The myth of PS rakeback

[turtle82]

Hi

I play about 50,000 hands a month at .5/1 NL full table at Full tilt and get 27% rakeback.. how long would it take me to achieve supernova status at poker stars playing at this rate/limit, and how much reward ($) can I make?

thanks!

[NU Star]

I think it would take about 5 months. You'd be platinum star about halfway through the first month.

[turtle82]

I see, so I don't think its worth it for me to make the move, because I get pretty decent rakeback per month through FTP..

[AaronL]

Also, don't forget that fulltilt deducts eveerything from your rakeback and at pokerstars there is no deductions since you get FPP... Right now most of my play is in sngs and tourneys on fulltilt and almost every month that I run good and make cashouts (I refuse to live more money then I need online due to the current situation)

Looking back on it I could have easily been a supernova at PS if I had given most of my play to them instead of fulltilt this year... To bad there is only 3 months left this year... next year PS will probably get most of my play (unless things chnage drastically from how things are now)

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
I see, so I don't think its worth it for me to make the move, because I get pretty decent rakeback per month through FTP..

[/ QUOTE ]


on .5/1 NL full-ring at that volume it wouldn't surprise me at all if you ended making more in RB value at Stars.
Especially if you end up getting the $2k milestone at 200k VPP's which I believe you would.

[MicroBob]

Okay - lets do some rough calcs just because I'm bored and curious.

cliff-notes summary: at 50k hands per mth and including a few VIP freeroll tourneys I estimate roughly 26%.
Notch it up to 56k hands per month to also get the 300k VPP milestone and I estimate roughly 30%.
This very much depends on my estimate of $0.75 avg-rake being somewhat close. I really have no idea.

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In the old VPP/hnd thread several reported about .45 VPP/hd at .5/1 full-ring NL which I doubt has changed too significantly.
22.5k VPP/mth = 270k VPP/yr.

most of the first 100k VPP at platinum is 2.5x FPP's = 250k FPP's
next 170k VPP at supernova is 3.5x FPP's = 595k FPP's

845k FPP's at about 1.5 cents each is $12675 for the year.
You can actually get better than 1.5

$2k milestone at 200k VPP's which is actually about $1200 because of spending 50k FPP's to purchase it.
So the extra $1200 takes him to $13875 total.

Weekly freerolls might not stay same next yr. But if they're sort of close he might get $600 or so in freeroll value if he just plays in 10 of them. Total RB value = $14475

$14475/600k hds = 2.41 cents per hand.

If I assume avg-rake per hand of $0.75 (total rough guess on my part) and 8.5 players per hand then MGR per hand is 9 cents.

2.41/9 = 26.7%

He would be SN right from the beginning of the next yr instead of spending all that time at platinum so even if he plays exactly the same amount the following yr he would be earning more FPP's.

If this player stepped it up to 56k hands/mth then that could get him to the 300k milestone which is worth another $2200.

Another $2200 at the 300k milestone bonus via 56k hands a month would be worth an extra .32 cents more per hand taking him up to 2.73 cents which gets him to 30.3% RB.


Couple more notes though:
Obviously starting now on this would only be worthwhile if he intends on playing 55k+ hds per mth through Dec 31 to make supernova before 2008.
If he's not going to make SN before Dec 31 then there is no incentive for him to switch to Stars until Jan 1. Playing the rest of the year and then finishing with only 88k VPP's would not be good value.

This RB scheme is obviously pretty back-loaded. At FT you get it evenly paid out throughout the yr.
On Stars you pretty much start at a lowish rate for the first couple months then you get some bigger payments at the end via the milestone bonuses.

If waiting until the end of the year to get your last $3k worth of rakeback-value bothers you then Stars probably isn't the place for you.

[turtle82]

lets say i earn .45 fpp per hand as regular status.. when I go up in status do i earn more fpp per hand? or is the fpp always the same throughout

[MicroBob]

You earn more FPP's as you move up.
You earn the same amount of VPP's.

[turtle82]

ah....so...
lets say normall at .5/1 FR NL you get .45 fpp per hand on avg..if you were supernova, you would get (.45 x 2.5) 1.125 fpp per hand?

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
at .5/1 FR NL you get .45 Vpp per hand on avg..if you were supernova, you would get (.45 x 3.5) 1.575 fpp per hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

fpp's are about 1.5 or 1.6 cents.
so about 2.4 cents per hd at SN.