RB.com Staff Writer chosen to negotiate PokerStars VIP changes

[jspill]

congrats to Joss (xPeru on 2+2)



If you haven't been following along, basically a number of reps from the poker community have been voted to go to PokerStars HQ (on the Isle of Man) to negotiate some improvements to the stars VIP program. Here's Joss' bio:



Stars' decision to switch to weighted-contributed rake provoked a lot of discussion on the forums, including some ways to tweak the rake structure and VIP program to compensate for some players' loss of rewards. It also raised a ton of awareness about rake sizes, percentages, caps, etc. as well as just rake allocation methods (dealt vs contributed, etc.)

Joss is planning to focus on arguing for lower rake at microstakes, which hopefully should allow a lot more recreational players to move up in stakes faster and be great for the games. He posted this HEM screenshot showing how huge of a component rakeback is to your winrate at micros (or in other words, how high the rake is):



can make downswings/breakeven stretches really painful when you're paying ~10bb/100 in rake

[jspill]

He goes into a lot more detail about what he's aiming to achieve, under the name 'xPeru' on the 2+2 forums. He also appeared on the cardrunners podcast to talk about the upcoming trip

[Sandviper23]

+1 nice

go go go go

[grimReaper]

Even though I'll likely never play PS (as a free American), this is good, as it'll reduce the standard we've been forced to accept.

Congrats Joss. Tell them what's up

[travz21]

Keep playing nl100 imo.

[fionaho]

Congratz. Speak for players~

[jspill]

http://pokerfuse.com/poker-podcasts/rabbit-hunt/ Joss' podcast interview

[FlipCoach]

http://pokerfuse.com/poker-podcasts/rabbit-hunt/ Joss' podcast interview

Thanks for posting! Good stuff, but not even 1 Rakeback.com shout out.... oh well. Good listen anyway to be sure.

[Joss Wood]

Thanks for the support,

I've been putting in a lot of hours with the other 4 guys preparing for the trip. Nick (Hood) Jones has put together a neat application which analyses HEM databases and has provided us with lots of information on rake. I've put together a spreadsheet which takes that information and generates player profiles so we can see the impact of changes on winrates and VIP benefits. We've received huge volumes of hand data from other players, and have been reading everything we can to ensure that we've gathered opinions and ideas from as wide a variety of players as possible.

Now's your last chance to have your say! If you want to give me your ideas, please post them here, and I'll take them on board. I'll be writing an article about the trip when I get back, summarising what has been achieved, and I'll also report back in the forum here to answer any questions you may have.

Good luck on the tables,

Joss

[FlipCoach]

Thanks Joss, nothing extra from me. Hope all goes well. Can't wait to hear all about it....

Thanks for the support,

I've been putting in a lot of hours with the other 4 guys preparing for the trip. Nick (Hood) Jones has put together a neat application which analyses HEM databases and has provided us with lots of information on rake. I've put together a spreadsheet which takes that information and generates player profiles so we can see the impact of changes on winrates and VIP benefits. We've received huge volumes of hand data from other players, and have been reading everything we can to ensure that we've gathered opinions and ideas from as wide a variety of players as possible.

Now's your last chance to have your say! If you want to give me your ideas, please post them here, and I'll take them on board. I'll be writing an article about the trip when I get back, summarising what has been achieved, and I'll also report back in the forum here to answer any questions you may have.

Good luck on the tables,

Joss