Just yesterday, we reported that poker players were planning on boycotting PokerStars from the 1st to the 3rd of December. Now, we have learned that 888Poker is taking full advantage of the poker players avoiding PokerStars online poker room. For the next few days, 888Poker will be offering a 50% discount on the rake of specific cash games as well as increasing the guaranteed prize money offered in a few of the their daily tournaments. The goal seems to be to try and attract the PokerStars players as they avoid their regular home site.
Over 2,500 high stakes and high volume players are supposed to be boycotting PokerStars starting today and over the next few days. Cash games have been quieter as of today and 888Poker has quickly decided to offer certain incentives to bring these players to their site. The rake for Pot Limit Omaha games will be reduced to 2.5% from 5% for the 200PL and up games. Two new tournaments will be offered for MMT midstakes players with increased guarantees.
For the next three days, 888Poker will provide a $5,000 guaranteed 8-max NL Hold’em tournament at 1:00pm GMT with a buy-in of $55. At 3:00 pm GMT, the site will provide an additional tournament with a $5,000 prize pool with a $30 buy-in, game play in turbo style.
888Poker is also providing increases in prize pools for daily events. The most notable increase is with the Tuesday Volcano which has a buy-in of $600. The event usually has a prize pool of $85,000 and today will see the prize pool increase to $100,000.
It will be interesting to see if 888Poker sees a nice increase in player traffic over the next few days and if PokerStars is greatly affected by the boycott. PokerStars has yet to respond to the boycott and player feelings over the VIP changes to the site. Daniel Negreanu, PokerStars pro, did respond in an interview with Joey Ingram on Poker Life Podcast.
Negreanu talked in depth on the changes at PokerStars, stating the changes in player rewards for the PokerStars high volume players was an inevitable change. However, he did state that he was not happy with the way the changes were communicated to players, stating he sees the way the site handled the changes as a ‘broken promise’.
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