Hi Scott,

I think it is the nut worst thing Stars has done to the community as a whole. I’m a recreational player, so supposedly one of they guys Stars is trying to help if you believe the rhetoric from late last year. My schedule before this month would start around 14:00 UK time with the Big $5, and I’d be regging most normal speed tourneys between $2.20 and $13.50 until about 19:30, I would play the 2 2r’s at 14:30 and 15:30 and the Hot $11, they were the only tourneys that weren’t straight FO 10 min(+) blinds type tourneys. I would play the Big 5, 8 and 11 in that time, and play around 15-16 tourneys in total. So lets say that 25% of the tourneys I would play, were very big (3000+ runner) tourneys, with the rest being a lot smaller, lower variance affairs. It’s nice to play the Bigs where I have a shot at hitting a very nice score, but I know that the bulk of my ROI comes from the normal, lower Gtd tourneys. I’ve just worked out what my Stars schedule is now. It’s a maximum of 14 tourneys between 14:00 and 20:15, of those 14 5 are turbos, 4 are bigs, 3 are bounty builders. The other 2 are a $7.50 PSKO which will have a big field and a $5.50 deep stack. So now I’m in a position where 13 of the 14 tourneys I play, I will have to negotiate my way through 3000+ players to potentially win, and with the flatter payout structures they’ve brought in, run like an absolute god to make any decent profit.

I’m so annoyed about the whole thing. When Stars talk about doing things to help the recreational poker player they don’t mean guys like me who manage their bankroll and play a couple of days a week, they mean guys who log in, deposit $200 and play 4 $50 tourneys or 2 $100 tourneys. I naively thought that when they made the changes last year that it would create opportunity for guys like me to progress up the ranks as some of the regs moved away from Stars and the game, but whats becoming clearer every day is that Stars don’t want anyone to make money at the game, they just want them to lose it at a slower rate as that means more rake for them.

I’m going to take a look at the Party and 888 schedules to see what’s worth playing there, even though I loathe their software. If I can’t find much worth playing there thats lower variance, I might have to question if it’s worth playing online at all. I doubt Stars will care or miss the rake I pay if I make that decision.

There’s a thread on 2+2 discussing it at the moment thats got to 193 pages already, I’m going to c+p the bulk of this there too as I lost my last post with a misclick (gg!) just to put my 2 cents into the mix. I’m just so annoyed at the whole thing.