PokerStrategy Discontinuing Black Member Events

PokerStrategy is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) online communities for poker players. A combination of a highly popular forum, easily accessible coaching materials, and free starting capitals helped them grow into what they are today, attracting members from all corners of the globe.

What makes PokerStrategy different from other similar sites is, in part, special events organized for their members dependent upon the status achieved. Black Member status is the highest possible tier and brings with it the most perks.

So when PokerStrategy announced a couple of days ago that Black Member events will be discontinued after August 2015, it wasn’t a surprise to see many players not very happy about it. The status of Black Member is achieved once a player earns 500,000 lifetime points and that status can never expire (unlike the other lower tiers).

Together with live coaching and access to a VIP forum section, Black Members were able to regularly participate in the special events that took place all over the world where guests were treated like true VIPs. However, those events will soon be no more.

The explanation

A PokerStrategy representative explained in the post linked above that Black Member events are simply no longer a feasible option due to the latest changes in the world of online poker. More and more rooms are turning toward recreational players, and with that shift VIP players who generate massive amounts of rake have been losing value.

Affiliates are getting paid less for their VIP players and this dictates some budget cuts. Black Member events cost a lot of money to organize and thus they are among the first perks to be cut out. The last of these events will take place in August 2015.

As was further explained, the changes made by poker rooms as of late are seen as necessary to maintain a healthy ecosystem with enough new and depositing players. PokerStrategy, as one of the major affiliate sites, will also do their part in trying to attract more recreational players to the game and have already implemented some changes geared towards achieving that goal.

Players disgruntled

As was expected, players were far from happy to hear about these changes. The number of Black Members and those aspiring to achieve such status were told that much of what was promised at the outset of their journey will no longer be available.

In the original thread, some posters went so far as to say that becoming a Black Member has lost its allure and that the move would cost PokerStrategy a number of serious members in the future. One of the head admins at the site, going under the alias ‘Marta,’ acknowledged player concerns, but explained that the decision was unavoidable.

A similar thread appeared on 2+2 where players proceeded to voice their concerns over this and other recent changes.

Some two weeks earlier, PokerStrategy also discontinued their hand judging service where players could post their hands and have them evaluated and discussed by PokerStrategy coaches. The service has been replaced with highlight threads, but this change also caused some dissatisfaction among a number of members.