THE UB SNG BONUS IS A SCAM

[kurtcobain]

These numbers are from memory, so feel free to tear me apart if I'm wrong, but...

The SNG bonus gives you bonus dollars; it takes 10 ultimate points to redeem one bonus dollar. I played $2/4 nl for about half an hour the other day, and earned something like 30 ultimate points ($3). Pokertracker said I raked $26. These numbers may be a little off, so lets say the bonus dollars give you 10% off the rake. Big deal. I've never looked into it, but I assume UB, Party, and Stars all have the same rake (homogoneous product, perfect competition).

I earned about $2,000 bonus dollars the first week (they made an error and didn't cap it), and then I realized that it's basically just a 10% rake break. I seriously considering leaving UB and forgetting the "bonus" dollars.

Now, UB is without a doubt the worst of the three major online poker sites. There are the fewest players (fewest fish) and the site crashes every other day. The only reason I like it is their "bet pot" button, which really puts the AG in LAG.

I'm pretty sure this promotion is a ploy to prevent people from going over to the new online pokerroom, fulltilt.com, and to boost their sales, given they have less players than party and stars.

Does anyone who plays $2/4 NL hold 'em and $100 sngs (or somewhere near that) have any reason why I (or anyone) should stick with UB? Maybe UB is fishier at those stakes...I never really investigated it. I know, though, that when I used to play on Stars, site crashes weren't a regular occurence. Party, last time I checked, only lets you buy in for $200 at the $2/4 nl game, which is their highest NL game. UB sit n gos, for some reason, seem tougher as well. Who knows.

So, any thoughts on:

1) the july sitngo scam really just being a ~10% rake break
2) UB being a horrible site
3) games on UB are harder to find (less players) and possibly tougher (less fish?)


THANKS

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure this promotion is a ploy to prevent people from going over to the new online pokerroom, fulltilt.com, and to boost their sales, given they have less players than party and stars.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh.... duh. So how is that a scam? The SnG bonus beats playing SnGs without a bonus which is what I would be doing on other sites. I make 50% in bonus money, then go work it off on the limit games, which I would also be playing since that's only 1 of 2 sites where I have a pending bonus to cash out.

Are the players tougher? Probably. Will it improve your game? Defintely. Why complain about it?

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure this promotion is a ploy to prevent people from going over to the new online pokerroom, fulltilt.com, and to boost their sales, given they have less players than party and stars.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ya think?

[BradleyT]

[ QUOTE ]
Why complain about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because he could have been playing party/empire with his 20% rakeback and much fishier players instead of doing what looked like a great promotion?

[Cosimo]

[ QUOTE ]
The SNG bonus gives you bonus dollars; it takes 10 ultimate points to redeem one bonus dollar. I played $2/4 nl for about half an hour the other day, and earned something like 30 ultimate points ($3). Pokertracker said I raked $26. These numbers may be a little off, so lets say the bonus dollars give you 10% off the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly.

In 30 minutes, UB took $26 off the table--not from you personally. If you personally paid $26 in rake, that means that you drug 9 pots each over $60 within that half hour. That sounds a bit high. At a 2-4 NL table, their rake page (http://www.ultimatebet.com/rules-strategy/rake.html) says that they'll take 50c for every $10 in the pot, up to $3 in rake. That suggests that the average pot at that table was about $20, or 5BB. That sounds far more reasonable.

The amount that you paid into that rake is most likely a bit less than 10% of that $26. If there was no rake at all, there would be $26 more on the table, but only $2.60 of it would be "yours".

The UB bonus is essentially a rake rebate, and in limit games it works out to about 2-3BB per hour.

[kurtcobain]

There you go. I still don't like UB though. Any comments on the fishiness of UB versus stars or party?

[Big O]

Some people just play UB only. So why not make free money and if your good enough you'll make some money at the S&G's. So I say rock on UB, keep bringing in these Promo's

[mack23]

Good of you to back it off a little /images/graemlins/blush.gif Yes I agree the SNG promo does look much better than it actually tastes. BUT you should know by now the notoriously difficult task it is to earn pending bonus $$ on UB, this is a well documented topic. The hope is to actually win a little $$ while trying to collect your bonus money, doesn't that sound good? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Yes the SNGs are MUCH tougher than on PP, and there are less fish. That describes UB pretty much all around.

-Mack

[threeonefour]

The online poker market is more like monopolistic competition with a differentiated product.

Almost all sites offer different games at different rates. Also, SNG's and MTT are setup differently between sites.

There is also some oligopolistic quirks to the market too because customers are pretty afraid to deposit money into new sites(zerorake has what seems like a great business model for the customer but at the same time they are unable to attract many people) so there seem to be some barriers to entry(beyond geographical ones).

[UncleDuke]

[ QUOTE ]
1) the july sitngo scam really just being a ~10% rake break

[/ QUOTE ]

In some cases, the bonus will be worth a good deal than 10% of the rake, for example, say a 3/6 limit table has $3 rake per hand (conservative, sometimes it will be less), and you earn 1 ultimate point per hand. On a full table, say you win one of every 10 pots, so your share of rake would be $0.30 per hand. Since 10 points convert $1 of bonus, you'd be getting about 30% rake back there.

On the other hand, the sng promo isn't putting this money directly into your pocket -- you have to clear it later by playing more. This certainly reduces its value unless you planned to play at UB a lot anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
2) UB being a horrible site
3) games on UB are harder to find (less players) and possibly tougher (less fish?)


[/ QUOTE ]


I haven't played there much lately, so I haven't experienced the the crashes. In general the software seems good. The number of games seems ok to me, although certainly not as many as at Party. I do agree that the games are *much* tougher than at Party. They seem a bit tougher than at Stars as well, but some may disagree on that point. In any case, I find the games at UB so tight that the games elsewhere are far more profitable. This is the main reason I don't think the sng promo is worth it to me. I think it's more +EV for me to play the softer games elsewhere even without a bonus.

-UD

[Cosimo]

[ QUOTE ]
In some cases, the bonus will be worth a good deal than 10% of the rake, for example, say a 3/6 limit table has $3 rake per hand (conservative, sometimes it will be less), and you earn 1 ultimate point per hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

The pot would have to be $60 (10BB) for $3 in rake to be taken. Any rake over $1 ($20 pot) generates the per-hand maximum of 1 Ultimate Point (UP). A $20 pot is just over 3BB, or just under 7 small bets. $3-6 is probably the fastest way to clear the bonus, but it's not the most efficient.

I was getting about .11 UP per hand at 25c-50c, about .19 UP at 50c-$1, and about .36 at $1-2. (Each sample here is over a thousand hands.) .36 points per hand works out to 36 UP per hundred, $3.60, which is 1.8 BB / 100h.

No, this isn't a great bonus like the Empire and Party bonuses I have seen. However, it's still decent. If you're going to be playing at UB anyway, it's a great way to rack up additional cash. I'm playing nothing but SNGs this month in order to take advantage of this -- tho I'm going to have to play the equivalent of forty thousand 2-4 hands to clear my pending bonus dollars. UB has, in effect, locked me in for the next three months.

[tdiddy]

[ QUOTE ]
The UB bonus is essentially a rake rebate, and in limit games it works out to about 2-3BB per hour.

[/ QUOTE ]

And don't forget you can start your own table (be 1st or 2nd player to sit) and earn double bonus points. It's a great deal for a $2/4 or higher limit player. For example, if you can beat the $2/4 game for $6/hour, you will be making about $6/hour in bonus bucks and $12/hr if you are getting double points. How many $2/4 games do you know of that you can beat for $18/hr? Now play 2 tables at a time and your making $36/hr playing low limit $2/4. It's an excellent deal. Stop whining about it!!

[happybhoy]

"3) games on UB are harder to find (less players) and possibly tougher (less fish?)"

I've taken a hop from VC poker SNGs to UB SNGs and am finding the UB ones a joy to play. I had a wee warm up on the .01/.02 limit game and was amazed at how tight it was - what the hell happened to no-fold'em hold'em.