Just a few days ago we reported on a meeting between PokerStars and particular poker players to discuss the VIP changes to the brand that have caused two separate boycotts of the brand to take place. Dani Stern, Daniel Dvoress and Isaac Haxton were included in the meeting as they have been vocal on how they are not happy with the changes to the VIP program of PokerStars, namely to the Supernova and Supernova Elite programs.
The players issued a statement over the weekend, trying to give as much information to the public as they can. The pros met with Amaya and PokerStars executives on the 18th of January to discuss the VIP program and over the weekend, the players took to TwoPlusTwo to report what happened. According to the post, the meeting took place for an eight hour time frame and everyone involved had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that would prohibit them from talking about any information of financials that were discussed including the ecosystem of PokerStars.
The statement read that the highest priority of the players going into the meeting was to discuss the decision by PokerStars to not provide the rewards in 2016 that were promised to those who earned the Supernova or Supernova Elite statuses in 2015. The pros reminded officials that it was not too late to make right on the rewards promised.
David Baazov, the CEO of Amaya, did join the discussion, but only briefly, with Stern describing the CEO as someone who was not in touch with the environment of online poker. Daniel Negreanu was also at the meeting, a pro on Team PokerStars who has criticized how the changes were announced to players. Vice President of Corporate Communications of Amaya as well as PokerStars, Eric Hollreiser, was also present, having stated a statement from corporate would be released today.
The players reported that officials of Amaya denied having a ‘firm obligation’ to give the SN and SNE earners of 2015 the rewards they had promised and stated that the executives didn’t feel that doing so would be in the best interest of the company. The players did admit that Amaya had compelling evidence as to why the current ecosystem of the online poker site had to be retooled. However, they did not believe that that changes would impact PokerStars as the executives seem to believe.
Under discussion during the meeting were the Hyper SNGs, of the high-stakes variety. The players state these are not beatable without the benefits that were given to the high volume players. The executives stated that they are aware of the games and that there was a likelihood that the games would be impacted and the games would be monitored closely.
Despite the meeting with PokerStars and Amaya, the group were not able to bring back good news to players. In their statement, the three stated they deeply regret not having good news and tried their best to argue the cuts in the VIP program but ‘PokerStars is not willing to reconsider any of the changes’.
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