Has the Snowball melted?

[WiSeIVIaN]

As a current snowball customer/US player I am very disheartened to go not be able to play in the snowball tournament and non US players getting an estimated $800+ freeroll.

Playing in a freeroll is no different then a play money table in the legal respect, and for you guys to put forward this tournament without first prodding party to allow your US players who are the majority of your customers is a bad idea. I am sure that something could be worked out that is better then alienating most of your customer base and making 25 europeans very happy.

Hence I strongly encourage you to delay the tourny and find a more suitable resolution. The current non-US freeroll tomorrow benefits few and cheats many. I know your hands are kinda tied, but I strongly encourage you snowball affilaites to delay the tourny and try to do something.

If nothing else, thank you for listening to my ramble...

[Pokeraddict]

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Hmm. I am a US player and am not registered for this tournament.

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That has been addressed by this thread already. It is not RTR's fault Party will not allow you to play. Go take it out on Party. This arrangement was already made before Party banned U.S. players.

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How is this snowball tournament funded? If it is funded or partially funded by raketherake players rake?

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Of course it is, the problem is that there is no way to tell who's is who's MGR. Taking this money and paying players outside of Party might be considered rakeback to them and without individual trackers there is no way to figure this out anyway. Regardless the arrangement was already made to have a Snowball, it cannot be undone just because Party made a policy change. It is still a Party Poker sanctioned event.

It sounds like you are bitter towards RTR for issues that are beyond their control. As I said before why don't you go to Party and complaint to them, this is their doing. Raketherake has no control over your abilty to play at Party Poker. I am sure they don't like this any more then you do.

[Pokeraddict]

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As a current snowball customer/US player I am very disheartened to go not be able to play in the snowball tournament and non US players getting an estimated $800+ freeroll.

Playing in a freeroll is no different then a play money table in the legal respect, and for you guys to put forward this tournament without first prodding party to allow your US players who are the majority of your customers is a bad idea. I am sure that something could be worked out that is better then alienating most of your customer base and making 25 europeans very happy.

Hence I strongly encourage you to delay the tourny and find a more suitable resolution. The current non-US freeroll tomorrow benefits few and cheats many. I know your hands are kinda tied, but I strongly encourage you snowball affilaites to delay the tourny and try to do something.

If nothing else, thank you for listening to my ramble...

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This was a much better way to phrase what Alphamale is complaining about. Maybe Alphamale can learn from this. It certainly gives something to think about it.

[alphamale1]

Not bitter. Sounds like you work for RaketheRake.
Here is an easy solution, try to stay with me.
Prize pool/number of eligible players = per player rake.
Per player rake * US players = a separate tournament for US players at Fulltilt. Amazingly difficult huh?

Well, I contacted raketherake to do something about this 2 weeks ago, long enough to give them time to do something about it. They said "sorry there is nothing we can do".
I contacted party by email and phone. I know they can give incorrect information. They told me that the original tournament was cancelled and that a new one was rescheduled.
So far what they said is accurate on this account.

They also told me that all the money for the tournament comes from the affiliate. They said the affiliate has control over the tournament prize pool. They said that affiliate can change the prize pool amount.
Well why couldn't raketherake have reduced the prize pool by the US player's rake and used that to sponser a tournament at FullTilt for the excluded US players? Party said they could have.

Again with over 13,000 players affiliated with raketherake, "there is nothing they could do?"

[Pokeraddict]

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Sounds like you work for RaketheRake.

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Actually I work for BW.

I was under the impression Party held this money back to seed the freeroll with. I don't know for sure though.

The issue is that what if a player does not have an account at Full Tilt? Are they going to have one tourney at Stars, one at FT, one at UB, one at AP etc.? You're right, something should be done to help U.S. players out. OTOH I don't know if they can with how the tournament was setup. Only those affiliates involved really know how flexible this is. If they say it can't be done I'm inclined to believe them. It does not do them any good to piss off U.S. players when it would cost nothing to do what you suggest.

The problem I think lies in that this was Party MGR and if Party is going to allow this kind of rakeback then they require it to be paid into their system through this freeroll. I wonder if having this freeroll at Full Tilt would violate the T&C of this agreement. This is why I say I think your problem lies there.

The suggestion that a freeroll is as same as play money is true. Party just needs to wake up on that one. They also don't really have the motivation to correct it either. LEt's say 80% of the cashes are U.S. players. That money goes right out of Party. If non U.S. players get the pool then they are likely to play more poker or play casino games. This makes Party further profit from this freeroll which is surely part of the reason they agreed on allowing snowballs to begin with.

I don't have any first hand knowledge so maybe I'm talking out my ass. It just seems logical to me.

[Toyboy]

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Per player rake * US players = a separate tournament for US players at Fulltilt. Amazingly difficult huh?

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Sounds like a great way for an affiliate to be banned by Party, dont you think?

[alphamale1]

party already said it was ok

[Red Lion]

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party already said it was ok

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What are you talking about? When did they say this? Why wont you go away.

[Canard]

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party already said it was ok

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What are you talking about? When did they say this? Why wont you go away.

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Hmm, well what alphamale said in a previous post was that some random phone monkey at Party said that his affiliate could change the size of the prize pool for the Snowball freeroll. Alphamale seems to be making two assumptions - one , that everything a Party agent tells you on the phone is correct and, two, that this automatically means that it would then be 'ok' for the affiliate to take the remainder of the money that they had reduced the prize pool by and distribute it to their US-based players by means of a freeroll at a completely different site.

Even apart from the logistical problems that have already been pointed out with this solution, I see no reason to believe either of those two assumptions to be true.

[bpc009]

my neighbor signed up with raketherake in september (per my encouragement), but is not allowed to sign up for the snowball tourney. pretty lame!

I was going to get 20% of any winnings as well.