Poker Criticism Doesn’t Conform To Reality

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Monday, September 19th, 2016 | Written by Charles Washington

When you’re the most well-known brand in an industry, you expect people to love you but also to scrutinize your every decision. Just like celebrities, these brands benefit from their fame, but are also lambasted when their actions seem to go against the expectations of their customers. The online poker industry is not immune to this phenomenon, and it seems with every announcement PokerStars makes, social media lights up with just as many complaints as there are posts of excitement or congratulations.

While negative feedback can be beneficial to help companies improve, the criticism is only beneficial if it’s rooted in fact and not just a side effect of people not wanting things to change. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of the negative things people are saying about PokerStars falls into the latter category, and aren’t rooted in fact at all. Here are some of them:

– “VIP Program changes mean PokerStars doesn’t care about its most loyal players”

While it’s understandable that people who make a living playing online poker panicked when PokerStars rolled out wide sweeping changes to its VIP program, blaming a lack of loyalty to its so-called grinders missed the point. PokerStars found itself in a situation where it was unable to grow its business because new players and recreational players were turned off by being at the table with grinders who were caught up in multiple games, and not interested in interacting.

A change was needed to help improve the experience for all players, and Amaya felt confident that it would not impact high revenue players in the long run. Recent data from the company shows they were right, as the amount of revenue generated from these players has remained unaffected by the changes.

– “The start times for the new live tournaments are too early. Players won’t want to participate and dealers will be in bad moods”

No one wants to get out of bed at 6AM to go and play a poker tournament, but the 10AM start that is usually required of players is hardly the wee hours of the morning for most people. The average person gets up much earlier than that to go to work, and dealers and players alike shouldn’t really struggle to make a 10AM tournament table.

– “Amaya has ruined PokerStars”

Many people think that the changes that have taken place since Amaya took ownership of the company have been detrimental; however, the truth is that some of these changes were already set into motion before the operator was sold. Critics often act as if Amaya is the kiss of death for poker sites, citing examples like OnGame and Full Tilt being shut down. In actuality, OnGame closed because it became redundant after a merger, while Full Tilt was purchased at a time when there were only around 2,000 people at the tables, with the site also subsequently becoming a redundant product.

Critics Failed To Take Account of Reality

It seems like many professional online poker players look back on the game with rose-tinted glasses, remembering a time when the game was experiencing an unprecedented level of popularity, and the fish were practically throwing their money at online grinders. Following the UIGEA of 2006, and Black-Friday in 2011, however, the online poker landscape has changed dramatically, not least because the lucrative US iPoker market was suddenly separated from the rest of the world. As well as declining numbers, the recreational players that did continue player became increasingly well informed as to the nuances of the game, and what they could reasonably expect to earn playing poker. They subsequently became less of a mark for the ‘sharks’, while also moving up the poker ecology food chain themselves.

Needless to say, a lack of recreational players would soon sound the death knell for the online poker industry, therefore operators have since been exploring innovative ways in which to make the poker landscape more attractive to this important group of customers. This includes limiting the use of Heads-Up Displays (HUDs), stamping out so-called “bum hunting”, and reducing multi-tabling. While these innovations are not well appreciated by online grinders, they are still necessary in order to ultimately benefit the long-term prospects of the whole industry, and the pros who make their living from it.