How much is the bop freeroll? Monthly?

I think the bankroll challenge is the only viable idea that'd make recreational players play more. The deposit bonus will just lead to some recreationals playing an sng or maybe two if they binked the first one, but the long term effect will be minimal. Giving grinders more money is obviously not going to help.

A good promotion would be to attract new players to SNG, increase the volume that recs play and keeps the regs happy. There have been a fair few comments requesting a tweak to BOP or a new Leaderboard.

Promos 1 & 2 would make new players and recs happy. 4 would work for the regs.

Ditch 3 and replace it with a leaderboard competition. How you work the points scoring out is a challenge for the Stars staff but my idea would be to have a leaderboard for HUSG, 6 Max, 9 player, 18 player and a non NL Hold 'em leaderboard. Players can enter both a "low orbit" and "high orbit" but the leaderboards run over a whole month and the "low" takes results from the first 50 games only, the "high" takes the results from the first 500/600/whatever. Prize pools are dedicated to each leaderboard and the top 50 players in every month gets a cash prize - no tickets or anything, just hard cash. Then each months points are accumulated in an annual leaderboard where end of year payouts for the top 50 players are in the region of 10x the monthly prize. I was thinking around $2000 for the monthly winner and $20k for the yearly winner of each leaderboard. This could be done and kept close to the $1M budget set aside for promo 3.

Perhaps the happy hour promo could apply to leaderboard qualifying tournaments, eg 100% bonus for "low orbit" games and 50% for the "high orbit" so its volume specific rather than time specific?

I realise that some of the prizes on offer might not set the world on fire, especially the higher stakes but everyone would be a winner with the increased RB and a cash prize is still a bonus. You would be playing the games anyway.

Just an idea but it would give an incentive to recs and the regs can still battle it out on two fronts.

obviously a big +1 to OMGBarackObama. Plus whilst 2p2 is reg centric, a lot of the high stakes regs dont really post here because the sng forum is such a mess, so again its heavily weighted towards regs who dont really benefit a lot from BOP, rather than those that do. Perhaps posters could state what stakes they play to gain a clearer picture of this.

One interesting thing to come out of this thread though is an idea of just how little $1m buys you in terms of promo value. As has been said these promos are very short term (maybe totaling around a month?) and have various flaws, so in comparison they actually make $3.3m for BOP (or any sort of leaderboard) look rather cheap.

Idk going forward but I think about everyone here agrees that you can just axe the freeroll to save some money, keep rest the same, and choose one or 2 from these promos (or more) going forward. Whatever happens, I do agree, freeroll does not serve its purpose at all and is more an annoying thing u need to play cuz u lose value then oh yay.

Also an mtt for a sng prize makes no sense to begin with. Some sort of sng prize is way more fun for SNG players.

Im still happy if they include these promos' (3 being my favourite for sure) and the rest being moderately ok, but axing the BOP completely is not something I would like allthough it can get some adjustments, like making a FAIR system that can include f50s, axing the freeroll (and maybe make higher blocks once a month or something).

Full disclosure, I play 30-100$ hypers mostly so far

Instead of the freeroll why not take the leaders from each level over the course of a week and have a SNG final. Obviously the Higher level players would have a skill advantage but it's a SNG anything can happen.

I agree with most that the MTT at the end should be axed.

great work stars!

I are dumb.

i really would prefer the old BOP promo.
i`m a micro s&g player and was able to make some hundreds out of the BOP every year.
i dont put much volume in usally,but when i had the chance for some extra $ i tried to play 100 s&gs at that level for the week.
i wouldn`t have a problem if u cut the monthly freeroll(i play o8 anyway)
but plz leave the rest the same or just promote it more.

I could be in right field here but I get the impression that Awice has a lot to say but is handcuffed due to attending the IOM meetings and has an NDA.

Stars is putting up an offer of -3million for the BOP being scrapped but + 3.3 million for the new promos. Sounds like a fair trade off.

What I think Awice is trying to say is next year they would have put up at least half of the proposed changes anyways as these promos actually make Pokerstars money with the influx of deposits and play. So by scrapping the BOP they are just saving 3 million since these new promos are going to be run anyways.

Upon consideration I think there should be a balance of some sort. I do like the BR challenge and that should def. stay. I don't know if it should be over 11 days as that sounds like a funky number and not as marketable. I think 1 week sounds better. The key is getting recs to feel apart of something and to bolster social interaction. This promo accomplishes both.

So lets just keep BOP instead of getting some new promos? Look, BOP in its current form isn't attracting any new players to SNGs. Stars is offering us some new promos to get new players into the game and then you hold on to the old boring BOP that isn't even a real leaderboard, it's just a rungood lottery where recreactionals have terrible odds of ever getting a price, most likely discouraging them.

You hate on SNGs being excluded from every other promo, but it's not like cash players have a promo like BOP either? They just get the occasional promos too... I agree Stars deff should treat SNG players better in general, but why would they if new recs barely get attracted to SNGs? Stars says from their experience offering temporary promotions gets new players into the games, I don't know why they'd not be truthful about that but maybe I'm not seeing something here?

The main issue with BOP is that fish get discouraged to play(when their current score is looking bad) way more than they get encouraged(when their current score is looking good) to play. When I was playing 1$ SNGs for fun I kept playing when I was scoring good on my BOP run, but when it wasn't going good my volume dropped off a cliff or I evenjust waited until Sunday for a new week. Obv I can't know wether this is a common occurence for recs or not, but the current BOP simply is crap. We really need something where every game you play has the potential of improving your score for a SNG leaderboard. A system where your "5 best runs" or something like that count.

Finally, the leaderboard simply costs Stars too much for what it brings, since it doesn't encourage recreationals to play or drives new recreationals to SNGs. I guess SNG players have become such RB whores that we can't see the bigger picture anymore where we need to drive in more players to the games?

I don't think anyone wants there to be no form of SNG leaderboard, but it should imo drastically drop in what it costs to Stars and that money should be used for promos that Stars can promote more heavily and drives new players to SNGs and encourages them to play more.

I probably made ~$15k this year from BOP, but would still like to see the money used in promos that spreads the $$ out more evenly, and gives recreationals (and regs) different things to chase. Turning things over, trying new promos, and creating new incentives every few years is a positive IMO. Not re-inventing the wheel, but tweaks and twists.

I would also love Stars to keep some form of BOP/SNG leaderboard, while still adding some new promotions.

You save the $600k by eliminating the shootout and making BOP just a leaderboard $$ payout only. You could stretch the level parameters to eliminate one of the higher categories as well, and save ~$1 million total (i.e. Jupiter $150+, Uranus $50-$149.99, bye-bye Saturn, etc.).

You'd have close to $1.5 million for new promos, given the $3.3 million budget. If they test well, they could then be more fully implemented going forward.

Or something. Etc.

The key factor for a healthy poker ecosystem is constant deposits from players. The deposit would then trickle down to the regs and Stars. Both would benefit from more deposits.

I would love to see a simple and fair system for all with focus on encouraging deposits. And the best promotion for that is a deposit bonus. For example, a weekly 100% deposit bonus where the bonus is paid in the form of a SNG ticket after clearing a certain amount of VPP. Players would have an option to deposit any amount from $30 to $2000 and obtain the same value in the form of a SNG ticket.

1) No BOP and BOP freeroll.. pretty much only grinders get money from it. If this is the reason why high stakes SNG run, then there needs to be a difference reason for high stakes SNG to run.

2) No happy hours. Encourage action for a specific period of time, but stars won't make much money from the extra action and regs wouldn't make much due to a heavier reg proportion in games.

As a high volume cash player that used to play SnGs but rarely does these days, I would certainly be much more likely to play to take advantage of some of these proposed new promotions. BoP is just too much like hard work to make it worthwhile unless SnGs are your main game.

Does this mean you are cutting down BoP replace it with these promotions throughout the year and won`t give any other promotion for SnG player in 2013?
This way I don`t see an increasing in value for SnG but in fact a chance for you to cut any other promotions out while pushing the money of BoP into these new promotions (I see stars saying "well look you have this...and that...oh and this the whole year...we need to give promotions for cash game player as well).

Also I wouldnt consider promotion 1 as a solo SnG Promo. Dont get me wrong getting free tickets is a nice one but nearly every player will use this reload (like the normale reloads or the MTT ones). Although this will make SnGs a short time fishier than before I wouldn`t calculate with 1kk as a SnG-benefit when it is more a sitewide promotion for any game (so it will be less for SnGler not more). Deposit promotions are always a good way to encourage recr. to deposit imo and I would love to see more of these (cash reloads and MTT tickets as well)

Promo 3 and 4 are good ones. I prefer promo 3 more but we need more clarification what you mean with "often" / "rare" and so on. Does this mean every 100, every 1000, every 10.000 sngs? If the bronze one e.g. just occur approx. every 1000 SnGs I don`t see that people will be very happy with this one - the waste amount of player won`t get anything at all and if this promo is targeted for recr. player it should occur very frequently so that someone who plays 50 sng a month have a realistic chance to hit one of these. A apprpx. value would be good to get better feedback.

dont like promo 2 at all

personally I would make a mixture of BoP (with a reduced price pool and new structures), a HU sng leaderboard, and promo 1, 3 and 4
Cutting out BoP completely isn`t the best option at all but you could reduce the overall price amount, change some calculation points and reduce the diferrent level. It won`t be that huge like the last couple of years but a nice addition (e.g. cut it to 1kk per year and leave the freeroll)
A HU sng leaderboard is a must have imo (like the full tilt one which is fair imo)

I think it would be really bad for the HS SNGs if BOP has to go. The 300$+ now basically run around regs (and 1 recreational player mostly). If BOP is gone, there is a good chance that those HS sngs will run way less, this means also eliminating the possibility for recreational players who wanna do a shot won't have as many options in the SNG area. So if BOP is axed is has to be replaced with something that keeps the liquidity in the hs sngs. And right now it doesn't look like there is something that does just that.

To sect7G there wasn't any "read between the lines." Well, except for one minor thing I can't really mention.

------------

Okay, now about the $300s issue, I will say a few things.

First, the $300s leaderboard is different from all the other leaderboards, because it is absent of any competition. Now, way back when, when Steps was considered a good and liquid system, $300+ buyin sngs were much more liquid, and maybe the "Jupiter" planet was a legit leaderboard. Now that is not the case. It's not like a typical leaderboard where there are a lot of competitors. Here if you come 5th out of 8 runners you still get a prize, what kind of leaderboard is that?. This makes it a legitimate point of contention -- why is there a leaderboard for ~20 people.

I think HS sngs shouldn't get "saved" by BOP, if the game is beatable people will play, if not then not. There's no special need to encourage 6 reg games. If you want to argue to help HS sngs, then argue that the rake needs to taper off in HS sngs just like MTTs and cash games do. That's a legit and reasonable argument structured around facts.

Also, $300+ buyin sngs are SUPPOSED to "run around regs." That's almost a definition of high stakes. At 10/20+ cash, every game has 5 regs. If 5 regs were allowed to camp a 6max cash game [by sitting out and waiting for a fish to start], you would see that happening and get really bad (just like HU lobby.). Yet at sngs you almost never see 5 out of 6 regs regged and camping. Sngs are still a young game, apparently.


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At the same time, like I have mentioned, I am still for converting the BOP into a leaderboard, as I think now most people here are.

Thank you to OMGBarackObama for taking time to post his long post and anyone who +1d me or him, its nice to know I am not alone on this front for once.

In the next post I give a full implementation of a leaderboard.

+1ing everything anyone has said about this being a TLB for sngs and Awice's entire post! (for once). The current changes that will be deployed are so horrendously awful I don't even know where to start. keep bop!

SNG-Leaderboard Implementation

First let me remind people that BOP is a type of TLB and therefore marketed directly to regs. The intent was never to market to recreational players.

Why write a full SNG-Leaderboard implementation? PS Staff might need a bit of a push, haha. It's easier to implement something if its already a document on the table rather than if it requires work to figure out.

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Effective immediately, BOP ends its monthly freeroll. Instead it has four leaderboards with these new planetary names:

$1-9: "Earth" SNG Leaderboard
$10-49: "Neptune" SNG Leaderboard
$50-100: "Saturn" SNG Leaderboard
$101+: "Jupiter" SNG Leaderboard

(These categories were well thought out based on game offerings that are legitimately available in 2012, and also how the points system works, to be as fair as possible in terms of splitting the games up evenly.)

---

For each sng that you placed in the money, you get points in the usual way that BOP gives them (example: 39 for first in a 6max, 21 for second in a 6max, etc.)

Additionally, you also get a stakes bonus: whenever you earn points towards your score, you also get a point bonus equal to ln of 1+ the number of VPP earned. (This is to make it more fair for playing a higher stake or for playing turbos instead of hypers within the same leaderboard. By ln, I mean the natural logarithm function.)

This stakes bonus happens to be very well structured in terms of how equal/fair it is for players that prefer different types of sngs to get certain scores while playing the same amount of time. Also notice that each leaderboard is still separated by stake, so people that play higher stakes don't crush the scores of people that play lower stakes because of stakes bonus. It just accounts for minute differences.

Just like BOP low orbit, there are 20 game blocks. Your top 5 scores of these 20 game blocks, along with your current block score, are shown in the menu in the same way that BOP shows them now. Your "weekly score" is equal to 10*your best block + 4*your second best block + 3*your third best block + 2*your fourth best block + 1*your fifth best block.

---

Every week, the players with the highest weekly scores in each leaderboard will receive money:

(To be fair, this money was constructed proportionally from the current money already being given out at each stake, eg. Earth BOP right now currently gets 3k+4k+5k = 12k)

Earth (prizepool: $5k)
Neptune (prizepool: $5k)
Saturn: (prizepool: $6k)
Jupiter: (prizepool: $7k)

Earth [buyin $1 to $9]:
1st: $750
2nd: $500
3rd: $350
4th: $250
5th: $200
6th: $150
7th-10th: $100
11th-20th: $50
21th-50th: $30
51th-100th: $20

Neptune [buyin $10-49]:
1st: $1200
2nd: $800
3rd: $650
4th: $450
5th: $350
6th: $250
7th: $200
8th: $150
9th-10th: $100
11th-20th: $75

Saturn [buyin $50-100]:
1st: $2000
2nd: $1200
3rd: $800
4th: $600
5th: $450
6th: $300
7th: $200
8th-10th: $150

Jupiter [buyin $101+]:
1st: $2500
2nd: $1500
3rd: $1000
4th: $600
5th: $400
6th-10th: $200

Total cost of 52 weeks: 1.196m

Additionally, there is a separate "SNG Player of the Year" leaderboard. Every week that you cash, you get points (example: 20 points for first, etc.) To keep it close, only the top 25 scores count. The prizes would be the same as the yearly MTT TLB prizes. (Total cost: $215k.) If/when badges are a reality, the winner should also receive a "2013 SNG Player of the Year" displayable badge, and runners up receive like-minded badges.

Total cost of leaderboard promotion: 1.411m

Wow, just wow!!

As much as I think your idea would be beneficial to me personally, I think it would be very much a short term thing.
Recreational players may have flaws as poker players but that does not mean that they are stupid. Any promotion that requires you to play at least 100 SnGs a week just to have a remote chance of winning is obviously not intended for them and they will know that and either move to other games or sites where they are not being so obviously discriminated against. If BoP is to be retained in any form, the low orbit is essential as at least recs feel that they have a shot at winning it.

The way I see it is simple - target the promos to the recreationals, more recreationals playing means higher roi's. Bingo - everyone is happy. Unless of course you are a losing player surviving on rakeback alone

Awice clearly (once again) only thinks about himself. Tilts me endless!

Keep going with the new promos stars!

I was very clear about this fact in basically all of my posts. Also how is this "once again"? I am probably in the top 1% of fair people on 2+2 in terms of thinking of other people. Even just looking at posts from the last week I suggested many things that did not benefit me. Looking in those same threads, very few other people did the same. Here is one of them but I have many more:

Another example is the above leaderboard I just wrote. I made sure to give a bone for turbo players through bonus points (even though I exclusively play hypers), and I also made sure to throw a bone for higher stakes players playing the same category (Eg. $1000 turbo players will have some extra advantage over me in "Jupiter" due to bonus points, which they wouldn't if I didn't add it.) I also made sure to split the prize pool evenly (for example it goes 5,5,6,7k which was proportional, instead of eg. 5,6,7,8k.) I also made the "Earth" TLB pay out 100 places because of the nature of micro stakes games. These are examples of me thinking of other people.

--
When BOP talks were around, I was actually the biggest supporter of axing it. Every reg basically knows this and I am pretty sure almost no one favored my opinion then. Back then, I said that opinion because I thought it was right. My mind changed after the PS meeting, where I learned PS specifically intends for (and is okay with) reg-centric promos [such as happy hour.]

You and many others mistakenly got lulled into choosing rec-promos over reg-promos, an easy to make but false choice. They intend* to pit two groups against each other and for the majority to choose their plan. The reason BOP isn't axed already is clearly because of PR. They need "consensus" so it doesn't look bad on them. (*Disclaimer: my personal speculation.)

This proposal doesn't even have any 2014 implications - the proposal only lasts for 1 year (actually only a couple weeks.) What about next year? There's no promise, its clearly a bad trade, and once you trade it away you will never get it back again (much like waiving your rights to a cop.)

BOP was intended as a break for sng regs that are paying much more rake than other types of players. The proposed changes give no such break. It's our right as regs to say (in a thread that specifically asks for our opinion) that we oppose such a trade. So for it to "tilt you endless" that I oppose it is ludicrous.

The only promotion i like is promotion 3.
I'm a 180 sng reg and i dont really qualify for any leaderboard.
I dont make remotely enough point for the mtt leaderboard.
There should atleast be a leaderboard for the 40+ sng.

It seems stars is intent to remove the BOP and the regs are fighting hard for this not to happen..solution?
how about at the very least having a weekly freeroll for the 1-10th places on the low and high orbit leaderboard for each division..where the starting stacksizes are allocated according the postion on the leaderboard..i.e

1st 6000 chips
2nd 5500
3rd 5000
4th 4500
5th 4000
6th 3500
7th 3000
8th 2500
9th 2000
10th 1500

speed could either be a normal or turbo in format..and run at a set time each week..maybe around sunday million time. payout structures could be top 3 or every place could receive something..

stars could spend 25% of the current payouts on this BOP promotion and spend the rest on the new promotions.
this will keep the regs happy and give them something to sweat each week..
its far better than scrapping the BOP altogether.

+1 for Happy Hour promo