Basically every form of holdem poker is included in this article except for one: heads-up cash games. I don't like to accuse anybody with the intentional suppression of facts, but this is the area where PS is probably FAR behind the market standards; the amount of FPPs heads-up players get can barely be even called "rakeback".

I haven't got any data to back up this claim -except for a really small sample of my own hands, which says around 10% rakeback for 50nl and 100nl being a goldstar (Which means 5%ish RB for bronzestar players!)-, but this is kind of a well-known fact in my opinion.

Feel free to correct the numbers, I am sure they are not 100% correct, although the point of this post is still going to stand regardless of refinements of the order of percentages.

Heads-Up games were not addressed in our analysis.

MM

I think that Stars is intentionally shortchanging rakeback at HU cash games, both NL and Limit. DUCY?

Thanks for pointing this out. Have you actually read OP?

Assumptions:
FullTilt rakeback of 27%
Playing .50/1.00 Cash NL HU
Stars and FT rake is the same....5 cents for each $1, $1 max
Either stars Platnum or Nova status
Avg FPP is .15 / hand (anyone have drastically different numbers?)
Platnum VPP = $0.013 (Takes 50K VPPs to earn $650 bonus) at Platnum
Nova VPP = $0.015 (100K VPPs to earn $1,500 bonus) at Nova
Not comparing game quality (opponents skill level or selection) at either site

Facts:
I played 47K hands at stars and paid $2,335 in rake according to PT
Earned 7,050 FPPs (47,000 * .15)
Earned 17,625 VPPs (7,050 x 2.5) at platnum or
Earned 24,675 VPPs (7,050 x 3.5) at Nova
$229 value of VPPs (17,625 x $0.013) at Platnum or
$370 value of VPPs (24,675 x $0.015) at Nova

If played at FT, would've earned $630 in rakeback ($2,335 x 27%)

Obvious conclusion: FT would earn more $ in rakeback (630-229) of $401 or 4 buyings

The title of the article is "Pokerstars VIP club analysis" I don't get how it is trivial to leave out something that would significantly alter the conclusions in a negative way and than announce the total objectivity of the writing at the beginning.

I'm glad somebody started a thread on this article.

In the internet gambling forum, we frequently crunch numbers much like Mason did in his article. As you can see by the length and magnitude of the article, it's not always an easy task and always varies due to many different things.

Most of us feel like there was a mistake made in Mason's article which somehow skewed the numbers higher than they should have been. Since we don't have access to the data that Mason used, it's hard to tell exactly what happened. But I personally think that Mason is possibly using the contributed rakeback calculation method for PokerStars. This method is going to be flawed for a couple of reasons. First, it's going to be very dependent on the player and his playing style. Secondly, you're not going to end up with a very accurate comparison when you are comparing a contributed rakeback calculation to that of another site that uses a dealt rakeback calculation.

For most players, PokerStars is still going to be the better option as far as getting the best rakeback. But I hope that we can look into the article, and if some mistakes were made they can be corrected.

So playing $1/$2 limit on PS @ silverstar is approx equal to playing at FT(26.4 to 27)?

Did I understand that graph correctly.

The one thing this article really hits home hard is Stars needs to add some value to the bottom end.

The bulk of players are better off playing at FTP unless they can reach the supernova level. Stars really needs to address these problems.

I belive some of the numbers are a little high overall but it generally proves the point that players are worse off at stars (which I am sure isn't what stars wanted).

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...rogram-327293/

hehe , im linking u to ur own thread.

yeah I probably should of posted the link.

It seemed in that thread most people agreed.


I think stars was hoping the 2+2 anyalsis of it would prove the bottom end are getting good value, but except for a few rare cases they aren't.



I am really suprised 2+2 left heads up play out. Curious as to why they did? Was it because it painted stars in such bad light?

The original draft of the report was not done by me but by one of our authors. I then took it over and spent many hours finishing it up and getting it as accurate as possible.

However, the original draft did not address heads-up play so I did not consider it in any way. I'm not sure if this is an oversight since it was not part of our original work and PokerStars did not request that heads-up play be addressed.

The reason a large part of the report is focused on, as you refer to it,

is simply the fact that this took longer to explain since with Supernova play there are now additional factors to account for.

By the way, when we post articles in our magazine, we do allow people like yourself to comment on them, and we allow all comments, positive as well as negative, as long as the comments are within our posting guidelines. If we were being dishonest in our presentation, this would not be the case.

Mason Malmuth

well maybe comment from a pokerstars rep on why they didn't ask for heads up play to be included would be in place?

If you use tournament buyins as a measuring stick and also only cash your fpps in to buy the 4K voucher, the equivilant rake back can be emperically worked out for stars it is as follows:

bronze 8% rakeback
silver 12% rakeback
gold 16% rakeback
platinum 20% rakeback
nova 28% rakeback
nova elite 40% rakeback

check the #'s multiply base fpps by multiplyers and youll see this is correct ++ you cant forget weekly vip level freerolls and level bonuses you can buy once earning that level....

Stars smokes

I am converted from FTP with rakeback 1 yr ago

HU cash is capped at .50 rake that is why you recieve less rakeback

Uh... that's not a valid reason

hu cash is capped at .50 on all sites, but hu players get their full rakeback amounts on other sites

Only if you play on HU tables. If you play HU on a FR or 6max table, which I've done a number of times to start new games, the rake is capped at $1. I think this is pretty outrageous and have sent Stars an email addressing it. I urge you all to do the same.

Yea basically they barely give rakeback to HUcash players and take double rake beyond NL1000 b/c by some kind of strange coincidence they don't have higher stake HU tables.

I could be wrong, but I think the rake cap at AP for HU cash is 1.00.

Probably because it's a terrible program for HU play and they don't want to advertise that fact

The article also leaves out 6max FL and the deal happens to be quiet bad there too. I think the numbers just have to be multiplied by .6 so it would have been easy to add these. The summary table would just look much worse if these numbers were included. I really think the article is biased and that is quiet disappointing.

For casual players the need to play a high volume every month is also bad. If you take August off your rakeback in September will be lower. That is not the case with traditional rakeback.

Just noticed this paragraph:
So you say paying more rake in less time with very low rakeback is not so bad because I get my points faster. Man if they could only remove the stupid rakecap so that could pay even more rake in even less time, I could be supernova in a matter of days.

GREAT POINT ....

the way it is currently stuctured on Stars & FTP just causes short games to become broken games ......

I will email them

This is a good point.

Nonetheless, this thread hurts my head a bit.

Of course his article focused on supernova! Let's not forget that the vast majority of players still don't even care or know about rakeback. Anyone who is really serious about it and crunches all these numbers is likely pro/semi-pro/otherwise a fairly high volume player who would hit SN without much difficulty if he/she utilized Stars as a preferred site.

Just seems like some people are jumping all over MM here, accusing him of not wanting to taint a business relationship with Stars and intentionally omitting the hu or possibly 6-max rb analysis. Doesn't seem right when this truly could have been overlooked.

Nothing wrong with pointing it out and trying to get to the bottom of this issue but seriously, chill out. If you don't like the hu deal @ Stars do something to try and change it or GTFO instead of flinging poo around.

I'm probably at the very high end of recreational players (I play NL100 15-20 hours a night on ~4 tables plus perhaps a dozen MTTs a week) and there's no way on earth I'd ever get even close to Supernova.

I'm sure Pokerstars looked at thei cross section of players and decided which segment they wanted tio stimulate and made their best guess to a VIP program, and I don't blame them. However, I choose to play mostly on Full Tilt and Cake (I have rakeback on both) and I'd honestly rather play on Stars but I don't like just giving my money away.

I don't blame Mason for this at all, his article by the way. It's not like he's running a nonprofit, and it's also not like he appears to be deliberately deceptive.