Which sites point systems sucks the worst?

[Odogg]

Bodog gets my vote. In order to obtain a point you must contribute to a pot and the rake must reach 1 dollar. So what can you get with these points?

Well you can join 300 - 500 of your fellow players in a 30 point 300 dollar freeroll. So 15000 points redeemed and they give back 300. So obviously I pass on a 5 hour marathon for a chance to win 60 bucks.

Well can I at least get a hat? Nope.

25000 worth of points sitting there doing nothing. What a waste.

[cain06]

Paradise poker is the same way. I deposited 50 bucks the other day and I got a 12.50 bonus. Unfortunately, the rakes at my current limit never get above $1 so I have only accumulated 2 points so far. Those were in a $2 buy in NL game I played once. /images/graemlins/mad.gif

[playersare]

most any site (including paradise) will want at least a 25 cent rake in order to be counted towards the bonus. this requires a $5 pot which obviously will be hard to achieve if your table buy in is only $2. perhaps you're confusing pot size with rake size?

paradise is somewhere in the middle of competition when it comes to bonus earning quality. most players on the board will gladly work the signups and reloads here if they are available.

[Thythe]

Like players said, Paradise is pretty decent, and I'll certainly do all of their reloads. You can't expect to earn any bonus money on any site playing $2 buy in NL. I agree with the OP that Bodog is very tough. It took me around 10 hours to clear $50 of bonus 3 tabling. The software is absolutely awesome, though. If it was a Crypto site with those rules it would have taken 40 hours to clear. I was in it for the 5000 PSO points anyway.

Of the main sites, Pokerstars and Ultimate Bet are pretty bad for bonus clearing. Gaming Club gets my vote for most annoying since you can only clear the bonus at specicific levels and their is no differentiation between limit and NL. I mean come on, is 2/4 NL really the same as 2/4 fixed? I think not.

[HesseJam]

But BODOG has the best whores if their banner on this site here is an indication.

[playersare]

going back to the OP, this thread is actually about the points systems specifically, not necessarily in terms of how they are used to clear a bonus, but more about what the points themselves are worth when accumulated (freerolls, merch and whatnot). here are some of my quick reviews:

Party Poker
freerolls - not bad just for fun. you get 1000 points just for depositing $500 or more for a week which is worth a minimum $2 value MTT with a guaranteed $5K added. and you can get enough points just from low limit ring play to earn at least one ticket to a cheaper tourney every few days.
merch - nothing to go nuts about but again these are relatively cheap considering that very little action is required to earn at least a cap or a shirt. basically the PP points system is very fish friendly and that's never a bad thing.

Poker Stars
freerolls - EPT level 1 satellites start at 15 FPP's which is very reasonable, also the 60FPP monte carlo is a really good value. there are also 50FPP weeklies but with only $250 at stake I'd skip that.
merch - cheapest swag starts at 300FPP so low limit players are probably ass out here. but if you play mostly ring games and are in the middle of working off a reload bonus, the extras aren't too bad, and are good quality items.

Pokerroom
freerolls - earn a minimum of 100 points in a single week (saturday reset) and you can enter a turbo qualifier for the major $6K NL freeroll on saturday afternoons (direct buy in 500 points). also a $3K fixed limit tourney on wednesday nights for 300 points. but if you don't accumulate AND redeem your points the week that you earn them, they become worthless. pokerroom has no system in place for banked unused points which I think is really lame.
merch - can't by merch with points either. double lame.

Ultimate Bet (most innovative award)
freerolls - UB points are worth about 0.5 cents each with tourney entries as low as 100 points. UB is the only site where you can wager and win other people's points in both ring game and tourney play.
merch - 1500 points for a cap is not cheap so don't expect to earn anything unless you're multitabling at least 2/4, and/or winning other people's points on the side. they have "uberprizes" from 20,000 all the way up to 4,000,000 if you're ambitious enough.
(UB would be the sh*t if their actual points earnings rates weren't so damn low to begin with)

Interpoker
freerolls - there are $2K and $1K tourneys which cost 2200 and 1100 points, respectively. good overlays but that's considering how hard it is to accumulate that many points in advance to qualify. hardcore crpyto whores and grinders might be able to earn one or two entries per month, if even.
merch - nope

Absolute
freerolls - lots of really cheap action with only 100 ARP minimum required (almost nothing considering you get 4 points just for each dollar you deposit). this is offset of course by the extremely low value of the points themselves - a maximum 1000 ARP entry has a cash value of only $1.43). if you like playing tourneys just for the sake of playing tourneys, then you will get your "money's worth" here.
merch - zippo

Full Tilt
freerolls - only a handful of times have they ever offered a points tourney, and each one required 2000 FTP's to enter which is pretty high. and the prize was only for Howard Lederer's Fantasy Camp, not cash.
merch - 1200 points for a plain white t-shirt or a deck of cards? that's $72 worth of bonus dollars there! then again what can we expect from the world's worst bonus structure for low limit ring players.

Bodog
freerolls - points are worth about 2 cents each and you get 50 points just for signing up, so you can enter the 30 points tourney right off the bat if you want. just bear in mind that you have to actually contribute to the pot to earn points, so the earnings rate is 2-3 times slower than the usual site.
merch - nothing yet but they do give out 2005 pinup calendars and mini-subs to cardplayer mag.

any other site requests?

[UncleDuke]

[ QUOTE ]
Paradise poker is the same way. I deposited 50 bucks the other day and I got a 12.50 bonus. Unfortunately, the rakes at my current limit never get above $1 so I have only accumulated 2 points so far. Those were in a $2 buy in NL game I played once.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you mean to say some other site than Paradise? Paradise only requires pots to be raked 25 cents to count towards clearing a bonus. At least, that's the way it's always been since I first played there, and a quick look at the footnote on the bottom of the cashier window shows that it still says the same thing now.

[BigBluffer]

Very nice summary. Thanks for posting it.

Let me chime in with PacificPoker! What a waste. As for the point system itself, you get one point for every $10 you bet in a raked hand. Get 100 points and you can convert that to $1 in your account. Whoopppeeeee. No freerolls or merchandise that I see.


My experience so far: what a waste! I deposited $100 to get the CardPlayer $100 new player bonus. First of all, they originally only gave me a $20 bonus. It took a phone call to a clueless customer service rep and a follow-up email before they finally got the bonus right 3 or 4 days later. I need 200 bonus points ($2000 wagered) to clear the bonus. So I start playing it off today. 3 hours later at one $1/$2 table I've accumulated a grand total of 6 -- read them: six -- bonus points! Holy crap Batman! I'll never clear this before the 30 day deadline. I will not play a higher level just to chase a bonus and I won't loosen up either. So, I think what I'll do is cash out my deposit and $38 winnings and play with the bonus money if and when I have nothing else better to do with my time.


Is there any way to play more than one table at a time at Pacific?

At least I'll have earned an extra $20 when I clear my bonus! /images/graemlins/grin.gif