PokerStars Commercial Banned by German Broadcasters

**johnsteed** · 11th December 2010, 05:21 AM

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I ought to throw them into the rogue pit for stupid casino tricks

What trick? Where's the deception? A lot of companies pump money into advertising, and the creative teams within those advertising firms at times, take things in the wrong direction. Or someone at PS had the wrong vision. As far as I know, the commercial wasn't even released.

Is the commercial in poor taste? Sure. Absolutely.

I generally don't care for their other commercials, but practically all of them would not be described as being in poor taste.

I've been playing at PokerStars (literally) on a daily basis over the past 2 years. I've never had any problem with them. Not one that couldn't be quickly resolved.

Whenever I fire off an email, they always respond, and they actually read each one of my questions, and answer each one of them in great detail. I'm thinking of about 100 or so casinos I've dealt with over the years, that can't even be bothered to answer anything beyond the first question (if they can even get that right).

Whenever I withdraw money (even as little as $10), it shows up in my NeTeller account 'instantly'. Not the 'instant' (24 hours) or 'lightning fast' (3-6 hours) that so many have accepted here, but actual 'instant' as it should be known as. I also have never had to provide any sort of ID (which is BS b/c it's your money). I know a guy who grinds the $12/180 S&Gs and makes 6 figures a year, he's never had any problems getting his money, and he's never had to provide any sort of ID... imagine that. BTW, how can something EVER be called lightning fast when it's not done in a split second?

This commercial (which wasn't even released) shouldn't bury PokerStars. They've done a lot of positive things for the online gaming industry. There's the PokerStars.net 'Million Dollar Challenge', and 'The Big Game', which help promote poker, and are generally geared toward the casual fan. There are also a number of poker players (specifically PS pros led by Michael Bolcerek - president of the national Poker Players Alliance) who have done and continue to do their bit in the fight against the online gambling ban, all the way to Capitol Hill. Where's MG and most of the other U.K. sites in all of that?

Most people at forums like '2+2', 'PocketFives', 'Cardrunners', 'DeucesCracked', 'LeggoPoker', etc, recommend playing at a place like PS (and if not there, then FullTilt). They can't all be wrong.

If I compared my experiences playing at PS, with say, any of the PrimaPoker network's sites (MG), it's no contest. With Prima, it takes a while for the games to fill up, as with most of the U.K. poker sites. There are too many NLHE 'extreme/hyper' games that one must play (and that's not poker) if you want to get any action. You can play NLHE, and that's really about it. Sure, they offer other games, but who's playing those? They used to have a bunch of S&G's as low as .09/.02 cents, but I don't see those anymore. If you want to play a S&G at a regular speed (their regular is on par with turbo at other sites), you can't play anything (AFAIK) for under a few dollars. There aren't many bigger tournaments to play, and as far as I can remember, not many of those tournaments are deep-stacked. I've also been tossed-out of two tournaments, yet the MG poker sites always blame the mistake on my end (when I know full well that they're wrong), and I have to prove that these things happened, providing them with information that they really should have on their end (going back and forth for days and tons of emails over a lousy $5). I reside in South Korea, and I don't have any connection problems whatsoever. Also, 'PlayCheck' doesn't ALWAYS get everything right.

PS on the other hand, despite having 1/4 of a million people playing at any given time, never have any problems like that (and if so, I'm not thrown out of the game completely... the games generally reconnect within a short amount of time). I've also been refunded cash on 3 occasions (a total surprise to me), b/c that they've found colluding partners working as low as the micro tournaments). Imagine that, I didn't have to track them down for that. Although I'd wish they'd ban the use of HU displays, they're excellent at catching bots (whereas a number of other sites don't seem to care).

My main knock on PS, is that it's generally regfested in certain formats (like the 9/18/45/180/DoN S&G's), but hey, it's even worse at most of the other sites, where there are very few people playing at any given time, so have little choice but to play the same people over and over and over again. I went to Cake Poker b/c it offers rake-back and it's generally perceived as being a soft game, which is great, if people were actually were playing there.

Another knock would be that they should have more moderators working at any given time (which is hard to do with so many people playing at once). There are FAR too many trash-talkers, saying the absolute worst things imaginable when they get knocked-out of a $3 tournament (?!). I've gotten used to it by now, but...

So, speaking as someone who plays at PS everyday, I fail to see why they of all of the groups out there, should be up for rogue-consideration. I can most certainly think of a number of highly praised casinos here that should be though! GOD knows how we all love being prudes, logging into these great sites, and reading through those extremely CLEAR T&Cs prior to making each and every deposit.