As a poker pro you may well think that once one of the two leading poker sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt, sign you up that you’ve made it and there’s no reason to worry about ever looking back. But, like a band that got famous off their first album and never really produced it on the second, in the ruthless world of poker there’s always a chance that you could be dropped.
Of the two sites mentioned above, PokerStars have been aggressive in their pursuit of a number of new players in recent months, including Viktor “isildur1” Blom and winner of the WSOP Main Event Jonathan Duhamel. Whilst we’re only speculating at this stage, this may well have been the reason that one of the longer standing members of Team Pro has now been dropped.
According PokerNewsDaily, a Tweet from poker pro Kathy Liebert seems to suggest that changes are afoot at the site, and one player has already bolted. The tweet read: “I heard that PokerStars was cutting many of their Team Pros’ compensation. Take it or leave it. Greg Raymer left it.” Another tweet saying followed it: “I think it’s a bad business decision to cut their pay, but most won’t have a better offer, so they stay.”
The most interesting part to all of this is that PokerStars seems to suddenly have started realizing that the return on their investment in a lot of cases is not being met – which may explain the decision to favour new pros like Blom and Duhamel over the old stagers.
It is also yet another clue that the industry is being forced to restructure in 2011 as has been predicted by Calvin Ayre himself. The model just does not work now that poker is not expanding as it once was.
Raymer won the WSOP Main Event back in 2004, winning $5million, and “Fossilman” is still actively involved with the Poker Players Alliance, but will now be looking for work elsewhere if these reports are to be believed
