I am making this post mostly as a reference for myself, so I don't have to keep scrolling through the tournament lobby looking for deep stack tournaments. To qualify as deep stack, a tournament must have at least 15-minute blind intervals and at least T3000 starting stack.

The following list includes only tournaments from 9:30 am PDT to 5:15 pm PDT, because those are the hours when I am doing most of my playing. I will expand the list later to include swing and graveyard tournaments.

Also, I am including only tournaments with entry fees of $11, $22, and $33.

9:30 am PDT -- $11 entry, $1750 guarantee, 20-minute intervals, T5000 starting stack.

10:00 am PDT -- $33 entry, $3000 guarantee, 20-minute intervals, T5000 starting stack.

3:00 pm PDT -- $22 entry, $3000 guarantee, 15-minute intervals, T3000 starting stack.

4:00 pm PDT -- $33 entry, $3000 guarantee, 15-minute intervals, T3000 starting stack.

5:15 pm PDT -- $33 entry, $7500 guarantee, 15-minute intervals, T3000 starting stack.

If you play in all five of these tournaments daily, you are paying $12 in tournament fees daily. That earns 120 VIP points daily, which is enough to qualify for the Fire VIP tier, which requires 3000 VIP points per month.

Rakeback for Fire VIP is 10%, but you can also redeem earned VIP points for tournament entry coupons. 1100 VIP points, which requires $110 in tournament entry fees, can be redeemed for an $11 tournament entry coupon. So this adds 10% to the rakeback.

So effective rakeback for Fire VIP is 20%. But you must also consider the weekly Saturday satellite tournament which requires 250 VIP points weekly to enter. This satellite tournament awards 150 seats to the weekly $150,000 guarantee, $109 entry fee tournament on Sunday.

$109 X 150 = $16,350. Since there are roughly 1000 entries to the weekly Saturday satellite, the EV of this satellite is roughly $16.

$16 X 52 = $832 = annual EV of Saturday satellite.

$832/12 ~ $70 = monthly EV of Saturday satellite.

If you are earning 3000 VIP points per month, then you are paying $300 in tournament entry fees.

$70/$300 ~ 23%. So the EV of the Saturday satellite is roughly 23% of your tournament entry fees if you are paying exactly $300/month in entry fees.

In total, the VIP benefits package is equivalent to about 43% rakeback if you are earning exactly 3000 VIP points per month.


William "The Life" Coleman