Hey folks,

I'm a SN on stars and play full time there. But I was thinking about adding a MINIMAL amount of FTP play for the best return per effort in RB/bonuses.

I dont really understand the iron man thing tho. I have read you want to earn 200 pts per day 25 days of the month? Then what?

If I played mainly $13-$26 90 man sng's roughly how many would it take to earn the 200 pts per day? **I can always go to cash games if I want.

Do these medals just show up or do you have to use ftp pts to get them?

Once you have medals wtf do you do with them? (Optimally)

Is there a drawback (reduction in RB) for spending medals?

Thanks a bunch for any guidance.

Technically I think the best return is on bronze level not iron. If you play for just 50 points over 20 days or whatever it takes to make bronze, then you're getting the most value.

The only thing you need to do in order to receive your medals after you've played the required amount is to "opt in" to the program every month. You have to go your promotions page and click the iron man link. Then you can choose to take freerolls, bonus medals or opt out. If you choose freeroll or bonus medals then you've opted in. The freerolls are fairly easy to cash in. They have a weak field and pay a lot of places usually around 30% of the players in my experience. The "bonus" medals are in addition to the medals you earn for the month. The "bonus" medals do not increase based on your consecutive months in iron man.

You can spend the medals in the iron man store. I believe the best value has been determined to be the tournament tokens. You will not take an MGR hit by buying anything in the iron man store. However, if you buy a straight up cash bonus you will take an MGR hit when you clear it. If you use your tournament tokens to buy into a tournament with an overlay you will take an MGR hit.

Sorry, but I have no idea how much tournament play is required to hit iron.

Can you plz explain why you think that bronze status >>> ironman status? As ironman you get more medals, but not 4 times the medals at bronze status, which would be equivalent to the additonal 150 points/day + 5 add. days? Is that what you mean?

You can get Bronze with just 1,000 points, while you need 5,000 to get Iron. You don't get 5x the medals until 13+ months, and you don't get more than 5x until month 31.

However, I'm pretty sure Silver is the best deal in terms of RB%. You can get Silver with only 1,250 points, and you get quite a bit more than a 25% boost over Bronze.

Gold, however, you need 2,500 points for, and you don't get double the medals of Silver.

Yeah this. Though I didn't actually look at the ironman page to be sure. So, Bobo is probably correct about silver being better. And since OP shouted "minimal" I think he wants to play as little as possible. So silver may be his best bet. Besides once he hits a consecutive month range where iron might be better then he can just move up to iron at that point.

You need to earn X amount of FTPs per day for Y days per month. For tournaments, you get 7 FTPs per dollar paid in fees, so getting silver would mean that you need to play 8 $12+1 SNGs each day for 25 days in each month.

Really? Can you just earn 12 months of bronze, and move up to Iron for months 13/14 whatever, and then you get the medals for 13 months consecutive iron?

Yuck.

If you are getting 40% rakeback on Stars whey would you give up playing the full 200 points/day when you are getting 50-70% rakeback over that period

Yes, I fully understand you get a higher % at the lower levels but its stupid to give up the extra money to play at Stars for a lower level of rakeback.

Giving up 60% rakeback to play at 40% doesn't make much sense to me.

Yep consecutive months don't have anything to do with the level you achieve. As long as you achieve one of the iron man levels then you continue to increase your consecutive months streak.

Don't disagree, but that isn't everyone's exact situation, of course.

Exactly. Consecutive months in the program is all that matters. You can be Bronze for 12 straight months, then make Iron, and you'll get the 13 month level Iron points for that month. You can also bounce around the levels, it doesn't matter. This is contradictory to what their website says, but it seems to be true.

thanks for claryifing, I didn't know that since I always have a month where I achieve no status. Will try to reach at least bronze in these months now...

You can also buy a continuing month in the Ironman store.

I'm not giving up anything at stars. I'm just adding to what I have. Mainly for times when games are not so good at stars, or for a 30min - hr change of pace. Just looking to get the most value at those times.

Typically, how many people take part in the Iron Freeroll? I always opt for the free medals but there isn't a huge amount in the store that I want so maybe a shot at some cash would be a better option.

Also, what percentage pays and what does the winner usually receive?

Thanks

January Freerolls

Bronze - 1416 - $1162.50 to the winner
Silver - 1192 - $1743.75 to the winner
Gold - 601 - $3000 to the winner
Iron - 671 - $4500 to the winner

Thank you. Is it the top 10% that cash or higher?

How long has Iron Man been running?

If year 3+ at Iron = 900 medals then surely that plus the 27% is better than SNE?

Is there a link to the maths for the long term?

Howdy - what are the requirements for getting the Iron Man badge on your username? I am not showing that I've earned any medals but it says I qualified last month when I hover over myself in a game.

thank you,

Answered my question, i hope this is correct. Will definitely move up to gold or iron in the near future if this is true. (and stays true)

"In future months, you can earn additional medals in two ways:

* Maintain your current Iron Man Challenge level for consecutive months
* Move from one level to a higher one in consecutive months"

Not seeing where their website says otherwise.

check your ironman page where it shows how many ironman medals u have. If you qualified for any ironman status last month, u should have some.

It's the craziest thing, maybe it's an error - I have zero medals in my bank. Last month's calendar shows checkmarks in 26 out of the 31 days, but I didn't earn 50 points in any of them. In fact, yesterday was the first day I've ever earned more than 50 in a day (damn rush poker).

Looking at December, on the 27th there are exactly 200 points shown. That's the day I transferred 5,000 FTP's over from the Academy - I wonder if that's what set it off?

I'm not complaining, I think the chip is kind of cool, just want to know how it happened and if it's going to go away when I don't maintain it.

thanks,

quick note - I see now there have been seven days in the past ten months that have exactly 200 points in them but honestly have no clue as to how they got there - I bet there is a perfectly logical reason for it though.

trust me, as someone who has been in the iron program for 17 months now, I've ranged from bronze to iron. you can move up and down however you please.

This is the part the site contradicts:

FYI I got my answer from support, in less than 24 hours.

"If there is a technical issue/maintenance which prevents some players from connecting to our software, this will not affect their Iron Man Challenge status. All players will be considered to have earned maximum points on that day.

You can see the adjustment in your Iron Man Challenge status page. If you earned less than 200 Full Tilt Points (FTPs) on this day, it will show as "200 Points". If you earned more than 200 FTPs, your points total for the day will show the amount earned."

So, it looks like there was an outage on the 27th, which I didn't even know about, but since I was earning IM points they credited me 200.

I still don't know how one 200 point day qualified me for the chip, but now I know why the calendar looks the way it does.

-nub