Online Tournaments...Why is PokerStars the best?

Balut · #1 03-12-2007, 08:10 AM

I work as an Assistant Tournament Director for a casino in Australia. For the past couple of years, I have seen the growth of Poker in Australia first hand thus meeting literally thousands of new players to the game. Everytime they ask me for advice on which sites to play poker online, I always referred to Pokerstars as the best in terms of tournaments (new players, I found generally prefer tournaments).

Stars have had a proud tradition of amazing numbers in their regular tournaments, this was also the case even when Party Poker accepted U.S. players and was far and away the biggest room in the world.

My question is, why do people prefer Stars as opposed to other sites. An analysis on online tournament structures shows Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet as the best in terms player value to the increases in blinds.

I want to be able to give these new players informative answers to their questions, however, by simply saying its the biggest poker room can only go so far.

Thankyou in advance.

gobboboy · #2 03-12-2007, 08:19 AM

Do you work at the crown?

Pokerstars has the biggest fields, the most big tournaments and the best customer support. That's why it's so popular. If you ever have any problems with stars, it's getting fixed quickly. The million has over 6k people a week, all of them terrible. There are low buyins, big buyins, medium buyins of all games all day every day. It's the variety and size of the tournaments, not the tournaments themselves. The structure definitely needs work, but overall the tournaments are still great.

If anything will turn me off from a casino more than the games being spread, it's bad customer service and bad floorpeople. Understand the rules and why they're in place and understand what the players want. If you're fair for good reasons then the players will understand and want to come back if the fields are big and the big prizes are there.

So, bottom line:

1) Run a good, fair tournament.
2) Structure is important to the good players, but not so much to the general populace.
3) Big tournaments attract more and more players. Hell, add a guarantee if you want to attract a lot of players. Do a $200 freezeout with a 30k guarantee. That'll get people showing up.

And for the love of god, don't do rebuy tournaments.

JoseGonzlez · #3 03-12-2007, 08:33 AM

They have the most reliable software and the best customer service. They will answer any email, no matter how stupid, very quickly. A few years back i used to play party also and their tournaments used to always crash in those days so i never played there again.

Their success probably was from building up a loyal customer base. Than, once the site became the place to play it drew alot more people mostly because people want to play the largest fields.

In summary i think they are successful because they have reliably run tourneys and a loyal core of customers.

Balut · #4 03-12-2007, 08:34 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Do you work at the crown?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes mate. I was there to witness (well working on the floor anyway) you finish an impressive 2nd in this years Aussie Millions.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head...Customer service. Arguably the most underated aspect of any successful poker room. Stars has never had the best deposit bonus or offered rakeback, so its interesting to note how successful they have become. It just goes to show, poker players appreciate high standards in Customer service as opposed to bonuses.

Interesting...thanks Jimmy

JoseGonzlez · #5 03-12-2007, 08:39 AM

Gobbo's points on guaantees is right on.

The 20 dollar noon tourney on stars used to draw 500. They put a guarantee on it for the same amount it averaged and the number of players doubled overnight. Same thing with the morning 8 dollar rebuy.

So a guarantee, even one that you can comfotably reach, might be a big draw.

burningyen · #6 03-13-2007, 10:52 AM

[ QUOTE ]
And for the love of god, don't do rebuy tournaments.

[/ QUOTE ]
Take a deep breath and think about what you've just written.

Soulman · #7 03-13-2007, 11:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I think you may have hit the nail on the head...Customer service. Arguably the most underated aspect of any successful poker room. Stars has never had the best deposit bonus or offered rakeback, so its interesting to note how successful they have become. It just goes to show, poker players appreciate high standards in Customer service as opposed to bonuses.

[/ QUOTE ]
And yet, Stars couldn't touch Party in # of customers back in the day. CS isn't everything.

I don't play at Stars at all anymore; the competition is so much softer elsewhere (I'm Euro) at comparative buy-ins, I really don't see any reason to. Sucks, because I really like Stars...but not reason good enough.

Kyer · #8 03-13-2007, 01:30 PM

What sites do you play on, Soulman?

Soulman · #9 03-13-2007, 02:06 PM

Kyer,

I play on Crypto, Party and OnGame first and foremost, as well some other sites for individual tourneys (Mansion for the $100kg, Boss for their Sunday MTT etc).

Kyer · #10 03-13-2007, 02:56 PM

Thanks.

This is a point I should think about a bit. I learned the game on holdempoker/pokerroom, but left for Stars, when US-players were banned due to impatience to wait for 30-mans to fill up, too few MTTs offered etc.

I like Stars and how things are going there for me, but you are bringing up a good point, I should obviously consider.

Can you recommend a nice and simple Crypto-client?