PokerStars & FPP's, Getting Screwed?

[O Doyle Rules]

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O-Doyle went to the WSOP ME for 120k hands on a different site (didn't even have to be raked-hands as I recall) and I think that's a pretty reasonable value.


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Hey Bob,

That was actually an exceptional value that True Poker offered, 10 cents a hand with no limitation on what limit I had to play. True Poker actually lost money on just my direct hands because probably a good third of my play was .50/1.00 and $ 25 NL. True told me that my rake did not even cover the cost and I totally believe it. There is no way a poker site could offer this again in the future.

However, those hands had to be played in basically a six week time period, and from my memory, I believe it was in the neighborhood of 50 plus hours a week and that was on top of a full time job. The value to True was in the promotional value of what I did. It did drive business to their site and got them alot of attention for a two month period. This made offering such a deal to one player reasonable, but to offer this same deal to 10, 20 or 10,000 players would be a losing proposition for any poker site. I would be stunned that any poker site (other than a start up site would ever offer this again.)



More thoughts about the free rolls:

I think alot of players are missing the value that PokerStars are putting out there in free rolls. I perceive it to be very high.

If your SuperNova you could play in the following free rolls:

12 $ 100,000 free rolls (monthly)

52 $ 2,500 free rolls (weekly)

52 $ 5,000 free rolls (weekly)

52 $ 7,500 free rolls (weekly)

52 $ 10,000 free rolls (weekly)*

(These actually get $ 2,000 added every month which would add another $ 288,000 in prize money.)

This is a total of $ 2,788,000 in free roll money. Now this is an insane amount of tournies to play, so once you hit SuperNova, you may decide to pass on the $ 2,500 &
$ 5,000 free rolls. You are still playing in tournies for
$ 2,398,000 in total prize money if you skip these.

If these tournies pay out alot of places in a flat manner, (what I would prefer) the chances of cashing in these things may be as high as 1 in 3. (Especially the SuperNova tournies which will not have nearly as many players, maybe as good as 1 in 2,1 in a 2.5 chance to cash)

Lets just take this assumption, throwing out the $2,500 & $ 5,000 free rolls, that an average payout on these tournies would be $ 150.00 You would play in a total of 118 tournies, placing in a third of them, (assuming you are just an average player) for a total of approximately 40 cashes for $ 6,000 in tourney free roll cashes.

Farfetched, I don't think so, especially if there is a flat payout system in these tournies.

Far fetched, I don't think so, if they have flat payouts, I think this would be a conservative estimate to be made if you are just an average tourney player.

[MicroBob]

I only saw the $10k weekly and $100k monthly freerolls.

didn't look at all the other freerolls for silver and gold which obviously has some extra value also (although probably not a lot...i can very easily see 2500 players in the $2500 freeroll so that would be only $1 of value).


I doubt they will pay super-flat though (unfortunately).
I expect it to be the same as their typical pay-out structure for all of their other tournaments which would be to the top 10%.

since we don't know what the pay-out structure would be for the freerolls it's probably not worth speculating.

The $10k freerolls for supernova players might be around 100 players or so for $100 in value per entry.
Obviously it's more value if there are fewer players and/or some of the players just don't plain show-up (which strikes me as likely...happens a lot in freerolls).


I think ODoyle makes some good points regarding the value involved here.
Obviously $0.10 per hand (not raked-hand) that he got playing really small levels at times on True was an exceptional value.


However...it is correct as others have indicated that the higher-stakes players don't get nearly as much value out of Stars since a $1 raked-hand is worth the same as a $3 raked-hand.

And it is also true that it's not direct cash which is a bother for some people (not as much for me really...plenty in the store to interest me...including the big events).

Plus...my estimations on the WSOP ME might have been low.
If they charge 700k FPP's or more then there's even less value obviously.


I still haven't fully decided how much I will be participating in this program.
If it was just a LITTLE bit more value that might be enough to do it for me.

As it is, you can certainly get more in direct-cash from other sites of course...and we don't know if this program will attract a ton of fishy players to Stars (to chase after these prizes also) or if it will only make the games tougher.



One other aspect of the Stars program....I expect that they will continue to do their 20% for $120 reloads every 2 mths or so (one can only hope).
This obviously adds extra value as you hanging out clearing away the FPP's.
Not necessary to figure out if the bonus comes out of your MGR or anything like that.


I'm not totally running-away from it yet.
It's still possible that some, or even most/all of my play will head over to Stars based on this program.

But the overall value for the prizes being slightly disappointing means there is also the chance I don't do any of this at all.

[Lee Jones]

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I doubt [the VIP Club freerolls] will pay super-flat though (unfortunately). I expect it to be the same as their typical pay-out structure for all of their other tournaments which would be to the top 10%.

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Bad read [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] They are going to have a very flat payout. The exact structure is TBD, but tourney-meister Henry is working on it as we speak. Don't hold me to this, but I'm setting the line at a 22.5% payout structure.

I also note that (as others have pointed out), we are telling you in black and white how things work. That you have to accumulate X FPPs to get Cool Thing Y. And here's how you accumulate those FPPs. Transparency forces a bit of conservatism on us, since we're making you a promise: do this and you'll get that. I will also tell you that a year from now, everything that we say here will be true - or better. [1]

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The $10k freerolls for supernova players might be around 100 players or so for $100 in value per entry.
Obviously it's more value if there are fewer players and/or some of the players just don't plain show-up (which strikes me as likely...happens a lot in freerolls).

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Read the fine print. The prize pool for the Supernovas goes up $2K every month. If it averages 100 players in each event, you get $100 in equity the first month, $120 the next, $140 the third... $260 equity in December.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager

[1] I hope everybody understands that there are things far beyond my control that could change that. But I will promise you that it is the absolute intent of everybody at PokerStars to make the VIP Club the best (and best documented) customer rewards program in the industry.

[MicroBob]

Thanks for the response Lee.

In regards to:


"
The $10k freerolls for supernova players might be around 100 players or so for $100 in value per entry.
Obviously it's more value if there are fewer players and/or some of the players just don't plain show-up (which strikes me as likely...happens a lot in freerolls).



Read the fine print. The prize pool for the Supernovas goes up $2K every month. If it averages 100 players in each event, you get $100 in equity the first month, $120 the next, $140 the third... $260 equity in December."


I am assuming there will be more super-nova players as the year prgoresses...so while the prize-pool will be larger, there should also be more playing in them.



To Sniper's question...I think the only real incentive to play is AFTER you reach supernova status.
It's at that point that you really start acumulating the points and they begin to get some real value.

You first major tourney entry you are probably getting about 4-5 cents per raked-hand in value.
for your 2nd tourney entry you are probably getting 7-8 cents per raked-hand in value.


So I would rush to Supernova status SO that I could play more (and earn enough FPP's for 2 or 3 tourneys...WSOP, EPT, PCA, whatever).


I kind of look at the first 100k raked-hands as just the 'qualifier' part. It's just the part to get out of the way so that you can get into all the groovy freerolls and get to what are REALLY the best parts of the club.

[Sniper]

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To Sniper's question...I think the only real incentive to play is AFTER you reach supernova status. It's at that point that you really start acumulating the points and they begin to get some real value.... You first major tourney entry you are probably getting about 4-5 cents per raked-hand in value. for your 2nd tourney entry you are probably getting 7-8 cents per raked-hand in value.

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You are certainly getting value compared to Stars before, but...

You can get > .10/raked hand cash value from rakeback+bonus at other sites.

FWIW, if I was to suggest an enhancement, it would be that the Supernova status should be on a rolling 12 month basis, rather than reset to 0 each Jan.

I also want to acknowledge that I think its great that Lee chose to comment in this thread... and that Stars is clearly setting the bar on what a VIP program should look like!

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To Sniper's question...I think the only real incentive to play is AFTER you reach supernova status. It's at that point that you really start acumulating the points and they begin to get some real value.... You first major tourney entry you are probably getting about 4-5 cents per raked-hand in value. for your 2nd tourney entry you are probably getting 7-8 cents per raked-hand in value.

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You are certainly getting value compared to Stars before, but...

You can get > .10/raked hand cash value from rakeback+bonus at other sites.

FWIW, if I was to suggest an enhancement, it would be that the Supernova status should be on a rolling 12 month basis, rather than reset to 0 each Jan.

I also want to acknowledge that I think its great that Lee chose to comment in this thread... and that Stars is clearly setting the bar on what a VIP program should look like!

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that is really really good idea. I could not agree more with the concept of making supernova 12 months rolling. that seems to make it much more worthwhile especially for a player who might not make it until OCT/NOV/DEC

I'm glad Stars is trying something. They got a bunch of things right that I expected them to. Like making everyone a VIP, and making it easy for a player to predict what reward they could get for their level of action.

I wish though that they counted faster accumulation of FPP's toward qualifying for the next level, even if that meant setting the Gold qualification to 6000 and Platinum to 20,000. This is the only thing Party got right. With Stars method, I can ignore them, then if I ever feel like it, just play for a month and get Platinum just as easily as if I had been Platinum for years. I don't play at the stakes/hours to get Platinum anyway, so there is limited draw for me. If my volume varies from month to month, then I would be bouncing around between levels, and I'd just rather play the extra I need to maintain my level in a month where I'm busy. As it stands, no.

Freerolls, meh, take too much time. Goods at list price where I would normally expect a 40% discount, meh. Tickets to 200+15, okay now that's a very good and needed add.

[Sciolist]

Yes, to be honest, I doubt that PS wanted to see the thread RE: VIP programs called "getting screwed"...

[imported_leader]

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Read the fine print. The prize pool for the Supernovas goes up $2K every month. If it averages 100 players in each event, you get $100 in equity the first month, $120 the next, $140 the third... $260 equity in December.

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Any chance of making some of these limit tourneys. Especially at the higher levels. I mean NL players are going to have a distinct advantage in these tourneys.

[hemstock]

So once you get to be a goldstar or platinumstar, do you have to play the same ammount of raked hands every month in order to keep your status? Same question for supernova. Once you get 100k fpps are you a supernova forever, or do you have to earn 100k fpps every year?