Party player points and 'freerolls' - what the hell are you guys on?

[RevAgain]

I'm no anti-Party psycho, but I can't believe people are talking about 'great value freerolls' and 'overlays' and in the thread below.

The merchandise, at least, pretty much everyone agrees is complete crap. I mean, if they have to put their sodding brand all over the stuff at least provide a set of chips in there or something else which someone might actually want and which you wouldn't have to be seen in public with.

I'm hardly a high roller, I normally play at limits where the strategy is discussed in the micro limits section of this site, but these player point tournaments are a total waste of time even for me, whatever imaginary overlays there are (if only they had allowed 10,000 people to register for each, imagine what the 'overlay' would be then!).

Take for example the tournament about to start. 675 players, $250 prize pool. That's worth on average 37 cents a player and it's going to take on average a couple of hours to play (obviously more if you make it to the money). Under 20 cents per hour!? If I could play 4 of these at once as often as I wanted I wouldn't bother and this is at Party's quietest time of the day when the alleged overlay will be at its maximum.

If the 1000 point tournaments were capped at only 300 runners a half decent player would still have the same EV playing a single table of 2/4 limit for the couple of hours they could expect to spend in the tournament on average.

What on earth is the point of these things for any even half serious player? They're the ones paying Party all that rake they're spending on shipping crappy clothes around the world people don't want.

<rant over>

[Subby]

Great post.

Party needs to get with the program and either give cashback or free Steps entries or something with actual value...

[WSOPWinner2005]

My guess?

They don't give a damn about the half serious to serious players...

They do give a damn about keeping the fish happy - Which to a busted out fish this gets them playing till their points are gone and then they feel the need to redeposit to "Earn more points" and "Play just a Little more poker, this one last time"

I think it's a smart move, although I think they should have the payout field less top heavy on the $5K and above tourney.. One I played in last night had like 1600 players or so and no money was made till we hit the top 30

[jrz1972]

[ QUOTE ]

My guess?

They don't give a damn about the half serious to serious players...

They do give a damn about keeping the fish happy

[/ QUOTE ]

And really, isn't that the most important thing for us?

[HesseJam]

I dont want the fish wasting their time at freerolls. I want them wasting their money at regular tables.

[playersare]

I think you're getting too wrapped up in what was primarily a theoretical discussion yesterday.

It's not like we were all huddled around like a football team, yelling "break!" and running off to the 50 cent freerolls. I personally don't see when I'm going to play any of them myself either. but clearly other zoo members were looking forward to spending their points and others were merely pointing out that the early goings were pretty good (*theoretically*) when significantly less than the maximum number of entries were signed up for any particular PP freeroll.

I think I would have given some weight and respect to your opinion here if you had provided an alternate suggestion as to what to do with accumulated points instead, but you did not. Putting people down without bringing anything to the table yourself makes you an a**hole, not a prophet.

I dunno, I just feel like sometimes my innocent posts tend to draw the ire of conceited lurkers for some reason.

[RevAgain]

My we're big headed aren't we?

My post wasn't having a go at anyone who wants to go and play these freerolls, it was having a go at Party for what amounts to pretending they're giving us something when they're in actual fact offering us the chance to waste our time playing worthless tournaments (in actual fact -EV tournaments if you're a winning player) and as pointed out above actually getting the fish to play in these tournaments rather than on cash tables or in SnGs. The other option is to spend your points becoming a walking advertisement for them. Being a fish also doesn't preclude you from having a fashion sense/some self respect, and I highly doubt we'll be seeing people hurling dollars into Party desperate to get their hands on another sun visor.

As per 'suggest something better' I already suggested chip sets as something useful which could be given out (even if they do have a Party logo I would be happy to get a free set of chips) but it's hardly rocket science - anything that has some actual value is all that's required, vouchers for an online shop such as Amazon for example (and no, if Party are reading, that doesn't mean a spend $100 get $1 off voucher).

If they want to run 'freerolls' then once again we don't (well, shouldn't) need to call in Einstein to work out that a $50,000 freeroll for 10,000 points is much better than a $5,000 freeroll for 1000 points, it's not a complete waste of your time then (and it means people will spend more time playing raked games too, so there's even something in it for Party!).

God forbid, they could even stop charging such extortionate rake in the first place, although I do understand the business value of loyalty point schemes (if they offer something of use, of course).

20 cents an hour is not a good use of my or anyone else's time, *theoretically* or otherwise.

Party are making an absolute fortune from us and we should not be having the píss taken out of us with this sort of nonsense.

[playersare]

[ QUOTE ]
Party are making an absolute fortune from us and we should not be having the píss taken out of us with this sort of nonsense.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know what your financial poker strategy is but I've made my own personal "fortune" from Pay-Pro of a couple thousand dollars of profit, JUST from bonuses meted out, and that's of course on top of winnings from actual play over there at Sea World. Party Poker has made *me* money, not the other way around, and any zoo member who cannot attest to the same I would have to seriously doubt their playing ability, especially those members who have less than 10 lifetime posts to their name so far.

people like to take cheap shots at Party Poker by whining about the 50c taken out of $5 pots, but this is more than overcome by the 200%+ rakeback rate of their bonus whores at that limit. I really don't see much different about their sched than competitors otherwise.

I was already happy with what Party was offering me as a whole even before they started the player points system. How we choose to talk about and spend our free pennies is really just fun convo and really nothing to get on top of a soapbox for (especially in a negative stance).

You go ahead and wait for your funky chipset and 10000 points freerolls (and have fun playing the 50000 raked hands to get there). I'll take my existing cash and cash-equivalent profits, continune loving Party Poker, and wait for the IPO.

[WSOPWinner2005]

Bottom Line, it IS a better system than ANY of their skin's have - If you have rakeback at party and get all of this stuff you are SET. Too bad my rakeback is at empire which I have not had much time to play lately because all these damn bonuses. Literally $650 (give or take $25) in less than 5 weeks in bonus money. I AM HAPPY.

I would have to say besides some of the great FPP tourneys stars has that this is probably the best player reward system out there and most importantly keeps the fish at the site playing, even if not at the ring games... What do you think they do when they bust out? If broke, they are going to want to rebuy eventually, earn more points.. repeat etc.

Trying to think of better reward programs out there, and there could be a better one... nothing is coming to mind though.

I mean playing $5K Freerolls daily for free ... who can complain ? Party was not known for freerolls now they are putting out nearly $10K a day in them, if they get customer service up to snuff (it has been better lately) they will be golden. I also saw the 3 levels going up to gold for gold only members, should be interesting to see what they plan on doing for those members.

[RevAgain]

Yes, Party gives you money because you're such a good player, and takes it from the bad players.