Alex “Kanu7” Millar is one of the most prolific NLHE players in the world with over $7m in winnings and has been part of PokerStars Team Online Pro. Due to the recent PokerStars VIP club changes he no longer feels like he will be able to represent PokerStars, as he tweets:
I’d like to apologise to the players for my complete failure to be able to help in any way with the recent pokerstars VIP changes (1/2)
— Alex Millar (@Kanupoker) December 15, 2015
With @RealKidPoker eventually failing as well I no longer feel I can represent the company and I have now left Team Pro Online (2/2)
— Alex Millar (@Kanupoker) December 15, 2015
Thanks for the messages of support, I would reply individually but don't want to act like this is a celebration when it's really a failure
— Alex Millar (@Kanupoker) December 16, 2015
Many current PokerStars Pros have kept their silence apart from Daniel Negreanu, who has been the most vocal of them all. As the PokerStars lead pro, he took the matter very seriously, as he wrote on his latest blog post VIP Program Changes At PokerStars. Negreanu has decided to stay with PokerStars.
TwoPlusTwo reacted immediately, respecting Kanu’s integrity in the situation, in the thread PokerStars pro Alex Millar shows integrity with his resignation.
Kanu commented in the thread:
My contract expired already, they offered me another year but I decided to leave. Certainly I don’t get the impression that they plan to get rid of a load of Team Pro Online in the near future but I couldn’t tell you for sure, perhaps in a year they wouldn’t have asked me to renew again.
I still plan to play on stars. It’s -EV financially of course.
Hey Lavender, I just want them to be run ethically and with respect to the players. There are different ways they could achieve that but this is just a hypothetical, I’m not going to get that phone call. Unfortunately I don’t think the pros had a chance this time. We have managed to have a positive effect in the past in some cases but here I got literally nowhere with my discussions. Even Daniel, the face of pokerstars who is probably worth more than a dozen other pros to them was unable to get them to make any meaningful concessions here.
I’ll have to let other people speak for themselves on whether they plan to stay or leave. I expect the vast majority will stay but just because somebody hasn’t said anything yet doesn’t mean that they are happy with the changes or even that they plan to stay for long. It’s a lot easier to leave after your contract expires than it is part way through a contract so there could be people planning to leave when their contract expires. Don’t take this to mean that I expect a bunch of pros to leave though, that’s not the case, we’ll just have to see what happens moving forward.
Something I should say is that having been part of Team Pro Online for a couple of years I do know that the members of it often speak up and fight for the players on issues that come up but they do it internally. This is generally more effective than publicly slating the company that employs you. If you do that then you just get kicked off, could be liable for a lawsuit for breach of contract and you will probably not get anywhere. So even if people stay, don’t assume that they just don’t care about the players and are after their paycheck. The money is for sure a big factor for many people (and fair enough) but also there are people who take the decision that they will do more good by staying and trying to have an influence on future decisions. Obviously I have decided that isn’t the right route for me this time but I’m not going to criticise anyone for deciding the other way.
I’m not sure exactly how much I plan to participate in the discussion about the changes in all honesty. I’m happy to give my opinion but I don’t plan to lead a big anti-pokerstars campaign or anything.
Whether more PokerStars Pros follow suit, remains to be seen.