Party till you Cruise II -- Party wised up

[CLC]

Looks like Party did not think about some of the ways to "earn" the cruise the first time around. I just took this from their website:

[ QUOTE ]
YOUR LAST CHANCE TO JOIN THE CRUISE!
Party until Friday (Feb 18th), earn more than 15,000 Regular Party Points and you will be able to buy a “PPM IV package” worth $12,600 for just 25,000 Party Points! ..... 10 “PPM IV packages” are available! ..... As soon as you have earned 15,000 Regular Party Points please send a mail to info@partypoker.com telling them that you have qualified and you would like to purchase the package for 25,000 Party Points. Packages will be given out on a first come, first serve basis. .... <font color="red"> Note that you will have to earn 15,000 Regular Party Points. You can only earn these Party Points by playing on the site. Bonus Party Points (which you can earn by referring friends, making deposits, playing during happy hours or playing regularly) will not count. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

So if you missed out the first time, here is your chance to "kill" yourself again. /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[jasonHoldEm]

LOL..wait until microbob sees this.

[teddyFBI]

The fu**ed up by excluding happy hour points. They've essentially made it impossible (by my calc's) to accumulate 15,000 points in 3 days.

Suppose you 4-tabled the 15/30 full games; that's approx 200 hands / hr = 180 points / hr. That means that you'll have to 4-table continuously for 84 hours between now and Friday. Given that there are only 72 hours in that time period, they've officially made it impossible for 15,000 points to be accumulated -- although ppl are free to point out holes in my math...

I guess you could 4-table the 15/30 short games, but you still got to sleep some time...no way this is possible.

[Frequitude]

...unless you 8-table 6 max

[CLC]

How can you 8-table Party with one account????

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
...unless you 8-table 6 max

[/ QUOTE ]

You know how to get 8 party tables open ? lol

[CLC]

That was probably the intention from the get-go. They were probably SHOCKED that someone did it in the first place!! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Frequitude]

Note to self: remove foot from mouth

/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
LOL..wait until microbob sees this.

[/ QUOTE ]


just saw it. pretty freakin funny.

Should I do another marathon to win another cruise?? LOL.
(not a chance btw - just got back from an excursion to Tunica and I will NOT be staying up very late tonight).


When I sent them various e-mails the last time they kept trying to assure me that anyone who referred that many players would be scrutinized. Eventually, one of their support members went so far as to say that 23 RAF's on the first day probably wouldn't be counted because it would be so suspicious.

Obviously I didn't know whether they were yanking my chain or not at the time.
Seems they have wised up to the 'alternate' strategies of getting this....and, in a way, seem to have listened to my e-mails (and perhaps the e-mails of others).

I wonder if they turned down any RAF-attempts from the last time...or if they accepted a couple of them and decided that this isn't the way they intended it to be done.

[MicroBob]

teddy fbi said:

[ QUOTE ]
The fu**ed up by excluding happy hour points. They've essentially made it impossible (by my calc's) to accumulate 15,000 points in 3 days.

Suppose you 4-tabled the 15/30 full games; that's approx 200 hands / hr = 180 points / hr. That means that you'll have to 4-table continuously for 84 hours between now and Friday. Given that there are only 72 hours in that time period, they've officially made it impossible for 15,000 points to be accumulated -- although ppl are free to point out holes in my math...

I guess you could 4-table the 15/30 short games, but you still got to sleep some time...no way this is possible.

[/ QUOTE ]


you are incorrect.

1 - on the 15/30 jackpot games you get 24 points per 20 hands. you probably would want to play those and not the 15/30 full games. I played the 10/20 6-max.

2 - You have more than 3 days to do this. Tues, Wed, Thu, Fri (assuming that it starts immediately...if it doesn't start until Weds then you are correct that it is only 72 hours).


3 -
I earned 6696 'regular' points on my last day of playing

I earned 16038 'regular' points in my last 3 days of the promotion.
(I only got 2454 'regular' points on the first day because I only played from 5a-1p and then slept and then went to dinner and an NBA game that night from 5p-1a).


after my slow-start first day I earned 4518 and 4824 'regular' party points on days 2 and 3 and probably only played 14 or so hours per day.


10/20 6-max earned points much faster than I anticipated.

With virtually NO table-selection (just whichever one was open first) I was typically getting close to 100 hds/hr per table.
Some of these during the overnight hours were 3 or 4 handed which might make them go a bit faster of course...but also leads to a greater likelihood that you'll have hands that aren't raked so I'm not sure whether they were better or not.


Anyway, I was getting close to 4k hands on 4-tables during the 10-hours of happy-hours. And would earn 3400-3500 in 'bonus' points during that time.

Thus, you can assume about 330-340 points per hour 4-tabling the 10/20 6-max.
Probably more if you are more focused than I was. I had a lot of time-outs on the tables because of some disconnect crap while surfing 2+2 and typing posts here and generally losing concentration.


I think if you're more focused and caffeinated you can get closer to 360 points per hour 4-tabling 10/20 6-max.


Anyway, to do it in 3 days will take about 44-45 hours of total play.

Perhaps as few as 40-42 hours (if you get 360-370 points per hour)


If it only takes around 42 hours....AND if you got to play tonight as well and have it count...
Then you could play 5 hours tonight..and then 18.5 hours on Wed and 18.5 on Thu and you would likely get there by Thu-midnight.

It's probably overkill though as I suspect that if you got there by Friday night that you would have a very good chance of winning the cruise.
Plus...42 hours wouldn't be enough if you're only at 340pts/hour.

But there's certainly no reason why you couldn't do 15 hours on Tue/Wed, Thu and Fri and make it there.


If you try to do this....make sure to hit them with your confirmation e-mail as soon as your points-page is updated.
Although I was able to keep at them and say "look, I know the page isn't updated yet...but when it is I KNOW that I will be over 30k points and will be eligible for the cruise" and they finally worked with me a little bit just to get it in a bit sooner.
And then I sent them another one once the points page was finally updated (which I think is typically at 9:30-10:00am eastern time or somewhere around there).


Good luck gang....I proved that it can be done.
Will be interested to see if somebody goes the no-sleep route this week trying to get it.

My GF and I are still super-duper excited for our trip.

we were sitting here booking our flight today (which party doesn't pay for btw) and we're counting the days.

[Brian]

[ QUOTE ]
All tournament players MUST be at least twenty-one (21) years of age. This is a WPT requirement.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/frown.gif /images/graemlins/mad.gif

I was considering going for it this time since there wouldn't be any referral shenanigans and it'd only take a few days instead of a whole week, but oh well. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

-Brian

[soah]

[ QUOTE ]
Bonus Party Points (which you can earn by referring friends, making deposits, playing during happy hours <font color="blue">or playing regularly</font>) will not count.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't get points by playing regularly? Hmm.

[edfurlong]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Bonus Party Points (which you can earn by referring friends, making deposits, playing during happy hours <font color="blue">or playing regularly</font>) will not count.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't get points by playing regularly? Hmm.

[/ QUOTE ]

As in five days in a week or twenty in a month.

[Nick B.]

I am going for it. I have been up since 5 am Tuesday and been playing on Party since 8pm. I will see how long I can stay awake.

[ctv1116]

You could always play as a team on shifts...and then everyone has a stake in the player as a % of the 15K points they earned or something.

[Kumubou]

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my friends/roommates playing on my account.

Besides, how would you split a cruise? The only thing I can imagine is that you and a SO both played well enough to play at 0 EV or better at that level, and even then if you're going 24/7 that probably trips some heruistc-based cheat detection on their end.

-K

[MicroBob]

Not sure about that.

I received a PM from a guy who said he was going to try to stay up for the whole stretch and perhaps see if he can get in all his hands that way.

I obviously recommended he try to at least sneak in a 2-4 hour nap somewhere in there.
But I think it is possible that someone REALLY motivated could go for over 24-hours at a clip.


when I did it there were a bunch of posters who thought that even if the Refer-a-friend dudes were shot down that I still wouldn't have any chance because of all the supposed teams out there.
Well, I did it in 4 days...and really could have done it in 3 and still gotten some sleep in there (and heard from someone who did just that)...and I still got it.


IMO....even if you started RIGHT NOW there might still be a chance that you could get this. Obviously it's not a guarantee. But you'd have a shot since all the people will probably be finishing on the same day (Friday...except for the guy who says he's going to just not sleep and try to do it by midnight Thursday) and I thnk it comes down to who e-mails party first when the points are updated.


So...if I finish at 2p on Friday...and you finish at 11p on Friday...we both still have to wait for the points to be updated Saturday morning around 9:30a or so. that's my understanding anyway...but it's Party so anything is possible.

[Player12345]

[ QUOTE ]
I thnk it comes down to who e-mails party first when the points are updated.

[/ QUOTE ]

this assumes there even is a limit to the seats they will award. my money says the stated limit is in place to create the fever but that nobody accomplishing this will be turned down. this is party poker. they could give away a thousand seats and not feel it.

i did not hear anyone compain about not getting a seat last time and i read several forums.

[MicroBob]

Interesting theory.

But yes...they do lose money if they give-away a ton of these since it all goes into the prize-pool so I think you are overlooking that part.


BTW - FWIW, there was one guy on here who said he was supposed to get it because he had some inside-info or something and that they turned him down. He was pretty pissed about it.


Between the other forums you frequent how many people do you know of who claimed to have gotten it?

[Player12345]

i did not see the guys post here but i bet he was full of crap or they determined his points were gained by bogus TAFs.

these are nice promos for party to offer and one person who played 5 straight days and bubbled would make more noise than you can imagine and also negate the entire goodwill created by such a promo. i read cp, rgp and upf and there is not one horror story of a denial when you won yours. if i had tried for one and came close i would have raised hell. most people who have these points and play the hours required are likely forum contributors and we would have heard from them.

nobody but party knows whenther they awarded 30 or 100. there is too much risk in bad PR to enforce the stated cap.

i only saw 4 or 5 others discussing it and they all got seats.

[Player12345]

[ QUOTE ]
they do lose money if they give-away a ton of these since it all goes into the prize-pool so I think you are overlooking that part.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is crazy bob. this is for their own cruise. the more people who play, the bigger the pool the more publicity etc. this is marketing costs that i'm certain they are not concerned with break even.

[MicroBob]

I agree that the guy who came on here didn't seem too credible.


Only 5 or 6 guys getting it with zero guys complaining is not fool-proof evidence of your theory of course...but I do agree it's interesting that nobody has heard from anyone who said they reported their 30k points too late and therefore didn't get the cruise.


I wouldn't think party would care too much about the crappy publicity of someone not getting it.

Maybe it's possible there just weren't enough 10/20 6-max multi-tabling marathon-maniacs out there and they didn't even give-away 20 seats to begin with on the first one.


Remember, almost 500 people had won seats via the satellites...so a lot of people who really wanted the cruise already got their seat.
This, of course, eliminated a lot of the players who would have otherwise tried to do the marathon.


I really don't know though...you are correct that only the folks at party really know all the details on this.

[MicroBob]

If they give away 30 seats then that is $300k they are just adding into the prize pool.


I doubt that building their overall prize-pool from $7-mil to $7.3-mil is worth the $300k in expenses.


If they aren't getting back most of the money in rake then they are certainly hurting themselves.


All the other people who won it via satellites won it from money contributed from all the other players (except I heard somewhere that they had some decent overlays in these sat's).
But for teh cruise promotion...they need to get that money in players getting their hands in at the table.
It's not like the prize-pool money magically appears out of nowhere.

[Player12345]

as we agree, nobody but them knows and the rest is speculation. my speculation still says they will fill every last seat/cabin that they can and these promos are a great way to do it because they reward the hardcore base. but my speculation also takes into account for the fact that this hardcore base are the very last people they would alienate with an email that says they bubbled. giving it to all the maniacs that accumulated the points is a great way to spend part of a marketing budget. turning someone down is a great way to completely void the benefits of such a promotion.

let me put it this way. had microbob bubbled, they would not have been very happy with the publicity.

[MicroBob]

until we hear from 1 or 2 credible folk who say they got the required number of points but were told they were too late your theory has merit.

[Dead]

You're a crazy guy, Bob. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

You have my respect for playing so much poker in such a short amount of time.

It's really a great story. If you win this event you could probably write a book about it.

Dead

[MicroBob]

If I won $2-mil or so am I really going to want to sit-down and write a book?

Hell...I couldn't even begin to think of a title...perhaps,
'How to suck at poker and make 2-million dollars'

[adam98607]

My brother got the free cruise via referring (sp) people. Since he had already referred over 10 people, each additional person got him 3,000 points. So he only had to refer 10 people. All of his referrals were legit and everyone used their own credit card so he wasnt bugged to badly. It turned out to be a good deal. He got done in 3 days but the points didnt update for an extra day, but they "timestamped" him before the points actually updated. Needless to say I am happy about it since I got invited. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[AncientPC]

[ QUOTE ]
If I won $2-mil or so am I really going to want to sit-down and write a book?

Hell...I couldn't even begin to think of a title...perhaps,
'How to suck at poker and make 2-million dollars'

[/ QUOTE ]

It wouldn't really be a book as it would be just 3 words:
Play a lot.