John Duthie No Longer At PokerStars

It has recently been announced that poker pro John Duthie has parted ways with his sponsored site PokerStars, after the UK player decided not to renew his contract with the online poker room.
John Duthie, 53, came to prominence in the poker world after winning the £6,000 buy-in Poker Million tournament in 2000 for £1 million ($1,426,330), becoming the first player to win that amount while televised. Duthie has since gone on to amass an impressive $3,108,077 in live tournament earnings, including finishing 2nd at the 2009 WSOP $10k World Championship Heads-Up  for $386,636, and winning the 2010 FTP Late Night Poker for $200,000.
However, John Duthie’s influence on poker extends far beyond playing at the tables, and the English television director is also responsible for creating the European Poker Tour (EPT), of which he is currently the CEO.
The announcement of Duthie’s departure from Team PokerStars Pro, set off a flurry of speculation on the TwoPlusTwo forum as to the reasons behind his leaving. One story that has been making the rounds recently concerns PokerStars’ proposed rake changes effective January 1st, which will award Frequent Player Points (FPPs) weighted on how much a player contributed to the pot, as opposed to the former “dealt” method.
The rake changes then sparked protests from players, with some TwoPlusTwo forum posters subsequently linking the two stories together. Eventually, John Duthie felt compelled to intervene on the forum and dispel the whole debate, writing:
“Hey Guys….I’m afraid this decision had nothing to do with the VPP situation or the ‘Sit-Out’; it was quite simply that I didn’t want to renew my contract which expired 31st December. There was also no Tweet to this effect. All very self-centred to be honest.
Love the idea of being ‘Tribune of the people’ but sadly this is not the case.”
Other top players who have left PokerStars recently after their contracts expired, include Joe Hachem and UK WSOP bracelet winner JP Kelly.