Sweet, thanks man!

Just received this email:

Anyone knows what is going on in Austria?

AFAIK winning regs moving to Austria cos they do not pay taxes there (or very small amount not sure about that part).

This email is inline with that fact, cos stars do not want to pay extra RB to winners. 1st they started to give 10% challenge to good regs now they refuse to give any.

they still get a flat 20% though since those regs usually get diamond chests, and the black chests get 25%.. its not that bad losing out on that extra 10%

PokerStars pays 40% gaming tax on rake of Austrian players, so PokerStars Rewards (25%), Challenges (40%) and leaderboards means PokerStars loses more money the more some Austrian players play.

I got offered this Daily challenge today:




I recently stopped playing cash to concentrate on mtts. I even went as far as to self-restrict myself from playing cash games in the client. Now, looks like PS is trying to pull me back. Pretty unethical IMHO. Same with sports betting also FWIW. They continue to give sports betting challenges despite blocking sports betting in the client.

Any like 200z or 500zers in here getting 40% challenges? I'm guessing those guys wouldn't be seen dead in here anymore?

I didn't even get a 10% offer this month, just those shitty "daily missions" posted above. Went from 40% > 10% after a random winning month where I played about three sessions > nothing. Are other people still getting them?

^also depends on your vip level. I think you have to be at least silver to get those bonuses. And everyone that is silver or higher should at least get a 10% monthly bonus (unless it might be country restricted but thats not up to stars)

Ah okay that's probably the reason, have barely played the last few months. Thanks for the info.

Hey guys, just a question for anyone who regularly does the chest exchange to level down, once they upgrade to a new level.

I am currently at gold, but about to approach diamond in two days. I'm content to keep clearing chests at the gold level, so once I get that 7th gold chest and move up to diamond, I'll exchange it for another gold chest and move back down to gold.

My question is whether or not there is a certain amount of points I should get first before exchanging, or should I do the exchange right away after getting diamond? The reason that I'm asking, is that I vaguely remember doing a chest exchange previously where I levelled up, did an exchange, but then the value of the chest wasn't the full value compared to other chests. The problem is this happened a long time ago, so I don't remember the exact specifics of how much I received. Just wondering if anyone knows the answer here. Thanks

Right away.

Just to follow up on this, I checked my records from last year and saw what happened when I immediately exchanged to gold after earning a diamond chest. The gold chest I received had only $15 T-Money, which is less than the $20 value usually given.

What I will try to do is earn a few points (say 500) before exchanging back down to gold again. I'll see if that will get me the $20 value instead of $15.

I really doubt you only got $15 of value.

If you got T$15 then you probably also got 500 starcoins or a $5 ticket or something.

german regs moving to austria since germany only allows 4 table per software and soon only allows 4 tables combining softwares (stars, party, 888) - so as a reg mtt player its doomsday here. they think of a system that kicks you out if you play more than 4 tables totally. absolutely wild and bonkers. only by lobbying of some scraphead pit machine ceo

wait, i thought stars 4 table cap (for normal cash games) was for everyone
is it only specific for certain countries?

Everyone.

In February stars gave me a monthly challenge with a volume goal almost 2.5x more than my previous month. It was not even within reach for me so I didn't even attempt to clear it and mostly played on other sites during the month. I open up stars again in March and its given me the same unattainable monthly challenge... Is there any way to make sure it goes down next month, like play 0 volume on stars? Or is there no real pattern and I just have to pray to the stars gods that they give me something actually within reach next month

I have dropped twice to the no challenge level and both times after being able to get a challenge it was the same one I haven't even tried to complete in like eight months. Decided to ask about this in the discord and contacted the person in the loyalty department. Waiting to see what happens.

Based on the comments in the disco this has been an issue for bunch of players. Makes no sense because even yeah it's a challenge but for me it means I need to play roughly 10 hours / day for 28 days to hit that.

How many times did you complete the challenge in January?

Or a better question, how much rake does the new challenge require and how much did you rake in January?

I cleared the 7,500 point challenge twice in January, barely, so about 15,000 points total for the month. Then I got the 17,500 challenge. It makes sense that the number would increase after clearing it twice, but clearing the 7500 twice required me having no work most of January and pushing myself to put in lots of volume to make it to the second clear. Think I played ~220 hours January, and to hit 17500 I'd have to play 250+ hours or move up in stakes. I guess stars doesn't care how many hours of play it took, they just adjust based on how many points you cleared for the month.

Yeah thats why I asked. Challenges are made to always make you rake sligthly more than you raked the last month. It's how the algorithm works.

I think the way to reduce them is to rake much less for 2-3 months but not zero. So for example if you do 5k points a few months in row I would expect them to give you a 7.5-10k challenge after that.

This doesn't work. Like I mentioned I haven't cleared a challenge in months and keep getting the same one repeatedly. I play only when the games are good because of this meaning I rake like 10% of the amount I raked close to year ago.

Managed to get my challenge halved after contacting the loyalty rep in discord. So if anyone has too small / big ones don't start them and explain your situation to the rep.

Are people exchanging chest because the next level requirements is to high for them to clear? If that's not the case can someone explain why?