PokerStars has released the 2017 World Championship of Online Poker schedule, and Isaac Haxton believes his former employers are playing the long con with their newfound interest in customer service.
The wait is over.
PokerStars has released the menu for the 2017 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP).
The crème de la crème of the 81-course feast runs from Sep 3 thru Sep 26 culminating with a hearty $5,200 $10m Guaranteed Main Event.
Click here for the full schedule.
Here is a summary of all things new.
With PokerStars placing barbed wire around their recreational players to keep the grubby hands of the evil pros and semi-pros off their prize cattle, the seriousness of WCOOP seems a tad out of place.
To remedy that, PokerStars introduced Mini-WCOOP in 2016 where players could take part for 1/100th or 1/1000th of the buy-in, in a similar way that PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) does things.
One year later, and the concept remains a wise one, even if the name has changed. PokerStars has sent Mini-WCOOP to the crematorium, and a simple Low Events WCOOP Schedule takes its place with buy-ins 1/20th the size of the Big Daddy, and more than $11m in guaranteed prize money. The Low Events run 24-hours later than their High-Level counterparts.
What else has changed?
The satellite system is a simplified one.
Satellites will be event specific, with some restricting you to a single seat {which should be the case en masse in my opinion}.
There is a new H.O.R.S.E Phase Tournament. Each daily Phase 1 event will focus on a particular H.O.R.S.E game, with the final Phase 1 day being pure H.O.R.S.E and the same from that point onward.
PokerStars want to ensure players feel like they are involved in the world’s greatest online poker tournament so have given players competing in the Low Events a 25,000 starting stack, and rebuy tournaments apart, 50,000 in the High Events. There will also be a new blind structure designed to encourage deep-stacked play.
Finally, PokerStars is ramming $700,000 in WCOOP tickets inside the new Stars Rewards Chests, and are rolling out an exclusive Player of the Year Series for non-Hold’em players.
Isaac Haxton Fires Off a Volley in PokerStars Direction
Professional poker players love WCOOP, but not all professional poker players love PokerStars.
Like Isaac Haxton, for example.
The former PokerStars Team Pro, took to Twitter this week, to publicly criticise his former employer, and he didn’t hold back.
Reacting to a Tweet from Alex Dreyfus’s promotion of a Steve Ruddock article commenting on PokerStars more customer focused attitude, Haxton warned poker players not to trust the motives of the world’s largest online poker room.
Stars lied and defrauded players out of millions. Any apparent generosity is to be treated as laying the groundwork for the next con. https://t.co/fSTFRwl6q2
— Isaac Haxton (@ikepoker) August 16, 2017
My quick two cents on this.
Large corporations have people at the top, middle, and bottom. The closer you get to the bottom the deeper the emotional connection with the customers. The closer you get to the top, the more emotional connection becomes replaced by cold hard rational and logical thinking.
The people at the top have all the power. The individuals in the middle and bottom are afraid to open their mouths for fear of being sent to the rail. The world of business isn’t a re-entry tournament. Once you are out, you are out.
Time is leverage.
The more time passes without the guillotine falling, the more time people in the middle and bottom have to talk sense to those at the top. At the same time, the decisions made by the top start to show their real value, not only on the balance sheet but in the hearts and minds of their customers.
PokerStars screwed up.
They left behind a huge mushroom cloud of pain and distrust.
PokerStars is paying for that screw-up.
PokerStars has recognised that screw-up.
PokerStars is changing.
In the poker industry, people have to think several streets ahead, but if PokerStars’s new attitude is an elaborate long con, then I will be amazed.
