Poker Stars freeroll revamp

In the last day or two Poker Stars has totally redone the freeroll offerring. They seem to offer one every 40 minutes now, fewer allowed in them (sucks, as I used to do all but the NLHE which never filled up - the NLHE ALWAYS filled up), fewer Round 2 tix per game. It's nice they are offering all these new games though. Peope gotta be foaming at the mouth to try them I guess.

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Never Liked PS for their freerolls. Seemes like a joke to me that you first have to fight off 10.000 other players, just to qualify for a small freeroll. And PS is the biggest site around. They get so much traffic. It seems to me that they could afford to be a little more generous regarding freerolls. Their FPP system isnt all that generous either. i like FT better. Here I get a 27% rakeback besides the FTP.

ienjoy the new freeroll format & it gives me opportunity to try diferent games for free before venturing into them in real money

I think now it is max 9000 players for only 72entries for the real freeroll game.

I think I like this.

They shrunk the field by 20% and the "payed" ranks by 20%, too.

At the end of the day that means I have to play an hour less to place.

+EV imo.

And the frequency of the FR coming up is better now, too.

Divebitch I'm with you - I don't like the NLHE donkaments either - they're boring.

Thinking about it - 2-7 triple draw drives me nuts, too.

It is a joke. Yet the NLHE would fill up to 12000 no matter what time of day. Now, perhaps, because they 1) lowered the max players from 12000 to 9000, and 2) have more frequent freerolls - the other games will see more action. You have to imagine that is their intent, and probably marketing genius. Offer games that hardly anyone or nobody else does - 8 game, badugi, 2-7 draw, and hope they find it a challenging and fun change from the usual. Then people deposit $$$ to play them for real. I guess when you're #1, you can afford to be stingy with the freerolls.

Yup, gotta be the plan.

So if PS freefolls suck, what site has the best FR's available?

I don't like it much. I'm only interested in the Omaha, 2-7, and badugi, and with the exception of PL Omaha, those hardly ever came close to filling up. So I'm not saving an hour. If anything, the game will take longer, since they've reduced the 'payouts' by (and I believe it's) 25% - 40%. This 8-game I'm in right now gives out just 48 round 2 tix. To me, it's at least an extra 1/2 hour of battle for a far greater chance I won't even make it. BTW, I kinda like the 2-7, but I think the FR all by itself is the single draw. In the 8-game, it's triple draw. You have to adjust to needing a way lower hand.

Mmm - maybe I should have looked through all the payout structures...

There is a point in what you said.

Everyone has his favourites, mine are Omaha hi/lo limit, razz and horse .

I haven't been playing at PS in quite awhile but I think I will give it a try for awhile and see how it goes.

Not a 'joke', imo. OTOH, smart move. I'm a night owl, the really late NLHE FR's never filled. Sometimes only 6-7k players. There has been an increasing trend in getting away from nlhe games. The Stars VIP FR on Sundays has made HORSE a permanent last Sunday of the month game. They replaced another nlhe game with Omaha which is to repeat periodically.

Maybe there is a real message here. Are too many people tired of depositing to play nlhe online and losing? Are actual 'deposits' falling off? Stars has a superior marketing team that leads the industry in forethought and innovations, imo.

Is this a result of the trend to make HORSE 'the' premier game in poker with a WSOP buy-in of $50,000??

I wouldn't say increasing available freerolls is 'stingy'. Adding more games while reducing tickets per game probably equals the same number of Round 2 tickets awarded each week and actually requires a player to play more of the game than donking into a huge nlhe chip stack and sitting out to make the ticket at 99 (or 88).

On reducing players and tickets awarded, maybe you don't recall when a Round 2 ticket only went to the top 27 of 10,000 players and only 24 tickets at an 8 seat game.

The 2-7 single draw is a NL game. The triple draw 2-7 in the 8-game is a limit game instead of NL. Strategies are different for each type. BTW - note that the Badugi's are scattered far away from the 16:30 game on Tilt that we discussed in another thread.

Carefully look over the new schedule and you'll find the prevailing difference is the HUGE quantity of limit and Pot Limit games being offered. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but 'someone' has a reason for reducing the nlhe FR offerings.

Personally, I like the changes. Instead of having 2 or 3 Round 2 tickets in 'the bank', maybe I can increase that ...

do any of the ps freerolls pay or are they all sattelites

wow, this was why i switched to FTP because of the frequency of their freerolls. I used to love PS, guess I should go back and check it out then huh?

Might help if you just logged in to Pokerstars and checked the schedules and the tourney lobbies.

But - no cash payouts in the FR's. They are all sats to a Round 2 ticket to be used in any Saturday or Sunday Round 2 game that does pay cash - a $2,000 prize pool.

I love having more variety to chose from. And I also like having the increased frequency of the freerolls, too! I used to enter them to kill time when they offered only 27 spots...just wasn't worth it to me to invest the time needed to advance.

But now, I can pick something other than holdem, and getting to rnd 2 is not that difficult!

Yeah got to love the new 8 game mix tournies. ANd THey got horse too.

LOL, they even added 5 card draw, PL.

Did you notice that even the NLHE play money games have been greatly reduced and replaced with the so-called 'variety' games .. ??

Even one of the Badugi games I looked at was a 'limit' Badugi, where the FR's are PL. Maybe Stars and the Poker giants have seen enough of the all-in pf maniacs. ... ??

Know what I've noticed? The NLHE fills up at 9000, whereby it would still fill up at 9000, but the other games would fill up as well. I just finished int he Badugi (see velow), but doubt I'll keep doing this nonsense.

Not sure I mentioned it b4, but with the NLHE filling up, the other games do too, and that's for sure.

I agree fk - kinda pathetic. It was b4, but now, it's just crazy.

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Hey I have done pretty good in them.

I think is not big change in the FR, maybe some more games, but change the max players but also the payments, so if before was a 12000 players max now is 6000 to 9000 but the payments before was the first 99 and now the first 45-75.

And then another game of 2000 or 4000 in the round 2, at the end is the same like before.

Oops. What I meant to say was this... NLHE fills up at 9000, whereby it would (used to) fill up at 12000, but the other games are now filling up as well due to the overflow - they haven't in the past.

Complete agree that in the end, it's same as before. However, my main point was how the revamp has affected the games I prefer. If you play NLHE, it shouldn't affect you at all unless you miss the registration. Yes, instead of 12000, it's 9000 people. But if you prefer some of the other games, I find those games are now filling up, whereas they had not before. And this is possibly due to the overflow of people that couldn't register in time for NLHE.

This is just a rough example. Let's say before the revamp, 2-7 draw had max 9000, and gave 88 round 2 spots. But now it's max 7000 for 56 spots. While the ratio might be about the same, that game might usually only draw 5000 players anyway. So in effect, there are simply fewer Round 2 tix. And to make it worse, because 3000 people got shut out of NLHE, they will play 2-7 instead, so now it fills up to 7000 instead of 5000, and just 56 tix instead of 88. Does that make sense?

The only problem is that there seem to be so many donks who dont know these games so they just bet and raise every round ... seems more frustriating in the stud games

Oh yeah, anything limit is a raisefest the first hour. But you are so right, there are some hilariously bad players in Badugi and 2-7 draw. In the 8-game I played in yesterday, the 2-7 is triple draw. Someone's straight got beaten by trip 7s. You have 3 draws, how could this happen? Had to take a screenshot, but forgot to paste it.

It happens because people don't know what the game is, so they think it's like 5 card draw where you draw 3 times. I've seen people end up with quads, full houses, etc. after standing pat on the last draw. I feel like if you are going to enter a game, at the very least google it to learn the rules first...

The triple draw is hilarious, only about 2 players at the first table seem to know it's lo and of those 2, 1 usually thinks A is lo, sad but makes getting a big stack early easy!

Don't even have to google it. All the games are explained on the Pokerstars website or access it from the site's Main Lobby / Help / FAQ. Many never will or simply do not care. They are playing for fun.

Ever since they started putting the play money games on the freeroll .com section, the .com freerolls have been loaded with the .net players. You can tell that from the white star above their avatar player circle. Many of these recreational players really never care about much of anything.

Is this all that different from the 7 nlhe freerollers at a 9 seat table who think 3,8o - or ATC for that matter - is worthy of an all-in at the first several tables?

Especially unnerving when you folded your Q high to their raises.

Yep, just had to explain yesterday to this guy who couldn't understand why he lost A-8 or something. And with every game including Badugi where ace is low it's understandable. And this is for both of you...I told him that's why it's called 2-7, and 75432, no flush, str8, etc. He was very thankful I explained. And I could see it in 8-game where someone has no clue, but when you enter a full game of Badugi or 2-7, puleez, do your homework. A little google, there's plenty info out there.

i don't mind the freerolls on stars. In the last few months i have averaged at least 1 ticket a week. Hell i don't mind the new settup. Yes its harder to get a ticket(though not by much) but i like the game variety. I even won a ticket late sunday night early monday morning then another one midday monday. First time i won two tickets in less than 12 hours. One was for limit omahaHI/lo and the other was for badugi.

I got 14 now since September, wanna buy a few? I suspect that part of the reason is that not only do they want to entice new depositers with more fun games, but they already have as much of the market share as they're going to get with NLHE. But as you said, there is a reason - and no doubt their marketing pros are top-notch.

I got 2 in a day Oct 6. Don't remember the games, except is surely wasn;t NLHE. Not really proud of it. More productive things I could've been doing.

Yeah I won 2 tikes back to back, right befor the revamp. It was with horse, and no limit omaha

My opinion for many of you discussing the Freerolls on PS, is that you may be better off for your time looking at different options for your Poker Time.

If you are looking to make money from nothing...many of you may do better by visiting one of many staking sites that allow you to play with other peoples money and you get to keep 30 to 50% of what you win

When I first started playing online poker Pokerstars was one of the first sites I jumped on and I played those freerolls. I wanted to win them so bad, I would make it a point to register in them. I look back now at them and laugh. They're pointless. Your best bet is to play the 10FPP MTTs, atleast you're playing for money. With the Hubbies or Hubble ones, whatever they're called, you play for hours just to get a ticket for a baby mtt on the weekend. You have to go through so many people to win hardly anything.

Bottom line, Pokerstars makes money. Spread the wealth a bit.

Why would anyone stake you unless you were a pro or damn near it?

You're so right. I've been playing them for fun really. But it's a major waste of time. Even for practice, you don't see a lot of great play until after the 2nd break. And I could also have fun making real money. I've been playing the micro ring games. I'll probably stick with that for awhile. That and private tourneys.

Done for various reasons--but it happens every single day for many "ordinary" players

• Some stakers just like to help people
• Some stakers like to stake people who appear as though they may have "game" and start them out at low stakes, and as they win keep moving them up
• Some stakers specifically stake very small games for people with little experience
• Staking seems to actually be fun for many people who like to keep track of their horses and root them on...kinda a community thing
• There are many examples of players who started with nothing and thru staking have been able to rise from as little as .10 to 1.10 stakes up to playing $100 events and/or made many thousands from zip. It is more people than you would think

Someone stake me ?

Well you'd better not.