Alexander Grischuk, known as “JohnSmith” on PokerStars high stakes games, has spoken up against the overall changes on PokerStars ever since Amaya Inc acquired the company from the Rational Group, lead by Isai Scheinberg. Grischuk is a two-time SuperNova Elite on PokerStars but also a chess Grandmaster and one of the best chess players in the world. At the peak in 2014 he was ranked 3rd in the world.
Grischuk has now decided to voice his opinion on the PokerStars strategy over the past year. His post was published on Russian poker site Gipsyteam, of which wearepokerplayers.com has published an English translation. Wearepokerplayers.com is the site leading the January 1-7 strike against PokerStars.
Grischuk starts off his post by remembering the good old days when everything was still nice and dandy:
I’ve never come across such professional and friendly support personnel on any site (not just poker-specific) in my entire life. I remember when one day, I decided to play a game at PokerStars before a chess match in Monaco. Some time later a “Support chat” window popped up. Although I did not seem to be in violation of anything, my first thought was: “OMG, I f***d up.”
“Hello Alexander,” the message said. “Hello,” I answered. “I’m your biggest fan; good luck today in your match against Kramnik.”
Also, many of us can remember moments when we have been disconnected while playing at PokerStars, and support helped us get our lost money back no matter whose fault it was: the player’s provider or the site’s server. I once got about $3,000 back. And it went without saying that your every letter to support was answered within 10–15 minutes, and almost every time, it was the stuff, not the fluff.
The tone of the article quickly turns sour, as one might expect from a professional poker player’s point of view:
After rising to power, Amaya started practicing small (and big) dirty tricks. One day, they introduced a fee for currency conversion; another day, they increased the rake for the CAP games, or even canceled tickets to the Main Event for SNEs. It came as a bombshell when Amaya recently announced the cutting of rakeback for Supernovas and Supernovas Elite as well as the elimination of any rakeback in any cash game at more or less high stakes (I’d say that 5/10 is the upper edge of the mid-stakes).
He goes on to list 3 motivations for these changes; itchy palms, greed and stupidity. He is not shy voicing his opinion on the possibly reasoning behind these changes:
So why is Amaya doing all this? I have three theories.
First — ultimate incompetence. I guess there’s nothing more to explain here.
Second — Amaya (or, rather, its managers) are experiencing some troubles that we don’t know about, and they want to increase their income — fast and at all costs. And they act as if there were no tomorrow.
Third — they don’t need the poker site as such; probably, they are not satisfied with the percent of the deposits that belong to them and/or the speed of turning the deposits into rake. The plan is to shift to the model of the casino/betting shop while retaining the giant database of players.
From my point of view, the main problem isn’t even the changes that have actually taken place. Rather, it’s the fact that it has become quite clear that changes for the worse will take place on a regular basis, and the company has in fact declared a war against at least the professional players and maybe even online poker in general. Of course, this all became possible only with the PokerStars monopoly on online poker.
A lot of players share his view and are thankful that Alexander and others have spoken up. Another recent high profile player to take action was Ike Haxton when he announced quitting PokerStars Team Pro Online.
The strike on PokerStars goes on until January 7th, Nutblocker follows the situation and developments closely, stay tuned on Twitter @Nutblocker for more news.
