake to be able to open this chest ... so lets see what we got there :D
0.1$ Tourney Money and 11 Starcoins + a little boost for the next chest ( close to worthless )
so lets say we got about 0.22$ there ... thats 4.5% Rakeback ... really ? I really can t think about any site that has a worth Rakeback ...In total I got 0.48$ out of the 4 chests... that ends up at 3% Rakeback ... really sucks.
So what are my options ?
A) Keep playing at Pokerstars and accept to earn 30% less by playing Poker
B) Switch to a other site with lower traffic , play less games -> also less Profit.
I ll for sure choose B because I dont want Pokerstars to earn my rake , they are just to greedy.
Maybe it doesn t hurt them , I only pay around 100$ rake daily ... but I really don t want to support this.
Someone else already has experience with the new reward System ? how much % RB did you end with ? maybe I have been just unlucky with the chest.
Good Luck at the tables @elbiasto
had to rake about 80$ for my first chest and got a little bit over 2$ out of it :)
sad day :), well other sites are out there fortunatly, as i will greatly reduce my volume
btw: option b doesn't mean less traffic as you don't have to play 1 site only (although it can be a hassle)
i played 7 sites, without a problem, all you need is the right tools (although that was cashgame and not sng)
Well cash is easyer , as you play longer at your table , I play hyper sngs and have to open new tables every minute ...that is kind of anoying when you use different sites , also the structure is a little bit different from site to site
yeah, i don't play cash anymore either :)
you could checkout partypoker, as they pretty much copied the popular stars games (pretty sure 6m hypers were copied) and they offer 40% rb, if you can rake 1.2k/week (otherwise it's 20-30%ish)
I already have a PP account ... but I really hate the software , also most of my Games are Spin and Gos , more variance , but way softer than the normal Hyper SnGs ... and the PP version of Spin and Go s is really bad. maybe I ll check out iPoker
they got the same spins (little bit ante - but ipoker got that too iirc) on the 3$ 50$ 100$ level if it's too low/high for you, you could keep an eye out if they add more levels
tbh didn't like them on ipoker, as the software is brutally slow
if you don't mind, you could checkout mpn, got biggish ante tho, buy ins from 1-50€, and super soft (30% rakeback + 20% deposit bonus + ?% from site promos)
Stars steal from people. I played there over 300k hands and I know what I'm talking about.They were ok 2-3 years ago but since the HU tables have been shut down, everything has gone wrong
I quited pokerstars some times. Its much more gambling than real poker. yes they are big scam
It will be interesting to see how this will develop. If a lot of regs move away from stars and the games get softer, maybe I stay.
I hope Party Poker is making some moves to get a cut of the cake back.
Gambling rakebacksystem is a freaking joke for regs. especially in high variance games like 6 max hypers I used to play were rakeback is a big part of your winnings.
For me as mainly spins player , I lose about 30% of my profit , and variance is increasing more thanks to the random Rakeback.
The great times of online poker are gone. Starting with the Spin & Goes and the random payout. Only Crap Games today, less skill, higher variance.
Learning a simple push or fold strategy has nothing to do with skill. This can be taught to a trained monkey.
I play mainly Spin and Gos , I m able to beat them by 100chips per game , it s more than playing push/fold , the player pool is very soft , thanks to the random pricepool it attracts more fish . What I think is much worst than Spins is the Beat the Clock shit , or 888 s Blast.
But that is the problem. Pokerstars does everything to get rid of the regulars and if possible only have fishes at the tables. It's like lotto. Anyone can win.
I don't care if you can beat a game or not. You don't learn poker from playing Spin & Goes. You only need a very basic strategy to play those games. All turbo and hyper turbo tournaments are much easier than deep stack tournaments or cash games. You can not compare them.
There is more strategy behind spins than you might think , of course most of the time you play HU , and for sure its different from a deep stack Mtts ... But i wouldn t say it doesn t need ski
Yes you need some skills, but much less. A good MTT player knows how to play Short Stacked, Short Handed and HU. If he is really good and played a lot of final tables. But he also needs so much more skills. Bubble situations, ICM situations, playing deep, using implied odds, much more floating in certain situations. Standard MTT players are much more complete poker players. You can adapt from an MTT or SNG to a Spin & Go. But never the other way around.
Spin & Go is a format for the fishes. Much more luck involved. All new pokerstars concepts are made specifically for the fish. Games in which the regulars can regularly destroy the fish are not desired. Therefore, the rake structure develops in exactly this direction.
Yeah i know , i played MTT when i was at university , but switched ti spins , because you can t combine Mtt with a 40 hour job , I just dont understand why everyone is hateing on spins ... Of course there is a lot of variance , but you can reach a higher hourly at spins rhan at mtt , 7% Roi is easy to archieve and you can play alot of games daily ... For sure i would prefer to play MTt , its more fun
I know. I have played 7-8 hour tournaments on stars. Thats not allways fun. Ok running deep is fun, going to bed when other people waking up, not really.
But you can also play zoom. Many hands in a very short time. More regulars, less fishes. And you have to play with computer support. Holdem Manager or Pocker Tracker, otherwise you dont have a chance in the long run.