PokerStars VIP Status

When I opened up the "Cashier" on PokerStars, I noticed a link for "VIP Status." Anyone have any idea what this is all about... or can point me to a website with some info? Thanks.

[Isura]

Ugh, maybe the Stars website...

[MicroBob]

'coming soon' means 'coming soon'.


Lee jones briefly previewed it for us in a thread here a couple months ago.

They are going to have lots of different prizes available for playing various amounts of raked-hands.
Among them will be WSOP, EPT, PCA entries etc (obviously a LOT of raked-hands will be required) as well as lots of other stuff.


My hunch is that we will all get to find out what prizes they have (and how many points will be required to get them) sometimes before Jan 1.


Be patient gang. It's coming.

[stillbr]

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Be patient gang. It's coming.

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It seems that you might know more than your giving out.

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Be patient gang. It's coming.

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It seems that you might know more than your giving out.

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"If you release it, they will come."

BTW, your avatar ROCKS!!

[SoftcoreRevolt]

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Be patient gang. It's coming.

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It seems that you might know more than your giving out.

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I say we go to his house and beat him until he tells us what he knows! WHO'S WITH ME?

From the horse's mouth, Lee Jones...

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Q15: And finally, for the number one favorite question everybody wants answered: "What about r*keb*ck?"

A15: Short answer first: We don’t plan to offer rakeback. However, we do plan to introduce a VIP program (soon) which will give substantial awards to high volume players. For instance, how'd you like to trade your FPPs for a WSOP, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure or European Poker Tour package?

Note also that our rake is substantially lower than our main competitor’s, especially for low and mid-limit fixed-limit games (as was pointed out elsewhere on these pages). For example, our rake is lower by:

39% for $.50/$1
20% for $1/$2
16% for $2/$4
14% for $3/$6
10% for $5$10

Also note that the FPPs return 5-8% to tournament players (depending on how you want to calculate the value of the tournament entries and such).

Frankly, I've never really understood the fascination with rakeback. It's like people who pay too much tax, giving the U.S. Government an interest-free loan. Then they get a rebate in April from the IRS, and go "Whoo-hoo! Free money!"



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From the horse's mouth, Lee Jones...

[ QUOTE ]

Q15: And finally, for the number one favorite question everybody wants answered: "What about r*keb*ck?"

A15: Short answer first: We don’t plan to offer rakeback. However, we do plan to introduce a VIP program (soon) which will give substantial awards to high volume players. For instance, how'd you like to trade your FPPs for a WSOP, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure or European Poker Tour package?

Note also that our rake is substantially lower than our main competitor’s, especially for low and mid-limit fixed-limit games (as was pointed out elsewhere on these pages). For example, our rake is lower by:

39% for $.50/$1
20% for $1/$2
16% for $2/$4
14% for $3/$6
10% for $5$10

Also note that the FPPs return 5-8% to tournament players (depending on how you want to calculate the value of the tournament entries and such).


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So PokerStars isn't going to offer actual cash incentives??

I'm a high volume player and I like having the additional revenue stream of getting a portion of my rake back.




blue_water

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So PokerStars isn't going to offer actual cash incentives??

I'm a high volume player and I like having the additional revenue stream of getting a portion of my rake back.



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Hey, don't shoot the messenger! You - you didn't think we were going to get RB, did you?

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[Zetack]

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From the horse's mouth, Lee Jones...

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Q15: And finally, for the number one favorite question everybody wants answered: "What about r*keb*ck?"



Frankly, I've never really understood the fascination with rakeback. It's like people who pay too much tax, giving the U.S. Government an interest-free loan. Then they get a rebate in April from the IRS, and go "Whoo-hoo! Free money!"



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C'mon, Lee Jones is way too smart a man to not understand this.

If Rakeback were typically calculated using the amount of rake actually paid by a player, i.e. the rake taken out of pots the player wins, then his comment would be spot on and there would be no difference between rakeback and reduced rake.

But because mgr is typically based on the rake taken divided by the number of players in the hand its not equivalent at all. Lee knows that a good player plays much fewer hands than other players. Thus he gets credit (and money back) for generated rake that he's not actually paying, that's not actually coming out of his pocket.

Plus, and this is important, it doesn't matter whether the player wins or loses. Reduced rake only effects pots that you actually drag. Rakeback will still give you your 2.5 cents or whatever from pots that you lose. If a player is on a major downswing and wins very few pots during the downswing, he'll see very little benefit from reduced rake, but he'll still get the exact same rakeback as if he were in a major heater and this rakeback can offset a downswing to an extent that reduced rakeback can not.

I don't see how Lee can't fathom that this is extra money in a good players pocket and not at all comparable to reduced rake.

For a smart man like Lee to claim not to understand it, he is either being disingenuous, or downright misleading. I hate to see that from a man I respect.

--Zetack