PokerStars has outlined a plan to make significant changes to the way it does business in an attempt to attract and retain more recreational players, with wholesale changes scheduled for 2016.

Online poker can be very Darwinian at times. What started out as a game played for fun, quickly evolved into a virtual realm of natural selection, as the strongest more skilful players devoured those who were not.

Those that rose to the top of the food chain on PokerStars became known as Supernova and Supernova Elite. A profession was born – one without boundaries. It was like mass slaughter only over a prolonged period. Those not in the 2% club decided it was no more fun to play online poker. They started leaving in their droves.

A hackneyed quote attributed to Darwinism goes like this: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”