Is there anyone that started this month with black or diamond chest level and didnt got 40% challenge?

If the chests have been improved for all then that is a win for players, as a lot of people were getting 2.1% and now they are getting a guaranteed 18% to 25% which they can earn at their leisure without having to put in insane volume.

If they keep the Leaderboards and other promos on a semi-regular basis, then that adds a bit of RB on top too, so in reality about half the time players should be getting 25% to 40% say, just with their 'normal' amount of volume and 18% to 25% the rest of the time, regardless of those ridiculous challenges that they set.

I haven't seen those Card Hunter, Cardex or Golden Button challenges for about 6 months now though, so perhaps they have stopped those? Also there hasn't been a monthly promo since the Football Frenzy one so maybe they are winding those back too? Where are my Haunted House or Snakes and Ladders challenges damn it?!

The Leaderboard ones seem to be used more often now, so perhaps those are the most rec-friendly ones and the Cardex type ones just don't get more people to play?

plz dont mention cardex, those were like 0.001% rb, just an insult to the players, i actually feel worse seeing those promos than seeing nothing. leaderboards are prolly like 5-10% rb honestly, depends also how much volume u play daily the more u play the less rb .

but ye evan chests alone are better than a grousome challenge where ur forced to play like a slave

so even though they got great feedback on the trial rewards they decided to change it??
because the trial rewards had monthly 40% cashback from blue chest level to black

are the basic chest rewards at least the same as in the trial reward period? (blue 15% through black 25%)

As I understand it, all chest rewards are the same for all accounts now, (15% to 25%). That is an improvement for a lot of regs that were getting virtually nothing before.

The 40% challenges are just as bad as they were before but that was just extra money on top. If someone wants to break their back chasing those then all the power to them. They make you hate poker undertaking them, and often you play worse at the tables as you are just playing for volume's sake and not to maximise your profitability so I give them a pass as there is more to life than RB.

Yep I agree, I have never received or expect to get any monthly challenge.

Happy with the 15-25% rb for everyone.

Fwiw hs players don't get anything back. If it hasn't changed.

The 15-25% back is pretty decent. It's better than ggs 60% pvi crap atleast.

Exactly this.

The monthly challenge is not attainable with your current playing habits and if you add more tables or try to play higher you end up losing more.

I was Gold chest and got 3750RP for $75 RB = 10%

I guess the only positive is instead of 3% RB we consistently get 15-20% RB now. But for the great majority of players its not 40%+ that they were advertising...

To be fair, it is still possible to get 65%, but only if you are a poker machine that essentially plays like the Supernova Elite players had to do back in the day.

What I am interested in is whether the other promos will still continue or whether they are dialling those back, as they do add a few extra % on top of your 15% to 25%.

https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/w...gramme_119843/

Blue $0.50 15%
Bronze $1.50 16%
Silver $5 17.5%
Gold $20 18.5%
Diamond $75 20%
Black $250 25%

This was just posted on the discord:

"All players can earn up to 25% in rewards from their poker activity through the core program. The Monthly Poker Challenges offer the opportunity for players to earn additional rewards should they manage to complete their points target for the month. For the majority of players the additional rewards available through the Monthly Poker Challenge is equivalent to 40% rakeback. Whilst both the core program and Monthly Poker Challenges are available to long-term/established winning poker players, the amount of the additional reward available from the Monthly Poker Challenge component may be lower to this small group of players, for example the equivalent of an additional 10% rakeback instead of the additional 40% which is available to most players.

to re-iterate, everyone can earn 15-25% through the core program. Plus all players on Silver Chest level and above have a Monthly Poker Challenge available to them. For the vast majority of players this offers an opportunity to earn an extra 40% rewards. For a small group of players who are long-term/established winners their Monthly Poker Challenge offer may be 10% (for context for this month this is ~6.5% of players who are eligible for the challenge). We will review frequently the players who are included in this group. But for this group it is very important to think of these changes together 1) The Core Program changes (significant increase for this group) 2) Monthly Poker Challenges, previously many of this group did not receive them, now it is available to all of them who are on Silver Chest level or above"

It is a shame that the 40% challenge is not broken down into more manageable chunks, so that players can potentially set themselves lower targets for a slight bonus.

So for example if your monthly 10,000 points target earns you $800, then once you reach the 2,500 points mark you get $75, at the 5,000 points mark you get $125, at the 7,500 points mark you get $200 and the 10,000 points mark you get $400.

That seems more reasonable and I can see people upping their volume slightly to reach a part-way target.

At the moment, it's too ''all or nothing'' for me, as achieving it all comes at too much of a personal cost considering we all have lives outside of grinding poker.

I think all things considered its decent. 25% rb with an extra 10% if you complete the challenge.

I would assume based on that discord message that if you're a decent winner, you're not going to be getting the 40% challenges going forward but still getting 35%. Anybody still getting the full 40% despite being a long term winner?

Yes the new PokerStars Rewards program has been rolled-out today:

https://www.pokerstars.com/stars-rewards/

https://www.pokerstarsblog.com/en/ne...sparent/74650/

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2021/...view-39938.htm

This all or nothing principle is indeed extremely annoying, because this basically meany, that if you barely reached your challange and are upgraded for the next month, you can be sure to miss that one. It is also not clear then the followings month challange will be downgraded again.

Also, why not give the players the option to select a lower challenge to avoid not getting any reward at all?

You're getting 15-25% regardless of challenges

somehow this does not add up for me.
Last month the challange was about 3-4x the value of the chests I opened.
15-20$ with chests, 60$ with challenge

10k points for $200 bonus, well played PS. FU.

Gold level, got 40% rb chest (1500 points for $120)

That all sounds very reasonable except when you consider that this ~6.5% of winning regs probably makes up a significant portion of the total volume of hands played on Stars. And a lot of these players were getting 40% EPCs for a long time. So this group have now had their rakeback effectively reduced from ~42% to 35% while Stars gets to shout from the rooftops about their great new rakeback program. Scummy marketing.

If you opt in and then don't really play and/or don't meet the goal, they will probably lower it. The first one I was given was $1500 - impossible for me to meet play 25 or 50NL. Then I just stopped playing and it was dropped to $800. Still didn't bother and they've dropped it now to 5000 points/$400 which is very doable for me when I want to play.

6.5% of the pool gets less rb. Majority of the pool gets more. Yeah really scummy marketing.

Just logged in and got the same 5000/$400 as the last 6 months. Silver chests. It's so frustrating that they are still messing with so many people. When are they going to get a clue that offering insulting rewards is worse than offering nothing? If they switched mine around constantly I would stop playing there, as I have in the past, which I guess is why they've stopped ****ing with me but it would be nice if they were just clear and consistent and treated all customers with respect. If I was spending $1k+ at any other business I would be treated like royalty, but stars just shits on us.

Oh, and I've been a winning player on stars for 11+ years so the theory that they are doing this to all winning players seems unlikely.

Relax, you should get a bit more RB now, (via the normal chests), which is in line with Pokerstars' strategy of increasing player generosity.

Hopefully this leads to more volume on their site as a larger player pool is better for everyone.