Empire VIP club?

[theben]

question for you. (i dont play on empire, im just curious)
if you attained the status for the free 100$, do they allow you to toss in 1K, get a free no strings, no raked 100$ and then later take out the 1K and do with the 100$ whatever you desire?

[captain_swing]

I have another VIP question. Is making Royal Flush Club total current points or total points earned (i.e. can you spend points and not have it hurt you for making Royal Flush Club)? How about for the free TV etc.? Thanks.

I got bumped at a 640 points, just playing 3/6 and 5/10 ring. I think it had something to do with the 6 or 7 emails I sent regarding getting screwed out of the June bonus like everyone else and threatening to leave (they eventually gave me the bonus). I happened to go on a trip right after that so I didn't play for a week and they bumped me. Kind of funny.

Good suggestion on the MTT. A week of them would seem to be worth $100 a month in bonus.

[bottomset]

I got 900pts maybe a bump is on its way shortly

[47outs]

You can spend your points and still have an accumulated total which goes towards your Royal Flush status.

outs

[grinin]

For reference it seems the key to getting bumped was a considerable amount of play (say, 3-500 hands per day) over a short period of time (2 weeks, maybe missing a couple days here or there). That seems to work for 5-10 and up, don't know about lower limits.

[MicroBob]

various VIP questions -


yup....it's just 'accumulated' points. so you can spend them as you please.


yup...the $100 is placed DIRECTLY into your account. I don't typically just deposit the $1k and then immediately cash it out after they give me the $100 though (it usually takes a day or two for them to grant you the $100). I leave it in there for a month or more sometimes just to make it not QUITE so obvious. They are giving me a gift so I figure it doesn't kill me to leave my money in there for a little while (and then maybe cash-out $2k after back to back months or something)....
but, yes, there is no rule about just cashing it out right after they give you the $100 gift.



i don't know the best way to get 'bumped'.
but if you can also deposit an extra $500 to $1000 in there every once in awhile (just to cash it out again later) that might make you look like a 'bigger' player and might catch their attention too.



also - somebody sent me a PM asking about the special "Microbob MTT plan".
I should mention that satellites work as well as normal tourneys for these (as long as they are 9+1 or higher).
The satellites are great because they are usually smaller fields.
I would typically avoid the 10+1, $1000-guaranteed type tourneys because these would have larger fields and I wanted to save my 'tourney-time' to try to get in as many as possible.

I've played some MTT's that were only 2 or 3 players such as $50 PLO at 3am or something.
Even if it's only 2 or 3 players it still counts as an MTT.
However, you will often be up against another 2+2'er trying to accumulate the points if/when you do this.


Also - you have to be prepared for the ridiculous formats of these tourneys.
It goes to hand-for-hand automatically when you get to 2 tables.
I've played in satellites that had 20 players and only 1st place got the prize. but it was hand-for-hand right-away.
Don't expect these too go quickly.
you almost invariably get one or two opponents go on super-monkey tilt because Empire's format sucks SO badly.
If you avoid tilt and just wait it out you can just watch all the other impatient dudes knock each other out because they just can't stand it anymore.

Even the tourneys that get less than 10 players will take forever because of the blind structure.
I've played a tourney that had just 4 players sign-up. After 1-hour of play at the first break we still had 4 players.
I played a 10-player tourney that took over 2 hours.
I have played several heads-up tourneys that took 45 minutes or longer.



Finally - I did this BEFORE they had their re-buys. I don't know how the re-buys affect the VIP points at all.
I highly recommend avoiding the re-buys because they charge an extra entry-fee when you re-buy and add-on.
In other words, if you play a 20+2 that is a re-buy then you have to pay another 20+2 to rebuy (instead of just another 20 like most sane sites like pokerstars).
This makes a BIG difference.
When I play a 30+3 re-buy on Stars then it effectively becomes a deep-stack 120+3 on average (because I will always take at least one re-buy and the add-on) whereas on empire it would be a 120+12.
It's a total rip-off, we don't know if you are even getting more VIP points for each rebuy or not, and they should be avoided just on basic principle.

[MicroBob]

sorry I went so long.
I have mucho experience to share on these things.


There's one more nugget in there.


If you do a satellite for a bigger tournament then I think (but am not positive it is still this way) that you are better off if you sign-up for the bigger event BEFORE or DURING the satellite to that event.
That way, if you win the seat via the satellite they just give you the cash since you are already signed-up for it.
Then...you just unregister from the tournament and get your cash-back.

If you don't register for the big event in advance....then after you win the seat you won't get cash-back for unregistering. You will get a free-roll that you can use for a future event.

I learned this a little bit later...
I'm stuck with 2 free-rolls for their stupid $200k guaranteed rebuy at the end of the month (which I am finally going to get to use this Sunday it would appear. I've had these freerolls since Feb I think BEFORE the event was a really bad re-buy).


Anyway - I believe that work-around for the satellites is still an effective way of not being stuck with a bunch of bigger tourney entries that you may not be interested in using. Again though, I'm not positive on this.

[djack]

For such a worthless club, the empire vipclub sure gets alot of attention around these parts.

for what it's worth, i've got 30k points.

[MicroBob]

i agree it's mostly worthless.

The $100/mth at 15k points is the most worthwhile aspect.

The free TV at 25k points is a distant 2nd.

The wonderful 'freeroll' tourneys and goofy merchandise is virtually meaningless.

The rules for accumulation of points there is the most idiotic thing of all the idiotic things that are part of the universe that is 'online poker'.

[benza13]

Personally I like the Empire structure if I have the time for a long tourney. With the longer levels it gives you more time to work your chips and exploit the fish, which are plentiful on Empire. The hand-for-hand situation on the site is absolutely awful though. It adds so much extra time to these damn things, just do it 1 off the money and 1 off the final table and thats fine.

I tend to avoid the smaller tournaments on Empire because of the structure though. I certainly won't be on the MTT leaderboard anytime soon...