Players Plan To Stop Playing Each Other To Reduce Rake Paid On PokerStars
HUSNG professionals from levels $60-1,000 have announced that they plan to stop playing each other in protest against the recent rake increase. They began on November 3rd, and plan for this action to last at least one week, through November 11th.
Ibavly, a $200s regular, announced it on the twoplustwo forums. Professionals inside and outside of groups have largely agreed to this action. Their aim is to bring about positive changes for HUSNG players by pointing out that a great deal of rake is generated in HUSNGs by games played between two regulars.
They plan to strike until at least November 11th. HUSNG.com will keep you updated with any new developments as they happen.
on a larger scale. How difficult would it be to create a poker players union?
For example if the membership got large enough, you could protest things like this by having MASS amounts of volume sent to other sites simultaneous as well as have some negotiating power with those sites. Also coordinated strikes like this or sitouts. It would be much more oragnized than it has been historically and may be more effective.
I may eventually try and start something like this.
What other sites?
Fulltilt?
"If you want to win, you must not lose!"
I think we have to sent letters from all HU SNG players like CAP HU players have done it. And they agree to sent letters with our terms. Can anyone write normal text for massive letter.
It will be interesting to see the effects of this strike. To try to put some initial numbers up, here goes:
A 20% rake hike, will on year to year basis mean that pokerstars could be expecting to receive rake-value of about 10-weeks of current yearly profits. Assuming that action does not decrease.
I don't know how big a percentage rev v. reg is out of total games, and surely it increases in buy-in levels. Yet, versus a potential 10-weak profit increase in rake, a one week strike, with only reg v. reg action halted, is therefore a pretty small stab to the yearly profit pokerstars could be expecting.
I believe that the best way to get around this problem would be to contact another poker site, and basically offer them all reg v. reg action in exchange for proper terms for HUSNGs, i.e. low rake at higher levels. Pokerstars would still be left with the biggest fish pool. Regs would have to use different sites depending on which games they seek. I think the leaders of the strke-movement should look into that option too.
Lastly, I think it is clear that the pokerstars management strategy is to make it pretty difficult to live on grinding poker. The effect will be a lower reg basis, and a better experience for recreational players, which should give more volume . However, it seems outright silly that they can't give good terms (low rake) for high stakes games, because recreational players don't go there anyway.
best thing to do would be to not only strike but have them all play on a different site any site just not stars or full tilt show another site just how much head up playres pay in rake for 1 week and then move on to next site
it might inspire a different sight to drop its heads up cash and HU SNG rake down to encourage all the head up players across from stars