They have these, u can win tickets in the chests. In relation to other rewards, they are quite good value
Well it's technically not a freeroll cause ticket value will be in the chest ev calc, but they call it that way.

You must be with really stupid or you are from the past.
You really think that in Russia you will be some kind of a baller with 1k$ a month?
If so you have an IQ of pigeon.I am from Eastern Europe and i DO KNOW how much money you need to live.Most of the people here just talk blah blah blah Eastern Europe blah blah blah.Just pathetic.Its not 80's with the Iron curtain and noone is going crazy when he sees 5$.

For decent data on cost of living comparisons worldwide, check out this instead of randomly insulting ppl without data backing (you can insult them later if they suck at gathering info ):
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp

From my travels this seems pretty close to the truth
Also it obv depends on lot which region we're talking about here, "russia" or "eastern europe" is not a sufficient filter. And there are very imortant factors ppl tend to forget when comparing this, e.g. the share of home owners in the population who don't have to pay rents, which makes a significant portion of most ppls budget.

edit: got warned for posting advertisement once, so have to clearly state: I'm in no relation to the owners of numbeo, if posting the link is considered against ToS, just delete it and pls don't hit me o_O

To live anywhere near comfortable in Warsaw you need $2500-3000. I have checked out this site and that's quite accurate. It is a lot less though if you don't have to pay for an apartment or if you live in a smaller city.

Damn thats even more to think about and sadly it makes perfect sense. I am not sure if dropping rakeback deters recreationals from playing though. A lot of them dont know what rakeback is to begin with and they dont care about it for 1 bit. In fact they most likely prefer 5% rakeback with these chests over 20% flat rakeback, since they have a small chance at a big payday.

So not sure how that helps pokerstars keep the fish from playing poker. The regulars on the other hand might stop playing poker there (not sure if this happens, tbh I dont think it will because of laziness etc.). But I do think that most winning players won't play casino games. They may on occasion but I doubt this move makes them play more casino games.

I get the Bovada move of cutting poker as the recs have no choice anymore but to play casino. But the rakeback removal imo wont have the same effect.

is that per month or year?

Capitals in Eastern Europe can get quite expensive but then again as a poker player you can live in any place you want. Why would anyone ever pick a big expensive capital over a smaller town where you can maintain the same level of comfort for half the money.

yep thats true

It gets better...it appears all deposits now have to be "played through" in order for you to withdraw.

Normal poker transactions are like a casino bonus Hilarious !!

anybody else had this problem ?

Received this response from Stars yesterday saying they "cannot and won't go back to our old system. We want to keep improving and ANY OTHER COMMENT YOU MAY HAVE MIGHT HELP US TO ACHIEVE OUR GOALS AS A COMPANY." So basically, if I have any suggestions on how Amaya can reach their goals. They want to hear it. Such bull sh*t. Also, why CAN'T they go back to the old reward system? Does it break some law? Amaya can go back to the old system BUT it doesn't help them achieve their company's goals. Now their not even hiding behind some PR crap about the REAL REASON of the new reward system. Which is making Amaya more profits.

Please, your lack of basic knowledge about economy is embarassing. Of course their goal is to make more profit, they are a private business company.

I am net depositor of over $5,000 in 2017, though part of that is my existing roll:

*gets 1850 silver chest
Reward: 30ish star coins, 45 boost, and $1

*gets 1850 silver chest
Reward: a few more star coins, 200 boost, and $0

Thanks for upping the boost. Maybe I can get $0 again.

Amaya/Pokerstars is garbage for all poker players not named Daniel Negreanu.

I have recently been to warsaw and while it was really expensive in relation to other places I've been to in poland, it is still rather cheap in comparison to "western" countries and u def don't need 2.5-3k bucks a month to live a decent life. But maybe u just apply much higher standards. Also I doubt the average person in Warsaw has that amount to spend after taxes and social insurance or a you talking about gross income here?

Edit: Here's what numbeo told me about this, comparison city is my place of residence in germany.

Consumer Prices in Warsaw are 34.91% lower than in Cologne
Consumer Prices Including Rent in Warsaw are 32.52% lower than in Cologne
Rent Prices in Warsaw are 26.17% lower than in Cologne
Restaurant Prices in Warsaw are 42.46% lower than in Cologne
Groceries Prices in Warsaw are 31.11% lower than in Cologne
Local Purchasing Power in Warsaw is 38.95% lower than in Cologne

They totally can but they won't.
If you look back a couple of pages in this thread, you'll see where I'm talking to reddev and he says he got this:
platinum 10250 = 21.97% rakeback
and then two weeks later they decided to do this:
platinum 20000 = 11.26% rakeback

So they can easily change anyones rakeback at any time at will, whenever they feel like it.
One of the worst parts of this system is you have no way of knowing how many points your upgrade chest might require, or whether your existing chest points will stay the same. So there is no incentive to put in any volume, and no reason to aim for a higher chest type. They can randomly cut your rakeback in half or down to 4%, whenever they feel like it.

Funny you should say that as I ran 30 buy ins under EV at plo 50 the other day so dropped back down to plo 25 and after one or two chests my target has gone back to 10250 (I also just opened a chest with 50 dollars in and 1000 coins my biggest yet).

It could be because I deposited to cover what I ran under EV at plo 50 but the timing makes it seem pretty obvious that they doubled my target when i moved up in stakes and halved when I moved back down.

Edit: my chest before the 60 dollar one was 10-13 dollars I cant remember just for perspective.

hello nice, back to 22% lol
oh well, if you keep a record of your actions we could crack how this works soon

Lol ye. It's proving to be quite the Dilemma though because I am happy playing the chests at this rate but at the same time I have to try out all different variations of non zoom tables/sites to decrease volume because I know if I carry on and move back up they will F*@k me

Actually they are a publicly traded company. Pot meet kettle.

A publicly traded but private (as in "not state-owned") company. Nitpicker

AFAIK this has been true on every site i've played on since 2006.

Lol. Yes I was being a little salty but when someone starts out attacking someone else's ignorance they best not leave any nits to pick. Fwiw public (traded on stock market ie. Amaya), private (ie. Rational Group before Amaya bought them) and state owned are all different classes of corporations that operate on different sets of rules.

Back on subject after a little more than a week and 20 chests opened my results have been:

Theoretical RB = 12.3%

Actual RB = 20.9%

My actual total $ value of chests is 2.5% better than EV

It should be noted I have been mired in a gigantic downswing that started the day this new system started so that seems to have impacted my chest prices and boost amounts to give me a better than expected theo. When getting higher level chests I have been playing just enough to get one chest a day so the boost and points from previous chests have combined to elevate my actual return.

Despite the early information that suggested you would be demoted to a lower chest level after four days of failing to rake enough points to achieve one chest a day. The reality is I have been getting knocked down after a couple of days of achieving one chest per day.

Some have speculated that higher chests would result in lower rakeback but at least in my case higher chests give better rakeback.

Wow, that's a great analysis Wild Card It's not the most straightforward system, and when each chest is only worth 9c, wasn't really feeling like bothering trying to learn that much more either.

That's interesting to hear my next rakeback rate will only be 6.1%! Was already complaining about the 9c, and now it's already going down to 6c lol!!! That surprises me a little bit that even my rate is going to go down - because while am not a depositor, Stars did send me a Birthday gift of $10 worth of spin tickets last October ... as if maybe they were trying to get certain people like me to play more? Although, casino and sportsbook aren't available in my area, so maybe they've changed their focus?

Now that you mention the boost, that appears to be what happened - was getting 10 points for each $0.65 spin while completing the bar that looks like a German flag ... and then when the flag was full was when it dropped down to the 1 point per $0.01 rate that everybody else was talking about

So, so far guess depositing, casino/sports-betting, and downswings are getting the better rates?

my rakeback is like 15% with mostly blue and bronze chest. since i dont play much on stars its probably a tiny increase from what i had.

I use boosts a lot though i never begin a session without a boost.

Sorry, not my native language.
Point stays the same, Pokerstars exists to make profit, poker games are just one way of achieving it for them and by cutting regs profits they are acting really rationally.
Some players are so greedy and ungrateful...

If a poker player tries to make a few thousand dollars online against other consenting adults without losing it all to the poker site, he's sooooo greedy. If a poker company ****s him over to increase the $240 million in net income it makes a year, according to you, the company is just trying to make profit. Way to defend the right party here.

Why would a poker player be grateful to Amaya Inc. anyway?It has made Pokerstars worse ever seen the leveraged buyout of the site.

GTFO!