Low end Supernovas looked over by new VIP program.

[MicroBob]

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Thats about 700 hands a day. Playing 4 tables, thats a minimum of 3 1/2 hours a day.

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You are NOT getting only 50 hands per table-hour unless you are playing incredibly slow.
And for 4-tables to take 3.5 hours for 700 hds this is what you would have to do.

More realistic on 2/4 full would be 75-80 hds per hour.
On 4 tables you should get to 700 hds in just a little over 2 hours I believe.


2/4 limit is not the best place to accrue points quickly.
But the rake structure on the full-ring game is somewhat favorable for you because most hands are only going to be raked exactly $1.

So while you won't be able to make the higher milestones, you will be getting a really good rake-back value.

Even if you're only platinum, most of the time you will be contributing $0.10 in rake by the dealt-hand method.
You'll get 2.5 FPP's for this hand which is 4 cents.

So for all those 10-player hands that are raked only $1 you are getting 40% rakeback.

You'll have a few hands that go past $40 pot for $2 rake so you'll be getting only 20% on those.

Overall my guess is that even at P?latinum you are getting somewhere around 35% at full-ring 2/4 limit.
Just a guess though.


The reason you aren't earning FPP's very quickly at 2/4 is because you are playing so many hands that are completely unraked.
They don't take a rake until the pot reaches $20. Lots o fhands only make it to $14 or $18 or something.

So complaining that you can't earn points quickly enough at 2/4 limit is essentially like saying you are ticked that Stars is NOT raking those hands.

[MicroBob]

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Really? How? I can't really see it "motivating" anyone. The players that are already Supernova don't need motivation, they pro's and are going to continue to play as frequently.

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It's motiviating me.
And I most certainly would not be playing as frequently as I know I will if it were not for these incentives.

I know I'm not alone in this.

Some of the players that are already SuperNova are indeed very motivated by this.


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1 Million VPP's is unrealistic for the vast majority of players.

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No kidding.
You actually have to be in the select few that will play a ton before they just give you an extra $30k for free.


If you can't make higher than platinum than that's fine.
I have a friend who's all excited that he made silver.

They have different levels for different players.
And they've added more levels for the highest-volume players.
If you're not a highest-volume player than obviously this isn't going to interest you.

Isn't that kind of obvious?


If you don't like the incentives then you don't have to play there.
The Iron-Man stuff on full Tilt is done a different way and that will be more to some players' liking thanthe PokerStars SN and milestone stuff.

nobody's making you play there. They are directly spelling out the incentives for you. And you get to decie if you want to go for it or not.

So I really don't understand the extreme hostility towards Stars about this.

[Sintax]

I still don't see the motivation. Making Nova is no easy task. PokerStars themselves have it in print that only 2-3% of their players will reach Nova status.

I know there are teams of players that play under the same account around the clock. Thats great, they will make Elite by February.

But for the rest of us (and by US, I mean the vast majority of players), making Nova within 6 months will be a tough task. Doing that could potentially open the doors to make 200k by a year... for what? a $700 kickback?

Since the legislation, a bunch of players have marathoned sessions to make Nova, and most barely did if at all. Do that all year, and you reach 400,000 points. Doesnt get you much extra at all.

The least Stars could have done was to award one or two smaller WSOP buy ins for reaching half a million VPPs. Or award one entry at 500k and the second at a million. But I digress. I never expeceted to achieve anything greater then 250k, and that was only if the incentive was good enough.

Also, don't equate a $10,000 WSOP buy-in with $10k in cash. Not for the obvious reason that not everyone wants to play in large land based multis. If you take this offer, Stars owns you. If however you buy yourself in and are fortunate/talented enought to get deep in the event, you could strike your own endorsement deal worth thousands itself.

Anyway, it was Stars who was advertising and promoting their great changes to the VIP progam for 2007 and I feel like they fell way short of expectations. I mean, for about 2-3 months there has been discussion about the upcoming changes to the freerolls. And they didnt change dick.

Well, congrats Bob on your quest for 1 million VPP's. You will be well rewarded if you get there, I don't think anyone really questions the value upon reaching that level.

However, I think less then 20 players will make this mark. I think many more will try and wind up overextending themselves by playing to high, too many tables or playing in bad games just for the sake of a VPP earn rate. I think there will be a short boom of good high limit games in the next 2 months and then the number and quality of games will drop off significantly as players step down to rebuild or the regular fish at those levels get swallowed up.

ALSO, lets not forget that we are 2.5 months into the new legislation. At the start of last year, there were tons of new players coming and going. The influx is still dropping and can potentially get even worse in 6 months when banks may enforce transactions or we lose Neteller or something along those lines. I don't doubt Pokerstars will remain open to US players or that regular hardcore players won't be able to get around funding issues, but it will really dent the good games and good tourneys.

[mbpoker]

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But for the rest of us (and by US, I mean the vast majority of players), making Nova within 6 months will be a tough task. Doing that could potentially open the doors to make 200k by a year... for what? a $700 kickback?


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Sintax, how about trying to be at least a bit more accurate. It was posted many times and easy to calculate. It's $1,200 not $700. I am sure it doesn't make difference to you but why invent numbers.

[O Doyle Rules]

First off, I would like to thank PokerStars for rewarding high volume players with an outstanding awards program.

For those of you that can remember, less than 2 years ago, no such awards programs were even in existence and the consensus on this forum were that the poker sites would be crazy to offer any type of incentive for the high volume player.

Personally for me, the additional bonus at 200k VPPs and beyond is no incentive for me to try and reach such levels. I finished this year with 140k VPPs.

OTOH, had they offered either a WSOP or PCA package at a heavily discounted rate through their FPP store, I would be a very happy camper.

SN Elites are receiving approximately 30k in tourney package benefits. Had Stars offered a proportionate value to the lower end Super Novas, I don't think you would have seen so many (if any) complaints.

For example:

A 200K VPP player would recieve 20% of the 30K tourney value that a SN elite gets. (6k) The only way this value can be used is to buy a WSOP ME or PCA package through the FPP store. This would mean the 200K VPP player could purchase one of these packages for around 350K FPPs. (Half Price)

300K VPP player: 30% of the SN Elite value (9k) translates to being able to buy a major tourney package for around 180K FPPs.

400K VPP player: Allow them to puchase the package for only 50k FPPs. (This is the amount they are already approximately discounted)

500K VPP player: Gets one free package!

750K VPP player: Gets one package plus another 3-5k in tourney value)

I would have rather seen Stars spend their money in this fashion instead of adding another approximately 1 million to the free rolls.

Just my 2 cents...

[samsonh]

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First off, I would like to thank PokerStars for rewarding high volume players with an outstanding awards program..........



I would have rather seen Stars spend their money in this fashion instead of adding another approximately 1 million to the free rolls.


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Couldn't agree more

[mbpoker]

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Personally for me, the additional bonus at 200k VPPs and beyond is no incentive for me to try and reach such levels. I finished this year with 140k VPPs.


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Let's make some calculations. If you do play to get extra 60K VPP you will pay about $12,000 in rake and get back $1,200. That's extra 10% on top of 30%+ you already getting. If you do play on other sites you need to have over 40% rb to match what you can get on Stars.

Going from 200k to 300K you pay $20k in rake and get $2,200 in bonus - 11% extra. From 300K to 400K it's 16% extra, and from 400k to 500k it's 21% extra.

Plus when you play to get the same initial 140K as in 2006 you get better return because you get 3.5x from the start.

[KingDan]

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Supernova kinda got the shaft.I don't intend to use the bonus, though obviously feel there should more benefits. I think a single live event for 500k might be reasonable.


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Didn't realize how good the FPP/dollar was on these bonus... thought it was like the typical value elsewhere. NM

[O Doyle Rules]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First off, I would like to thank PokerStars for rewarding high volume players with an outstanding awards program..........



I would have rather seen Stars spend their money in this fashion instead of adding another approximately 1 million to the free rolls.


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Couldn't agree more

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For those of you that do agree I would respectfully suggest that you consider copy & pasting my suggestion and emailing it to Stars. I sent my suggestion to them, but if they heard this same message from 50-100 lower end SuperNovas or SuperNovas wannabes it might make a difference. Tell them what level you played at in 2006 and how much you think your play would increase to with a plan similar to what I outlined.

Stars is a quality organization that does listen to its players.

[KingDan]

Odoyle,

Good suggestion. For me at least that would def inspire me to play more.