Tournament Players at Losing End of New Changes
Published on February 16th, 2019 1:09 pm EST
Pokerstars made another change to their loyalty program recently and many tournament players aren't happy. Some of these players are so unhappy, in fact, that they will be boycotting the $5,200 Turbo Sunday event this weekend on Pokerstars.
Earlier this week, Pokerstars announced that the reward point earning rate for tournaments would be falling from 100 reward points/€1 in tournament fees paid to 45 reward points/€1 in tournament fees paid. This is a big hit for people who like to grind tournaments on Pokerstars, especially at the higher buy-ins.
"Giraf Ganger", who posts under the @girafganger7 account on Twitter, is a very successful tournament player who decided that something should be done to protest Pokerstars' latest move.
Here is what he said on Twitter:
"As the dude who just won 2 Turboseries in a day and 50% ROI in everything I reg; rake does not affect me. But I will be boycotting the 5k on @PokerStars because it's -EV rake/structure combo. @partypoker has a nice 3k, great structure/halfrake that I will be shipping instead."
The response was quick, as a number of high stakes tournament regulars pledged that they would be boycotting the $5,200 Turbo Sunday event on Pokerstars as well.
Some of the names that have reportedly decided to boycott the event include "lena900", "c.darwin2", "Big_huni" and "bencb789". The list is quite long and it will be interesting to see how Pokerstars handles this situation. According to Pocket Fives, 250 players have vowed not to play in the event.
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partypoker has jumped into the fray as well, as they decided to offer a $5,200 buy-in event on Sunday with a total guarantee of $1 million. In adding the event, partypoker reminded the general public that they do not charge rake on the bounty element on their PKO tournaments.
Given the size of the boycott, partypoker should see a massive turnout for this event.
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Many players have been unhappy with Pokerstars for a long while, as they have made numerous changes to their rewards and rake structure over the years, and these changes have been very much to the detriment of players that grind online for a living.
There is no reason to expect anything other than more negative changes in the future, which is why it is so important to establish legitimate contenders (in terms of traffic) to Pokerstars, such as partypoker, 888 and others.
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Filed Under: Online Poker Rooms
