Lol and they have the cheek to email me asking me to fill in a survey on my views on ftp.

Should have sent it a day later and I'd have told them exactly what I thought.

Time to move back to the euro sites me thinks.

Does anyone know if anyone from the other regulated european markets ever challenged PokerStars' pricing structure based on EU Law? (Price Discrimination by Nationality)

The others have been around longer and I cant believe Im the first to think of it.

Pretty ****ty for UK players.

So BC goes from 35% rakeback to 33% for non-UK, and 26.4% for UK players.

And with zero notice for UK players.

Yeah pretty ****ed up. No email here...

The tax is supposed to be a tax on "profits", why are we being stung for it?

But like a few have already said in this thread, who cares.

No, it's a tax gaming revenue after deductions for bonuses (which is confusing called Gross Profits)

HAHA You may feel a little discomfort

If this doesn't get sorted out for you PM me and I'll try to get it reviewed for you.

Some sketchy maths in this thread - I think the correct numbers are below please correct me if I have missed something.

You still get base 25% cash back, you just earn less points.
If you rake $1 you get 25c + 2(8/250) = 31.4c back for uk players
$1 rake gets you 25c + 2(10/250) = 33c back for non uk players

$1 rake used to get you 25c + 2(10/200) = 35c back

Happy hour is in addition so instead of getting 2x for Blackcard players you get 3x. If a blackcard player plays during happy hour at a short handed table (by short I don't mean 6max I mean a table where less than half the seats are taken) then you get 4x.

I believe you are wrong on this one. UK players get 8 FT points per $1 raked. The edge rewards are based upon full tilt points. For example Diamond + Black card users get $2.50 for every 100 points which is 25% rakeback for everyone apart from in the UK. As to get 100 points under this new system you need to rake $1250. Therefore 20% VIP rewards from 25%, of course in edition to the other stuff as well.

I'm not sure I am understanding you. If you are a blackcard already you get a flat 25% cash back each week that isn't changing as far as I am aware. On top of that you can convert points into $ directly at the new rate of 250FTP for $1.

Whilst Blackcard is now harder to achieve for those that are already Blackcard I think my numbers are good. Please show the calculation you are using.

Where do you see it as a "flat 25% cashback"? According to the website, all cashback is in the form of cashing in points:

If Black Card is tied to points accumulation, and UK players now accumulate points 20% slower, then cashback is reduced 20%.

Please correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not that familiar with FTP's VIP system.

I'm pretty sure I'm right. I don't think you're correct in saying that UK players still get 25% base cash back - it's 20% now seeing as we now get 4/5 of the FTPs that we used to.

So I'm fairly sure it's 26.4c/$1 rake for UK BC players.

So yeah you're wrong.



It's 20% slower -yes- but for the FTPoints accumulation. The flat 25% doesn't change. So UK players can get (as black card who enroll the leaderboard and buy the best value Cash Bonus in the Diamond store) 25+(1/22*100)*2*0.8=32.72% of RB. Otherwise it's 31.4% if you do the conversion 250 FTPoints for 1$. And that is without any happy hour bonus or any other sort of bonus.

I guess what you didn't get is that RB at FTP = (The flat RB you get) + (The extra RB you will get spending you FTPoints). Only the last one is 20% smaller.

@Sparky: It got sorted out, thank you. I have no reason to PM you anymore

Edit:

Hood you're even quoting something that shows you that the point conversion is not the only thing you get:

The Edge Rewards Paydays are the flat 25% rakeback.

Maybe I'm being stupid, but I don't understand what I'm supposed to be looking at in that screenshot?

Where does it say anything about a flat 25%? I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the way it was, and the way it still is for everyone (UK included), is that you get $2.50 for every 100FTP. But UK players no longer get 100FTP per $10 rake, but instead 80FTP ---> $2 direct cashback per $10 rake paid for UK players.

Where am I going wrong? (Answer: I'm not)

Well it looks like I'm the one being stupid actually, because the Edge rewards payments are computed based on points you get and I completely missed it, I guess in my mind it was flat 25%, and I didn't think about the fact that the Edge Rewards Payments were linked to the FTPoints you get - I looked at this as in 2 separate payments. Sorry about that.

So you get 20+2(8/250)=26.4%; what you said forever ago was correct~~

I hadn't seen that wording before - having it tied to points. Perhaps I just always equated it to a % in my head.

Seems like you are right here. I'll email and get confirmation but yeah if UK players have a drop to 26.4% that is really brutal for a lot of people.

It's also worth noting that UK players were only informed of these changes on the evening of the day that they were implemented lol...

And for me, and I assume all other UK black card players, FTP have not said anything about changing the conversion rate from 1$/200FTPs to 1$/250FTPs, despite implementing this change yesterday. UK BCs who haven't found out about this change from e.g. this thread, may well not be aware of this.

So not only are these changes pretty brutal for UK players, I'm pretty dissatisfied with how FTP has gone about implementing them.

Sparky I and I'm sure other players appreciate your input on the forums but don't you think it's ridiculous that there isn't someone official taking part in discussions?

There are reps from some of the bowliest networks/skins out there who are here on a daily basis helping out players, informing us of changes and getting general feedback yet Full Tilt do a great job of going from stars level input pre black friday to a non existant presence since relaunch.

Shayam has had one or two software update threads and that's been it.

Why is this? Perhaps you could find out.

This 20% decrease in points accumulation hits every UK player, not just blackcard players, this is brutal! UK players surely must be compensated in some other way. UK players are the majority at Full Tilt aren't they??

Firstly thank you - I'm obviously not a site rep but I try to help out if I can.

Yeah I agree - there are a lot of things I don't think FTP are doing well and player communication is pretty high on that list. It's hard watching a site you love get eaten away like it has been since Black Friday.

Not really sure why it is happening either, seems like things should have gotten much better since Stars bought FTP but for some reason there have been many more failures than success'.

At some point in time I will speak openly about my feelings but it wouldn't be appropriate right now. I'm probably overdue writing a well at some point maybe that would be an appropriate venue.

I'm a big fan of the business side of online poker so I'd love if you did a well down the road. I agree with you that it's amazing that Full Tilt has slipped to where it is today considering the relative safety for players now that it's under the Stars ownership. This site should and still could be the #2 site and by a decent margin.

Software is still the best out there IMO even though the updates have been pretty much stagnant for the last two years.

Yeah, its a joke how software cruelties like iPoker attract players while FTP with its best software for years lays there like generic food produced by a major company, tagged with a cheap sticker.

I totally agree with you guys

Shyam should be along today or tomorrow to clear up some of the confusion so if you have something you want to ask him I would suggest posting it asap.