Alex Millar Quits Team PokerStars in Protest of VIP Changes

The decision by PokerStars to cut its VIP program for high-stakes players has caused some of the the game’s top online pros to protest the move in the strongest terms. This has included such notable names as Phil Galfond, Justin Bonomo, Mike McDonald, and Daniel Cates, to mention but a few.
Despite also being against the rewards program alterations, high profile player Alex Millar found himself in a conflicted situation as the Team Online pros could not afford to be too vocal in his views, and instead said he would try to change PokerStars’ mind from within the system. Unfortunately, Millar’s efforts seem to have all been in vain, and on December 15th he tweeted the following message:
“I’d like to apologise to the players for my complete failure to be able to help in any way with the recent pokerstars VIP changes. With @RealKidPoker eventually failing as well I no longer feel I can represent the company and I have now left Team Pro Online.”
Millar’s drastic decision soon received an outpouring of support from those fellow pros similarly affected by the VIP Rewards changes. While appreciative of their support, Millar would obviously have preferred not to have resigned, and subsequently tweeted:
“Thanks for the messages of support, I would reply individually but don’t want to act like this is a celebration when it’s really a failure.”
Alex Millar is one of the top online cash game players in the world, having amassed $3,294,787 in winnings playing under the screen name ‘Kanu7’. This year, however, has been less kind to Millar who suffered losses of -$136,042 on PokerStars, making the site’s January 1st 2016 Reward program cuts all the more potentially damaging to the pro’s bottom line.
Alex Millar now becomes one of the most high-profile players to quit Team PokerStars since Victoria Coren-Mitchell did so in November 2014, as she sought to distance herself from PokerStars’ move towards a more casino based  gambling model.