FTP Answers 11/10

[FTPDoug]

Hello all. Sorry for my absence of late, I've been doing some traveling.

Barcelona was the highlight, go there before you die, but not to play poker. Casino Barcelona has an interesting rake structure. 5% of the pot, up to a max of...50 Euros! To take advantage of this, the smallest game you'll find is 5-10 PLO or 20-40 Limit Hold'em. It's a beatiful poker room with a dozen or so tables, and one game going.

Anyway, I've probably missed a lot of good questions or suggestions, so feel free to tack them on to this thread.


1. "Are normal members allowed to create private tables at FT? How do they work?"

-We don't currently have private ring tables, but we do offer private (password protected) tournaments. They are pretty easy to set up, just e-mail privatetournaments@fulltiltpoker.com.


2. "i want to be able to change my player ID like i could on party poker (every 6 months)."

-Our current policy is not to allow this, unless in extreme cases (someone is stalking you?). On the other hand, it's something we're are open to re-evaluate in the age of data mining and third party web sites that track player stats. The feedback@fulltiltpoker.com mailing list is read daily by decision makers at the site, so if there are policies like that you support, a well thought out e-mail to that address would be a good start.


3. "You guys really need to bring the customer filter tab back like ASAP, seriously. Your lobby is a mess."

-This will happen eventually. At the end of November, we will be segmenting the lobby by stakes (High/Medium/Low) so that should help the clutter. I would also like to see a "Hide Full Table" feature. Those two features combined seems almost as good as custom filtering.


4. "Pretty simple request, please have all types of games for all limits. It's absurd that there is not a full ring 100/200 limit game. Or why isn't there a headsup 50/100 table? But HU tables at all the other limits? Stop messing with my mind man!"

-No good reason for this...send an e-mail to feedback@fulltiltpoker.com with requests for new tables. Specifically, we added the 100-200 9-max table a little while ago, and I've put in the request for the 50-100 Heads Up.

5. "Change your bonus clearing rates to be more competitive with other sites."

-I see more positive feedback about our bonus than negative feedback. Our bonus works out to be up to 54% rakeback. If you aren't earning much bonus, you aren't paying much rake either.

6. "i've emailed support three times to opt out of free rolls. each time they said i was opted out then of course a couple days later a freeroll tournament would pop up while i was playing."

-We have an official opt out list. Send me a PM with your screen name and I'll make sure you're on it. That being said, I don't completely understand why people want to opt out of our freerolls, and I'm worried they have been misinformed by their affiliates. I'll have a soapbox moment about how freerolls and revenue affiliates work:

If we hold a $1,000 freeroll with 200 players, we view that as $5 of promotional equity for each player. At the end of the month when we calculate a player's net revenue for the month, we take the rake/juice, and subtract out things that were costs to us (Bonuses, payment transaction fees, Full Tilt Points spent in the store, and equity from freerolls or guarantees that miss).

So a real life example: I earn $1,000 in rake for a month, and I play in the Ironman Freeroll ($30,000 with 300 players). At month's end, my net revenue is $1,000 - $100 = $900. If I am lucky enough to be getting 25% of my rakeback through an affiliate, I would get $225 back for the month. If I opted out of the freeroll, I would get $250.

If I'm an affiliate, I certainly don't want my players to participate in freerolls. They get the equity, and I get charged. On the other hand, our freerolls are what keep a lot of players to play at a high volume, and that's why affiliates get charged for these promotions.

But as a player, why would you opt out of a freeroll with $100 equity (and likely a lot more since there are absent players) when it is only going to cost you a fourth of that? The only reason I can think of is if you live in Australia or somewhere that the freerolls will be held at a crazy hour. Clearly the person posting above was online at the time the freerolls started (since his freerolls table pops up). This is why I'm worried that affiliates are running around telling their players "Don't play the freerolls or they will charge you for them" but not mentioning that you are getting charged 1/4th of your EV. Clearly the incentives of the affiliates and the players are not aligned as far as freerolls go. End soapbox.

7. "It would be very nice if people outside the US can do something with their points. I'm from Holland and my points are worthless"

-We are fulfilling store orders to Europe now. You should have received an e-mail or something about this. (Spam box?) I believe there are still about 6 items that are not available in Europe, but most of the store is. We have also ramped up our Full Tilt Point Tournament schedule. There will be a pretty good points satellite into all 9 FTOPS Events this week.

8. "a register button outside the sit n gos so i don't have to open lobby, register, close lobby"

-That's a great idea. It would probably bring you right to the confirmation box. I'm forwarding to our features department.


9. "support says that i can play on 51 multi-table tournament tables, but only 12 tables each for cash and sit&go tournaments. i would really like it if there weren't a cap."

-I believe there's a super-secret way to get more than 12 ring tables or SNG's. Checking on that now.

Tournaments are set high because you might be registered for a few dozen tournaments that start in the future. People who have won an FTOPS Avatar race are registered for all nine tournaments right now, even though they'll only play one at a time.


Any questions?

-Doug

[Assani Fisher]

As to the freeroll question, for many higher stakes players they simply aren't worth their time when you compare the worth of the freeroll to their hourly rate.

[KEW]

Whenever I get disconnected I can not reconnect to FT in time to complete the hand.. I have a high speed cable connection..From My end IMO it looks like it just takes MUCH longer to connect to FT then ANY other site...Without disconnection protection this is a major issue..In general it looks like I may only need about anouther 15 secs(only a very rough estimate..Simply adding more time to the action clock when disconnected would solve the problem for me..

[pokahjokah]

As soon as you add resizeable tables you are going to take away the majority of my play from stars. (2K hands $400NL)a day. Please hurry.

[DeathbySuckout]

[ QUOTE ]
As soon as you add resizeable tables you are going to take away the majority of my play from stars. Please hurry.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is the only reason I haven't signed up at FTP yet.

[T50_Omaha8]

The momentary disconnections I have due to a wireless connection drive me up the wall on Full Tilt. Stars would kick back up right away, but for some reason on Full Tilt's software it looks sort of like my computer is crashing for a good 20-25 seconds, then when it finally does reconnect I can't even read the HH to find out what happened. I lose more hands that way........

[FTPDoug]

We are investigating the lag issue. The majority of players seem to be OK, and we are having trouble reproducing the problem on our own. This leads me to believe that there is some external program (Anti-Virus, Pokertracker, Microsoft Hearts, etc.) that does not react well with Full Tilt.

The next step is to get some 2+2 users to run a log file while they experience the lag, and send it back to us so we can see what is going on behind the scenes.

Stay tuned, we should have that ready soon.

[DuderinoAB]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll have a soapbox moment about how freerolls and revenue affiliates work:

[/ QUOTE ]

How about you just hold actual freerolls. Why even call it a freeroll at that point? Plenty of other sites hold freerolls and don't charge their players to enter. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It shouldn't even be an issue. If I've played enough to earn my way into an iron man, then I've paid the rake...why should I pay it twice? Sorry, this has always been a huge pet peeve of mine. I love the site other than this, but it just bugs me.

[FTPDoug]

"How about you just hold actual freerolls. Why even call it a freeroll at that point? Plenty of other sites hold freerolls and don't charge their players to enter. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It shouldn't even be an issue. If I've played enough to earn my way into an iron man, then I've paid the rake...why should I pay it twice? Sorry, this has always been a huge pet peeve of mine. I love the site other than this, but it just bugs me."


I see where you are coming from, but you have remember the affiliate system is not designed for players. So the official answer is that freerolls are free to players who aren't getting rakeback.

[DuderinoAB]

[ QUOTE ]
"How about you just hold actual freerolls. Why even call it a freeroll at that point? Plenty of other sites hold freerolls and don't charge their players to enter. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It shouldn't even be an issue. If I've played enough to earn my way into an iron man, then I've paid the rake...why should I pay it twice? Sorry, this has always been a huge pet peeve of mine. I love the site other than this, but it just bugs me."


I see where you are coming from, but you have remember the affiliate system is not designed for players. So the official answer is that freerolls are free to players who aren't getting rakeback.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand that, but you aren't going to tell me that you don't use rakeback to attract players. The typical player who gets rakeback is probably playing at Stars if you don't offer it(and in many cases is a major contributor). Surely you know this. You can't use it to attract players (I know the site isn't directly doing it, but I'm pretty sure you aren't upset with your affiliates for it) and then discriminate against those players. This is exactly what you are doing when you deduct from MGR for FREEROLLS and, for that matter, bonuses. Again, I appreciate you taking the time to reply.