Clearing $50 bonus on stars.
Got almost $60 on my stars account. Just wondering what are some easy ways to clear the bonus?
Tried playing FL10 but earned nothing in about 260 hands. Also tried NL10 but hardly anything there. I thought once you earned $0.40 in rake you get a point and it didn't have to be in one hand? Is that true or not?
I've been playing the $1 don turbo's and $1 regular stt's. Should I stick with those or try something else.
Thanks for the comments.
Matt.
Tried playing FL10 but earned nothing in about 260 hands. Also tried NL10 but hardly anything there. I thought once you earned $0.40 in rake you get a point and it didn't have to be in one hand? Is that true or not?
I've been playing the $1 don turbo's and $1 regular stt's. Should I stick with those or try something else.
Thanks for the comments.
Matt.
Comments
I am faced with a similarly challenging problem of trying to earn 5,000 FPP by mid-August to clear the $250 reload bonus, while playing high-variance satellites and avoiding depositing any more money. Grinding cash games would be much better at most other sites which give fractional/partial points, especially with rakeback. I think your best option with PokerStars may be to play low-variance tournaments where you earn points consistently while your balance doesn't take too big a hit. The following are some of the options I am considering.
1) Double or Nothing SNGs have the lowest variance in that you have ~50% chance of almost doubling your money. However, as the PokerXFactor video coach and I found out, even the $10+$0.80 SNGs are not a piece of cake. If you don't like grinding multiple cash games, you may go crazy multi-tabliing DONs.
2) Other SNG, since 1/3 of players make it to the money.
3) Steps SNGs, since 4-6 players make it to the money. I posted before that I wouldn't touch a PokerStars Steps with a 10-foot mouse but resistance was futile and I finally tried one for the first time and won it. The problem is that you get a tournament ticket instead of cash, so you could have a stockpile of tickets but run out of cash.
4) Forget about the $50-$250 bonus and SilverStar status, and just play what you want in PokerStars. I joined PokerStars to mainly play the high-variance satellites where less than 10% make it to the money in the qualifiers and only a few get the final prize of a $4K-$19K package.
5) Forget about PokerStars and play elsewhere, especially with rakeback. I am considering transferring my balance to another site which has lower variance satellites.
I haven't decided myself what to do with PokerStars. Maybe moose or other online gurus have better ideas for us.
This is important.
For limit poker.
You must play at least .25/.50 limit, since that is the minimum to get a rake of .40.
If you play lower stakes than .25/.50 limit you won't get any fpp's ever.
Moose's suggestion of 1/2 limit is a good one.
For No Limit.
When the pot is $8 (.40 rake) you get a fpp.
If the pot is $40 ($2 rake) you get another fpp at 6 max tables.
At other tables the rake needs to be $3 to get another fpp.
So play 6 max not full ring if you're clearing bonuses by playing no limit.
Think I might just continue with the $1 don's and $1 regular stt's. Just until I make some more money and can move to higher levels.
fl50 could be an option though.
Thanks for the replies everyone.
Matt.
Are you sure of this? Got a link? Because I checked my vpp stats for an hour of 1/2 6max against what the VIP calculator said it would be for full ring and I was ahead. Why would FR get more in anyway if more hands per hour and bigger pots are happening at 6max games?
PokerStars Rakeback vs Full Tilt Poker Rakeback
I am guessing, but I think its Double or Nothing... sit n go with 10 people where top 5 get double their money (minus rake)
A quick look at the lobby for both shows me that pots are as big or bigger on average in 6max than FR. That link doesn't mention 6max LHE, only NL.
My simple experiment of tracking my vpps was that I earned about 20% more playing 6max than the Calculator would have predicted for FR.
You could play more tables at a time doing FR, I'm sure.
I don't know about ring but I find the calculator extremely inaccurate for calculating points for sngs. It's a joke actually how far off the calculator is.
I think that site might have used the calculator to figure out their tables.
If vpps are a function of pot size, and there are bigger pots in 6max, and more hands/hour, wouldn't it have to be faster? Tomorrow I'll play an hour of each full ring and sixmax and figure this out
Two Plus Two Magazine - Poker Strategy
I still don't get how you think 6max pots are larger. Intuitively how can this possibly be? More players, more multiway pots = more hands that hit multiple players.
1) Look at the Stars lobby.
2) FR is for nits.
6max earned 43 vpp
FR earned ....43 vpp
The VIP calculator on the site projects that one would earn ~38 in that time at FR.
Then I took an average of pot sizes in 6max and fullring 1/2, each over the first 36 full tables listed in the lobby. Average pot size of:
FR : $7.86
6max : $8.41
....again, because FR is for nits.
Interestingly, while playing FR i saw a guy who was 16-tabling 1/2!! If he did that 40 hours per week he'd make over 66K vpps per month! Impressive but annoying because he took so long to make a move.
In NL 6max you get a second fpp when the pot hits $40 ($2 rake)
In NL full ring you get a second fpp when the pot hits $60 ($3 rake)
So, 6 max will clear faster if there are a lot of pots in the $40-$60 range.