I'm open to a suggestion to an alternative prize structure - we definitely did take the feedback about the high frequency of $1 prizes from the first time this promotion was run on .com and changed it to reduce the $1 prize percentage by adjusting other payouts.

I'm sure you're all aware of the EV of completing Card Hunt (or Jacks or Better currently on .com) - I'm perfectly willing to stand up and bring forward suggestions for any alternative prize structure that maintains that EV for consideration to the powers that be.

98% to get 10$

1:100000000 to get 10 000$

It's already 1:100000000.

For a rec micro-stakes player, I'd be fairly happy if the prize was a flat $10, even without the chance for anything higher. In the last 12 months, that $10 would have been anywhere from 5% to 33% of my bankroll.

Prices should be in big blinds or buy ins not $. Higher you play more you win.

I also like the idea of a flat prize amount, without the chance of something higher.

Reality is that, the majority of players will always get $1 or $2 back and nothing higher (often spending/losing more than that in the process of completing the challenge) so, would personally prefer a guaranteed higher amount each time, than the slim chance of a big prize. At least then you know your participating to get something a little more worthwhile back each time, than what it is currently (which is why i'm not currently taking part).

The EV of the current crap-promo is somewhere in the area of 2.40$, so expecting 10$ is quite far off as Stars is not willing to increase the value of the promos. Rather interesting is the fact that - despite being such low value - it still seems to attract a lot of players.

@Pokerstars
If promotions like this are all you can come up with after shafting a lot of players, i'm quite sure that you'll break your monopoly rather sooner than later. Effectively the only reasons to play on Stars are the software and the liquidity. The software you successfully managed to mess up this year for a lot of people and traffic is also going south and will continue to do so as you are clearly unable to come up with really good promotions to make somewhat up for all the cuts.

2 years later and the post above looks like a bad joke.

What about FLHE then? It used to included in promotions. Why this is no longer the case? Or in case of Jacks or better challenge, why not include limit Omaha high as well?

Hi HostJacob. I see this limited time invitation [2 hours only today - Saturday] on my UK PokerStars client to take part in a betting challenge.

I opted out of Casino, Vegas & Sports as soon as these options were available so why am I getting this challenge?

Various ideas around this have been discussed; there's some concern that seeing higher prizes at higher limits may make people move up beyond their bankroll to try to get the really big prizes and get busted very quickly.

Everything here (with the exception of calling it crap) is pretty much accurate in my view. While these promos may not be super popular with 2p2, the average recreational player has shown tremendous engagement with them. The total amount of money being awarded to players in these promotions is (at least to me) quite substantial.

This is another one where various ideas have been thrown around; there's concern about how to keep the promotion easy to understand when incorporating a variety of game types and different point systems (obviously, you couldn't use the same point structure in Omaha games as you use in Hold'em or everyone will simply move to Omaha). The fixed limit hold'em exclusion was caused by a bit of a weird technical issue but I will raise it again as I think I know a fix.

As far as I know, you shouldn't be seeing these if you have opted out of playing these verticals (or of receiving communications from these verticals). It sounds like an error in the promotion setup and I'll check into it.

As mentioned before, even when the feedback isn't super positive, I do appreciate it, and it is heard and taken into consideration, so please don't hesitate to continue providing it.

Thank you for your answer .

A person looking at the total of money awarded in such a promotion will always view it as substantial, but when you look at it in company-scale it's rather neglible.

I estimate that a huge % of players is actually moving up in stakes (at least looking at the traffic of the Zoom pools implicates this). Now take that guy who sits down with 10 bucks on a table, plays his 400-500 hands to complete the mission and then receiving a shiny $ after probably donating a buyin or 2. Do you expect this guy to be excited about that?!

Have milestone-hands or Golden SNGs been that much more expensive? These have been promos which had been very appealing and i personally enjoyed those way more despite never having been lucky to hit a milestone-hand. Jesus, i was grinding every free minute when milestone-hands were running. For your current promotions i don't even bother to open the client.

Hilarious!

You know who else is participating in this promo, and not for the purposes of promoting Stars but as a grinder, is Frosty012. The $1-2 reward is not much when you consider the fact that you're asking recreationals to play Sponsored pros (and a lot of other pros) with years of experience in order to get it. Recreationals tend to have the worst levels of rakeback as well, so a $1-2 reward is not very much for the rake one has to pay to complete the challenges.

I don't think these promos should be considered expensive by Stars either, since they're covered by the rake generated by participants who might not otherwise have played. A more generous reward would seem to be the key to generating a more enthusiastic response from participants.

[3] I agree strongly with all of this paragraph especially the bolded.

[2] The Rake charged by Stars in cash games is low compared with the other sites in the ROW & I assume it's the same in NJ. I did a ROW comparison of 888 v PS & I was shocked how much more 888 is raking in the cash games. Assuming the same play style - PS' lower rake & the fact that they DON'T charge rake for hands that don't reach the flop makes a large difference.

Here's a comparison that doesn't take into account a significantly lesser number of PS hands aren't raked at all compared with 888: [1] I don't know the NJ environment, but I doubt that NJ PokerStars is pro-infested. Is that really a factor at 10NL?

meanwhile if you play 30K hands of nl10 on partypoker you get 150$. same kind of promo on unibet.

why stars seems to put less money into promotion if a measly 2,40$ promo attract so many players ?

anyway, if you cannot add more money, can you at least make the challenge fun ? cant believe you didnt catch the olympic trend

Think through it. I complained about pros at 10nl. Would I complain about pros at 10nl if they're not a factor?

There's at least two reasonable explanations for my complaint, and a third explanation that would say more about you and your assumptions about other people than it would about me.

I saw your complaint, but I don't accept your claim just because you say it's so. And now you've replied to my question with a post devoid of content. No facts & no figures.

What are the numbers that back up your observation that there's "a lot of other pros" at 10nl in NJ? How are you defining "pro"? How are you determining who is a pro? How are 10nl players able to earn a living from poker on PokerStars.NJ in the US state of NJ?

i have regular ''pro" on nl10 of my local poker site.

that local poker site is supposed to be fishy but i cannot see how since i always see the same usernames.

maybe its the samething with poster ESW and his pokerstarsNJ

Yes, I think he means "regs" or "grinders" rather than "pros", but we shall see

Hey guys my own customized tourney will be starting in an hour (At 14:30 ET)

The previous custom tourney got 617 entrants and that tourney had 30 mins late reg. Anybody want to take a guess how many entrants will be playing in my tourney? I'm expecting 815 entrants


Gl to all those playing!

Woah, just opened the client and there's 150 people registered!

If there was only 8, was going to offer to give back the $50 if I was lucky enough to win the winner-take-all - guess Stars has to charge something so people don't flood the schedule with too many custom tourneys, but wish there was a way for you to get your $50 back ...

Hope you have a great time playing your custom tourney Anuj! Thanks for doing something different - should be fun!!

GL GL everybody!!

If you were to play 30k hands while having a challenge active (which would require 60 days of promo), you would get about ~130$ but with lower rake

wow stars made a lot of cash with anuj

815 entries would have been awesome - 2039 is completely epic!!

Yeah, it feel like Stars should be sending you a watch or something, as a thank you for all the monies you've made them this afternoon Anuj There's for sure some of us who only played this tourney because it was a one-time opportunity ...

Think I made a bad call on 25bbs, so am out But it was fun - GL to everybody still in!!