So I've been playing a decent amount the last 50 or so days, Have fluctuated between gold and platinum chests...

Having completed a platinum chest, 14,000 points = 74 stars coins / $20 / PCA Satellite SnG (haven't played SnGs or MTTs in years)

My next target is 95,000 points

WTF??? Are they serious???

I currently am just grinding micros and have built up a few red chests. I don't play everyday, is there a best way to open the chests? Should I save up as many as possible or some other way?

I opened some months ago and they changed to blue chests and more recently opened 20 and they were all red.

You do know that they expire, right?

Any useful advice?

switch site

What was the biggest prize they ever won with these chest rakeback? I think the most i ever got was 10 dollar cash maybe. Any cash prizes is always like 1 dollar or 3 dollar. Is everyone else the same?


Also are these random or do they depend on the type of player you are whether you play micros, low, midstakes or high stakes or sng or cash etc?

Sounds like you are on Silver chests. It depends on the amount of rake you generate: 1 point = 1 cent rake paid, as per the OP.

Yeah it would be interesting to know if anybody at all has received a top prize, although you are more likely to get struck by lightning. (see the OP )

A couple of people posted screenshots of hitting the top prize back when the coffins were first wheeled out. Makes sense to have some early winners for visibility. I'd honestly forgot the top prize existed!

Yeah funny you should mention that, I was just looking for one screenshot I vaguely remember from last year.
I think it's buried in the old NVG thread dated sometime last year, where someone won $100, but I can't find it.
Like you say it's easy to forget they exist, and I feel like it is possible they don't actually exist. Nobody has ever won the larger ones.

A question, I have had som nice chest, I actually belive I won 100 dollars atleast 1 or 2 at 50. But now they upgraded me so before I got new chests att say around 10000 points, but now i need to play 22000 points for one chest. And still do get the red ones, and like 10 dollar and no stars points etc. I thougt going up for the chest should give me more not less? So it it better to play a little less than I do and have better chests than the red ugly for 10000 points or get red ones at 22000?

Got a $25 chest once, then I got chest pains. I was so shocked they gave me anything, I had a heart attack.

I'm better now, probably cause I left stars

I've been playing high volume 1-2 zoom and was receiving between $10-55 per chest for the most part over the past few months. A couple weeks ago, I started receiving $1-3 every time (usually $1). My volume hadn't changed much if at all. I emailed Stars about it and they gave me a bunch of their usual nonsense, and said also that deposit and withdrawal patterns affect chest size. Does this not seem crazy to anyone else?

I thought it was fairly well known that losing/depositing players get better rewards in the chests these days. :/
There's still some randomness with it, but winning regs appear to get lower rakeback on average.

What is apparent is a complete lack of transparency.

My understanding was that my chest rewards would be in the neighborhood of 15-20% as a break even player and would decline as/if I became a winning player.

Jumped up limits .5/1 in January and immediately hit a crap variance run which saw a drop of 1800 and deposits of around 1200.

Tweaked my game and I have now recovered most of that loss - but it looks like to me the second my winnings overtook my deposits - my point requirements for each chest jumped 300%.

Which from what I have been able to read puts me at 6% or less for rakeback. I know stars doesn't care and would have us believe that stars keeping the rakeback is good for the eco-system. Of course this is unverified and Im sure a big corporation is truly concerned about the little guy and is handing the money out to them like robin-hood.

Although -I'm confused how giving a losing player the equivalent of 30% rakeback (it is on the rake they've paid after all) while keeping 24% of the rake from break even and money makers helps the eco-system.

I did try to get a explanation from customer service. Lets say they were not forthcoming. Seems that Pokerstars is following the 'keep them in the dark' model. No explanations of what triggers a increase of points for the same chest. No clarity in what or how the system actually works.

I think they have gone from one extreme -paying some players 50+% rake to the other extreme. Punishing all (or most) who don't deposit with 6% or less rakeback. Not only do I see less rakeback, the promotions now reward me with much less.

Is it possible the new system truly benefits the eco-system vs pokerstars bottom line? Yes, but I highly doubt it - if it was the case and they were truly secure in that claim- we would see some 3rd party verification of it. As it stands it appears to me to just be spin from the PR dept. Figureheads spinning malarkey to confuse players.

I hope they continue to bleed the players who break even/make money. I see partypokers numbers are up this year. Hopefully the trend continues so that they get enough players to offer regular running tables at the mid-high limits.

Competition in the market place benefits the user. Having a single major corporation monopolize a industry does not benefit the actual eco-system - us the players.

cheers.

im raking ~ 7k$ each month and my currently stars rb for the last 2month is 1.5%.
i cashout very often during a month, cuz dont want to have alot of $ on stars, maybe thats a reason for this low %, but its really sad

I guess they were (possibly) giving you 10x the amount when they thought you were a fish. They have a "**** that guy" policy towards regs.

I am a rec-fish who deposits about évery 6 weeks and I don't get any substantial rewards. I manage to open 4-5 red chest (yes, the lowest one) on average per week and I get around 15 stars coin and 20 boost points per chest. Sometimes I get tourney money. The most was yesterday: 25c and 10c and the same time. Wow!

what limit are you playing at?

Any corporation who is vague as stars is with regards to actual information on how/why chest point requirements are calculated (or in other words a customer loyalty program) doesn't care about earning brand loyalty. Because they have a overpowering monopoly customer loyalty is at the bottom of the consideration barrel.

Only hope is for another site to challenge them for players. If we had another site equal to stars but offering reasonable rakeback / awards stars would be bleeding traffic.

I play MTTs and sometimes SNGs betwen 2$ and 11$. My ABI should be arround 4$ish.

I gotta say though, as a recreational player I don't much care about rb. Way back when when I was still grinding rb was important but now it just doesn't matter. I play poker for fun and for the thrill of "winning big". Rb does not factor into my decision where I play. Games, software and amount of players is more important (to me as a rec). I imagine other recreational players feel the same.

Same win spin n gos. Remember some 1M prizes at the first year (obv always russians); not even one hitter on last years.

Ofc rb matters. Specially when stars charges the most on low stakes mtts (around 13-14%). You're basically saying "I don't care if cinema charges me $20 or $30, I just want to see the movie".

Well if you go to the movies once of twice in a month you really don't care about that. You just choose the best theatre even if you have to pay 30 instead of 20.

Exactly! To a recreational player rb does not matter as much if at all. I know playing a 3$ MTT now costs me approx. 38 cent instead of 30 cent. I just don't care.

Woohoo... Bronze chest at 45,000. 2.6% rakeback.

That's how you really know you're crushing the games.

Might really be time to set up this skrill account and find a different site.

damn i guess im lucky with my 9% rb