Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew Latest Star to Leave Team PokerStars

Randy “nanonoko” Lew is yet another PokerStars Team Pro member to ditch the online poker site.

Who's next?

It seems to me André Akkari.

I think everyone likes Randy ''nanonoko'' , I like his aggro poker style but also his character .It's a shame he leaves team PokerStars . I hope he joins soon enough another team , so as to have a sponsor , because he deserves it and he has many fans .


Who's next ?? Who's neeeexttt ????? all of the pros wonder (except Daniel) : I am , you are , he is , she is .....???? This time of the year to be a Team Pokerstars Pro is one of the most stressfull jobs out there , at any moment you could be with no job , without any further notice or warning . Isn't there a PokerStars trade union to stop this?? Daniel speak up !!! lol


Now again seriously , good luck Randy to your next games and for your rest of your poker career

The last to leave the room turns off the light.

Originally Posted by acidburnfx

The last to leave the room turns off the light.

LOL! I wonder what kind of business PokerStars would have if all the pros left.

I wonder wy he leave?

I like this Article... "There are Many ways to Plane a Door" A Carpenter once said to me... There are also Many ways to View a given situation... Here's My View...

https://www.cardschat.com/news/randy-lew-nanonoko-pokerstars-poker-79373#comment-226909

Originally Posted by kostas1234

I wonder wy he leave?

He said that: "my poker drive was slowly running out, as it happens to a lot of people."Randy wanted a quiet, measured life.

Sounds like he was required to do things that he didn't really enjoy. I've always thought that the idea of having to leave the US to play online poker can't really appeal to a lot of Americans - certainly it's not something I could see myself ever choosing to do for any long period of time.

Originally Posted by Shells

Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew Latest Star to Leave Team PokerStars

Randy “nanonoko” Lew is yet another PokerStars Team Pro member to ditch the online poker site.

Who's next?

Yeah after getting booted from US, I'm not surprised many have left

Good luck to him!

The next ones who know how to play poker.

I wasn't that crazy about the site... God tournaments though

What a shame! Maybe Akkari is the next too.

I would hate it too if part of the job description was to stream day in and day out. He's a professional poker player so donations he gets on twitch wouldn't add that much to his income. Being unable to play poker freely in the comfort of your home, while being forced to stream for hundreds of viewers doesn't sound appealing at all.

I haven't heard of any reasons for this...just wondering

I was in a $5 spin/go game with one of the pros very recently, Spraggy. Very unusual.
Perhaps being forced to play these low levels was the straw.

Honestly don't care if everyone leaves pokerstars that's where I will play.

Originally Posted by Shells

Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew Latest Star to Leave Team PokerStars

Randy “nanonoko” Lew is yet another PokerStars Team Pro member to ditch the online poker site.


Who's next?

Yeah somethings up with poker stars I think. I also saw on a youtube vid a while back that Jaime Staples left poker stars. Whos Next?!?!?!?!

Dream, be a player and still be dishonored !!! Who knows with a lot of study and the result one day I get there .... write to Mr.WesleiNF

IMO It is government regulation & player access that drive the industry. I have NEVER made a personal gaming choice based on who plays/works where. Many players & sites before Black Friday proved that Pro presence DID NOT indicate honesty at any level.

New fish may be star struck. They "feel" rather than think about anything. Those with brains & experience make their own decisions based on real world factors relevant to their lives. Just like Randy has done.

His life has changed after years of grinding. He indicated his own needs are no longer being met by his professional "job". He is not throwing insults or blame at anyone. He wants & needs a break. Good luck & God bless, Randy. Employee turnover happens for many reasons. Some will go & others take their place. Player volume will be more affected by winning & losing, game & prize pool availability & reward programs. IMHO... World keeps turning & life goes on. They stay "large" by staying honest & providing the gaming experience desired by the regular players.

God bless.

Originally Posted by John_3_16

I have NEVER made a personal gaming choice based on who plays/works where. Many players & sites before Black Friday proved that Pro presence DID NOT indicate honesty at any level.

You might not have but back in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, Fulltilt Poker, Pokerstars, & Absolute Poker were flooding the tv channels with advertising. Also at this time shows like 'Poker After Dark' became very popular which also aided in boosting the advertising & numbers of players flocking to the sites. There was huge hype around it during the BOOM & I have no doubt that many new players were driven to play on the same sites as the players they saw on tv were playing on. (I know I did). My first deposits were on Fulltilt & Pokerstars.... Fulltilt quickly became my favorite (& still to this day it has always stood out as my all-time favorite... I think in many ways they did a great job with that company). Unfortunately things did go for sh1t .
You've lost me on this comment though >> "Many players & sites before Black Friday proved that Pro presence DID NOT indicate honesty at any level"
Care to explain?

Nanonoko was probably the best Twitch streamer. When I had my poker drive, it was fun and informative to have his streams playing in the background. He also had home games where he complimented good play.

Originally Posted by John_3_16

IMO It is government regulation & player access that drive the industry. I have NEVER made a personal gaming choice based on who plays/works where. Many players & sites before Black Friday proved that Pro presence DID NOT indicate honesty at any level.

New fish may be star struck. They "feel" rather than think about anything. Those with brains & experience make their own decisions based on real world factors relevant to their lives. Just like Randy has done.

His life has changed after years of grinding. He indicated his own needs are no longer being met by his professional "job". He is not throwing insults or blame at anyone. He wants & needs a break. Good luck & God bless, Randy. Employee turnover happens for many reasons. Some will go & others take their place. Player volume will be more affected by winning & losing, game & prize pool availability & reward programs. IMHO... World keeps turning & life goes on. They stay "large" by staying honest & providing the gaming experience desired by the regular players.

God bless.

When did you start playing poker online? How did you hear about it? What site did you join first.... & why? (come on... let's get some 'honesty' here)

whats that saying when pro´s stop endorsing a site................pokerstars has become known as crapstars,,,,,,,,,,,,

Originally Posted by Poker Orifice

When did you start playing poker online? How did you hear about it? What site did you join first.... & why? (come on... let's get some 'honesty' here)

From the immaturity you have displayed in responses in the past I don't like you at all. Honest enough? Calling me a liar does not help illicit positive responses either. Your questions, concerns & accusations are useless & empty IMO. 3 year olds should not be interested in poker anyway.

Excerpts from online poker history. Much more is available on sites & pro players involved. I guess some memories of the pro's & sites involved are "selective". Or some folks simply were not negatively affected or have their own aversion to the word "honest". Below is a quick search. Tons are out there with many of these heroes losing cheating suits as late as now. Others have or are traveling other lost paths. Theft, armed robbery, prison & drug use/sales come to mind. Trump can deny the truth. He cannot change it...
Random Notes:

Why Online Poker Exploded from 2003-2006:

• Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP in 2003 as an amateur fueled by an online satellite
• Poker made for compelling television for the first time as miniature built-in cameras showed the cards players were holding
• Online poker sites blitzed television and print with never-ending ads targeting young males
• No government intervention made for easy deposits and withdrawals
• Mainstream celebrities jumped on the bandwagon
• Online poker is a real skill-based way to earn money from home

...Black Friday...
In a 51-page indictment, the FBI and US department of justice are seeking to recover at least $7.5bn (£4.7bn) and have moved to freeze dozens of bank accounts in Switzerland, Cyprus, Andorra, Luxembourg and elsewhere, including the UK.

Full Tilt and PokerStars have spent millions advertising on British media in recent years and are among the most popular sites with UK players.

The US indictment triggered a worldwide crisis for Full Tilt, after it failed to satisfy Alderney regulators that its activities inside and outside the US were in good order. Players in the US have launched a class action claiming the site is refusing to return their money. Alderney suspended Full Tilt's licence two weeks ago. A message on the site says: "The system is currently down."
...
...
Insider cheating can occur when a person with trusted access to the system (e.g. an employee of the poker room) uses his position to play poker himself with an unfair advantage. This could be done without the knowledge of the site managers.

Perhaps the first known major case came to light in October 2007, when Absolute Poker acknowledged that its integrity had been breached by an employee, who had been able to play at high stakes while viewing his opponents' hidden "hole" cards. The cheating was first brought to light by the efforts of players, whose saved histories of play showed the employee was playing as only someone who could see their opponents' cards could.

In 2008, UltimateBet became embroiled in a similar scandal, with former employees accused of using a software backdoor to see opponents' cards. UltimateBet confirmed the allegations on May 29. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission announced sanctions against UltimateBet as a result.
...

...
The online poker community has continued to be strong, with tens of thousands of players playing online poker at any time day or night, but a number of scandals and scams have shaped online poker history over the years.

In 1999 a company named Cigital cracked the supposedly random number generator used by Planet Poker as the root of the RNG was based simply on the current time. This was announced and the poker room corrected the problem.

It’s believed that no one used this flaw to win money, but it came as a jolt to the industry and introduced the concept in many players’ minds that they could be cheated. Sadly, this fear was reinforced years later with a couple of higher-profile cases of cheating.
...
...
The next scandal involves poker pro Dutch Boyd and the room named PokerSpot in 2000. Poker Spot was owned by Boyd and was the first online poker room to offer tournaments and quickly gained popularity for this reason.

PokerSpot forced out of business in 2001 as they stopped paying players. The site claimed it was caused by credit card processors in the end, but they supposedly told players that the check was in the mail repeatedly as they were sinking. Estimates of the amount players never received are almost a half-million dollars.
...
...
One of the most insipid scandals in online poker history was perpetrated by insider cheating at Absolute Poker and UB

In 2007 Absolute Poker admitted that an employee had somehow altered the software and was playing at high limit tables while being able to see the opponent’s hole cards. Sadly it took a group of players tracking a number of hands against the cheating player who recognized patterns of play that showed the player was cheating before the poker room even started investigating.

This was a much bigger deal than the Planet Poker scandal because players were actually cheated out of money and the online game had become much more popular. The popularity made the coverage of the event spread faster and to a bigger audience than the earlier scandal. Some estimates put the amount of funds stolen through cheating at over 10 million dollars.
...
...
The very next year, in 2008, UltimateBet went through almost the same scandal. A few prior employees stated that insiders could use a software backdoor to see their opponent’s hole cards. UltimateBet later admitted this was true.
...

...
Full TIlt Poker was an incredibly popular trusted poker site right up until it refused to pay US players back in 2011

Full Tilt Poker was accused of cheating players out of over 300 million dollars by the US DoJ on September 20, 2011. The claims included that the site had paid out 444 million to the owners and team players of Full Tilt, but would not pay out players following the events of Black Friday

Names associated with Full Tilt Poker included Ray Bitar, Rafe Furst, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson. In July of 2012 PokerStars agreed to buy Full Tilt Poker and pay penalties to the DoJ. All civil complaints against both companies were dismissed.
...
...
Phil Hellmuth Issues UltimateBet Statement: “I Made a Horrible Read”
13th May 2013

The statement is also far, far short of being honest when it comes to describing Hellmuth’s true role at UltimateBet. He wasn’t just a spokesman, kids; he owned pieces of both UB and and iovation, the online security firm also led by Greg Pierson that was spun off from UltimateBet. All the people on that tape are people who also helped make Hellmuth a ton of money.

I was posting in a forum over at Todd Witteles’ small PokerFraudAlert site last week, talking about the Lock Poker situation, when a classic quote by Upton Sinclair came to mind:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

That applies to many people in poker. To those at Lock Poker, who brought it to mind for me, to people like Joe Sebok and Annie Duke, and most particularly, to Phil Hellmuth. Hellmuth isn’t a cheater, but he willfully deluded himself for years about the nature of the very people that he surrounded himself with and called his best friends — Russ Hamilton, Greg Pierson and Daniel Friedberg, along with Sanford Millar, the fourth participant in the most damning of the released recordings.

They helped make Hellmuth rich; the flip side of that is that Hellmuth needs to accept some secondary responsibility for all the poker neophytes he helped toss onto the UB pyre. “I made a horrible read” doesn’t quite cut it.
...
...
Lock Poker stole millions from players in one of the most grievous scams in online poker history

Lock Poker was a fairly popular US facing poker room after Black Friday but ended up going bad and cheating players out of an estimated 15 million or more. The site had a history of slow payouts and toward the end there were some complaints of close to two years of unpaid cash out requests. The room closed on April 2015, but had been on many blacklists since as early as 2010.
...
...
Other issues with online poker cheating is bots and the possibility of collusion between two or more players. If two or more players are sitting at the same table and sharing their hole cards they can alter the outcome of the game by quite a bit over time.
...
...
Black Friday proved that it only takes a few hundred million dollars to be best buddies with the US government

On April 15, 2011 indictments against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/UB were opened and all three sites had their domains seized by the US DoJ. This effectively drove the three biggest poker sites out of the US market.

The only main site that was offering play to US players that didn’t get nailed was Bodog (who has since been rebranded to Bovada). It was interesting why they were able to avoid some of the issues on Black Friday while the other three sites mentioned above didn’t.

It is believed that the founder of the company, Calvin Ayre, was smart enough to see the writing on the wall and set things up by this point in time so the DoJ couldn’t do anything to the business.
...
...
Leave it to PokerStars to capitalize on the UIGEA and Black Friday, two of the most devastating events in online poker history

Only PokerStars reached an agreement with the US DoJ that included buying Full Tilt Poker and paying almost $1 billion in fines. Later the company was acquired by Amaya Gaming and the new company has been able to maintain the lead in player traffic at a dominant level.

Operating after the UIGEA and paying almost a billion dollars to keep its non-US games ended up being an incredible business move. PokerStars has been approved to offer poker to the regulated US market in New Jersey.
...
...
2012: US States Make Online Poker History
New Jersey is the largest market of the few states that run licensed online poker games in the US

Three states have taken the initiative and offer some form of regulated online poker. The federal government largely defers gaming rights to individual states, allowing them to make up their own minds on individual laws or hosted games.

Nevada in 2012
Delaware in 2012
New Jersey in 2013

The first regulated poker hand in United States online poker history was dealt on April 30, 2013.

Most players located in the US hope that more states jump on board and the regulations reach a tipping point and everyone can play on a regulated site.

The next major hurdle is the agreements that have to be in place for states to share player pools. This could all be taken care of on the federal level but the feds have basically washed their hands of the entire thing and have left all of the decisions to the individual states.
...

The professionals are leaving. Exciting event. Do these actions lead to the death of Titan? For new players there is nothing at all.

I think Pokerstars not affect

I gotta question why all these players continue to jump off the Pokerstars ship. I would think rake free gaming, tournament entries, plus salary would be attractive to any professional player. Makes me wonder how bad are the conditions or what’s happening behind closed doors. I know stars has taken a lot away from players such as supernova elite benefits and added rake. What’s the reason for so many unhappy employees that they would rather quit?

As of right now they seem to have the stranglehold on the world wide market..
How much of their revenue really comes from their pro deals?
As long as they have the ALLTIME tourney money leader as their poster boy, i don't think they'll feel a huge hit at all.
The real problem is going to come when there's enough big names backing one of the new sites that'll pop up in their wake... Like Ivey's Virtue Poker, for example. Their concept over at Virtue is radical enough to shake things up in my opinion.

I am new here, but I used to know that those guys at PokerStars were like #1. Why are the all leaving now?


Should I search this thread for the answers are just ask you?

Originally Posted by Shells

Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew Latest Star to Leave Team PokerStars

Randy “nanonoko” Lew is yet another PokerStars Team Pro member to ditch the online poker site.

Who's next?

Originally Posted by John_3_16

From the immaturity you have displayed in responses in the past I don't like you at all. Honest enough? Calling me a liar does not help illicit positive responses either. Your questions, concerns & accusations are useless & empty IMO. 3 year olds should not be interested in poker anyway.

I guess that means you're not going to answer my questions.
Perhaps you weren't drawn to play online poker as a result of the poker boom. I assumed you had been... my mistake.
Pretty sure I didn't call you a liar. Guess you're reading something into that.
My questions .. were questions. They were meant to obtain an answer (if you chose to). They weren't concerns or accusations ... where do you read this??? How about just sticking to what is written instead of bringing in all of your own pent up b.s. /chip on your shoulder crap & start assuming I'm saying stuff that I'm not.
They were simple questions. Instead it seems you chose to write a book. I glanced at it.. but didn't read it once I saw you weren't even answering ANY of the questions. I hope you enjoyed yourself when you wrote it.

Nonoko was awesome but I think when coming to understand professional poker you have to understand you need side income or backers and variance can make or break your life and cause you to leave the game entirely when you were obviously the best.
Mike The Mouth Matusow GREAT PLAYER GREAT CONVICTION AND DEDICATION TO THE GAME. Smashes players makes the great calls and gets rivered by 2 outers. He should be a 10 WSOP Main event champion but variance says he still needs to get a backer.
Having side income whether it is from poker or modeling (yeah i'm looking at you phil eating a whopper) Variance will make the greatest the brokest it cares not who it affects and how much.
I hope no poker pro loses his contract as poker is not a safe world to be in

Originally Posted by TravelerLloyd

I am new here, but I used to know that those guys at PokerStars were like #1. Why are the all leaving now?


Should I search this thread for the answers are just ask you?

Feel free to read the link and you may find some answers.

Well, I think there are other things besides poker that can give you happiness ... of course, after being happy playing poker for many years and piling up a lot of money ... I think that after having success in poker you have the right to decide that things to do to be happy.

Everyone seems to be joining up with party poker. Can’t wait to see how party and stars start competing with one another.

why they leave

Originally Posted by CptRunBad

Everyone seems to be joining up with party poker. Can’t wait to see how party and stars start competing with one another.

like they are not doing that already

It's sad to hear another Poker Pro leaves Pokerstars. PokerStars has the majority of the Poker Pros in the world. These guys are role models to many persons in the poker community. There is always a reason for an action like this.

Maybe nothing to do with it, but the software additions including those stupid throwables are turning it more into a computer game than a serious poker site.

Yes I know you can disable all that but it should be the default option and not requiring you to delve into settings.

The rewards scheme is also rubbish now.

Originally Posted by Mahdi

like they are not doing that already

This post was made over a year ago in April of 2019 when stars lost all their ambassadors...lul

Originally Posted by CptRunBad

This post was made over a year ago in April of 2019 when stars lost all their ambassadors...lul

oh, checked last posts only for dates

Originally Posted by mkdrummey

Maybe nothing to do with it, but the software additions including those stupid throwables are turning it more into a computer game than a serious poker site.

Yes I know you can disable all that but it should be the default option and not requiring you to delve into settings.

The rewards scheme is also rubbish now.

I'm with you about the throwables - I'm not a fan of them either. I'm more interested in observing what my opponents are doing than throwing a piece of crap at them, or a fish hook or any of that other nonsense.

I personally like live poker better

I think the next one could be Felix (xflix). I see him making his way to a new horizon independently.

do not tell me is that Randy "nanonoko" abandoned, but surely it was for some very complex reason that made him make that decision

Cause pokerstars aunt sh#it...the only person I like at at pokerstars is hello my babies

The throwables are the craziest crap ever. Feel like I am playing with 8 year olds.

Originally Posted by mkdrummey

Maybe nothing to do with it, but the software additions including those stupid throwables are turning it more into a computer game than a serious poker site.

Yes I know you can disable all that but it should be the default option and not requiring you to delve into settings.

The rewards scheme is also rubbish now.

Originally Posted by acidburnfx

The last to leave the room turns off the light.

acidburnfx...there's a place open for you now!

Quite a few people leaving Pokerstars, there must be something I'm not aware of?
I haven't been following poker news too much in the past few years, so if anyone has more insight on this matter and wants to share would be great.
Thanks!