Have you seen the hu cash lobbies on Stars? It's a ****ing mess.

craggoo whats happen to you on HU sng Omaha8

keep scammin'?

Keep the BoP, it's clear and simple while this new promo sucks in almost every way. Recreational players don't even know about these promos, so I guess you'd just take more money from grinders and keep them for yourself, just like all previous updates

Getting rid of the BOP promo really wouldnt be fair to sng players (especially hyper turbo sng regs). I am a hyper turbo SNG reg myself and like AWice has already written we obviously pay a lot more rake compared to the other poker types, so the BOP promo is the only thing keeping the relative rake paid somewhat balanced, furthermore i really like the promo, other than the freeroll like everyone else are saying, i have a lot of tickets myself stacked up and often dont even play the tourney anyway, hate the shootout structure also. I dont mind getting stiffed on the exchange rate a bit, aslong as you get rid of it. On the subject of some sng types not being a part of the BOP promo, dont know much about HU sngs, but fifty50 regs shouldnt be complaining at all as they pay a much much smaller rake compared to hyper turbo games, in terms of $ per hand.

I like the idea AWice proposed (#119) about a change in BOP promo also cutting expenses in half if thats whats needed, the yearly leaderboard would be a great addition to the promo imo giving an extra incentive to keep the grind up throughout the year, although the payout structure of the weekly leaderboard should be flattened a bit if the yearly leaderboard got to be a reality to not make it too top heavy overall. Including the 200$ BI in the highest bracket is also an important point if its relatively uncontested as it is now.

Im also strongly opposed to the happy hour idea, as stated before in this thread the games will be clogged with regs in these periods and noone will gain anything.

Don't remove BOP please !!!!!!!!

Happy hours and challenges = regfest , very bad for rec and regs !

one sng tickets per year = joke for both

promo 3 : PS is a pokerroom not a lottery room !

Sorry for my english !

switched games

Maybe you should keep up to date on current events before making assumptions.

According to PS Steve, they currently pay out $3m a year in BOP related stuff and would be paying out at least $3.3m with this new promo. Exactly how is that paying out less?

HU sngs have never been part of any promo in the entire history of PokerStars

keep the BOP, but make some changes, 1st must is remove freeroll mtt

Keep the BOP!!!

BOP could be good with little changes. You should divide it to 3 categories (orbits?). 1st would count first 10 sngs (lottery aimed for 1-tabling recs) 2nd could be first 30-50 of the week (for recs in heater) and 3rd would count all sngs - fulltilt leaderboard style (this one for regs obv.) . You should also promote it better - like pop ups when player is in top-20 ("YOU ARE CURRENTLY 5TH PLACE WITH 234 POINTS GOGOGO!!!") or something like that.

Agree with those saying to keep the BOP as it is but actually promote it more. I think it works well with regs (encourages play to get a good high-100game-leaderboard score) and recs (encourages play to get a good low-20game-leaderboard score).

BOP just encourages regs and semi regs to play more, and hardly gives anything to fish. Do you guys actually realise how little chance a fish has at getting a top 10 low orbit score?

I want promotions that make the games softer, either by drawing in new fish to the games, or giving more money back to fish who already play. These new promotions aren't perfect, but they seem better than BOP and i would like to give them a try.

+1 Joshfan

Those who want BoP to stay should realise that they will benefit more if promos would attract rec players to play sit and goes. BOP isn't such a promo.

Which promos would attract rec players please ?

1/ have a free sng ticket ? lol
2/ A rec can't win any challenge ......
3/ regs play between 50 and 200 sng/day , a rec between 1 and 5, who have more chance to win a prize in lottery ?
4/ play full regs table during happy hours is good for rec ?

This change is good for HU and fifty/50 players not for REC ......

You've already answered your question. If rec player plays 1-5 sngs a day he doesn't care about BoP and other promotions just can't be worse. I don't think that suggested changes are perfect, but let's give them a try.

This is one of several factoids that is throw around repeatedly here with little evidence. My ROI might be 5% so if i play 20 sitngos i would score an average of 210, whereas a fish with an ROI of -5% might score 190. This isnt dramatically different and Id guess isnt a dramatic influence on highscores with only 5 blocks. Plus there are a lot more recs than regs, and with hypers in place it isnt hard for recs to play 100 games in a week if they want to. Someone with more time and inclination should run some sims.

Of course, as Ive said and countless people have repeated, recs barely know BOP exists which is probably a big reason they dont win as much if that is the case. Interestingly, PS could probably investigate the truth in this claim through statistical analysis of how many low volume players stop at points where it would clearly be very profitable to contiune if they knew BOP existed. Everyone else is just shooting in the dark.

A -5% might have around a 1 in 500 chance at a low orbit score, whereas a 5% player might have around 1 in 200.
Although i probably would call a -5% roi player a fish, he would be a winner at lots of games/stakes if there was no rake. Real fish generally have less than a 1 in 1000 chance.

i like (1) and (2) best, as those seem to be the options which will create additional Rec entries, which is what these promotions should be all about.

Promotion 1 = ONE sng ticket in a year? Do we really expect that to contribute anything at all to the sngs? And the bankroll challenge is not good for all the reasons explained before. Then we have promotion 3 and 4 with their pros and cons, but there's no way to compare them to BOP. We're talking about replacing a weekly promotion with some that will take place once or twice per year... Imo BOP just needs a few tweaks and more advertisement and it will work better. In any case, if the pokerstars staff feels the need to do something new, then by all means go ahead and do a couple of new promotions but please don't remove the weekly leaderboards!


This is a simple solution and yet it would be VERY effective imo.

+1

I would also add to Jackal's statement that it actually doesn't matter whether or not recs stand very little chance of winning the low (or high) BOP leader-boards, only that they think they do. This requires firstly them actually knowing about the promotion - which, as many people have pointed out, is probably the biggest problem with the BOP just now. One close score or even one small score is probably enough to keep them coming back and believing they can do it again, with dreams of hitting that 1st place pay-out.

It is the same principle that keeps them coming back to play poker in the first place - a small reward every so often (thanks to run-good) or even the chance of a small to large reward in future. If recs analysed their decisions like you do Joshfan then they'd look at their poker winnings/losses and make an informed decision that maybe poker isn't for them! Luckily for us they don't and it is this same uninformed opinion that will keep them playing to try and achieve that illustrious BOP score regardless of how possible it is for them to achieve it... (That is, if Pokerstars actually informs them that the BOP exists )...

I've just re-read the thread to refresh my memory of all of the feedback prior to an internal meeting on this topic within 24 hours.

I want to take the opportunity to thank those who have posted in this thread for keeping input generally constructive and honest. There's a lot to be gained by both players and PokerStars by such interaction.

While I suppose we technically do gain something if we post an idea that everyone simply agrees with, intelligent disagreement and creative suggestions provide more value. Sharing these ideas in a civil way allows for continued constructive discourse. This is something that really stood out to me in a positive way when re-reading the thread.

There's no clear consensus amongst players in the thread. I'm not sure at this point which direction we'll be headed. It's a tough decision. There may or may not be another round of discussion/feedback. When we make the final call, I'll update you.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

I guess we disagree then, because i think it's important for recs to be rewarded more and receive more back. Ideally i'd like to see lower vip levels get higher rakeback and better cash bonuses available to them, but as pokerstars aren't asking for opinions about the vip system, all i can try to do is get them to adopt promotions that give more back to losing players than bop currently does.

2+2 is slippin'

Just keep BOP and move on in life...