Rakeback OR freerolls?

Anyone else shocked that if you recieve rakeback, your freeroll/points tournaments are not free? If you do not recieve rakeback then they are totally free, but if you do earn rakeback, every freeroll that you enter you pay for. This is because 'they' divide the pot between the number of players in it and take it off your rake... ok so its a small amount but its not far off what you would pay for a tournament that had the same amount of money and players in it.

(This is true for guaranteed pots aswell - if the pot is not met by total buy - ins, then the extra is divided and subtracted from rakeback)

I think the most unfair part about it is that you earn points by playing, and you can do many things with them including enter tournaments, but if you do use your points to enter any tournament, then you get your rakeback reduced at a rate of $0.50 per 100 points.. so for arguments sake, if you decide to enter a sat to a $1 tournament for 60 pts you will get 30c taken off your rake...which is what you would pay if you paid cash..yes? (25 + 5) so your actually spending 60 points AND 30c out of your rake that you would get if you did not enter it.

I also found out that if you get a bonus, any money actually released is deducted off your rakeback...so its not really a bonus is it then? because you would get it on the friday anyway!!

Im not exactly complaining but i am just really shocked, although i do think its unfair that they boast about giving so much money away in freerolls aswell as giving rakeback and then do not say anything about the deductions, i think that because of this, freerolls are not free, guaranteed pots never have overlay, bonuses are ours anyway and it does still cost you in some sort of way to use your points.

I only found out because i decided to spend all of my points entering tournys and got 0 rakeback haha.

Do you agree?
Was you already aware?



All of the above is only certain of Full Tilt Poker

I completely agree. I am getting cash in return as rakeback.

Would you rather get points or rakeback? Points aren't going to guarantee that you get anything put back into your account(you still have to win that tourney you bought a ticket for) but rakeback is going to be put into your account regardless. If you want to get the freebies with points, then use the Academy to accrue points that you can buy things with or build up Iron Man medals that you can buy things with. Neither one negatively affects your rakeback and you are still getting other things in return.

If you weren't being charged negative rakeback then you would essentially be double dipping. When you sign up for rakeback, you basically have to decide whether you ever want to use your points again or not and just live with it unless you're willing to take the consequences. I had about 10k points when I finally started getting rakeback that I wish I had used prior because as soon as RB went into effect, they were useless to me, but that's the choice I made. Oh well. Since then I have made well over what that 10k pts could have gotten me in rakeback.

I was researching the most +ev way to spend FTPs the other day and from what I read it seems like you will only get a RB hit if you use points instead of real $$ to buy into a tourney and if the prize is tourny tickets or FTPs you get no hit. Now if you use the ticket for a tourny that has an overlay then you will take a hit.

FTP likes to keep this as confusing as possible by constantly changing their policy.


Ive been playin a lot of these satties after my real sessions(cash games) are done. I read the forums and watch TV shows and surf the net all while playing these and they are ridic soft. Ive won a ton of tickets and havent seen a hit to my RB. Now I could be miscalculating because of the latest change to the weighted/contributed rake method they've just switched to but I dont think Im taking a hit.

Yea most sites like RBpros have the "calculation" posted on the website but it doesnt say anything about freerolls! Ah well Tilt always has an ace up their sleeve

From RBPros email sent to me a couple months ago asking about this:
Also, davem86, if you understand how a tournament payment works, this part of the deductions part on that page of how rakeback calculations are made makes perfect sense:
Player Added: If you play in a guarantee tournament that doesn't meet the guarantee based on the number of participants, Full Tilt Poker covers the remaining cost and divides the amount of overlay by the number of participants in the tournament

One thing I forgot to mention is that I read that when you play a freeroll/gtd $$ tourney with overlay the extra money is splitt only b/w the people with RB. Dont know if this is 100% true but it would make sense as FT is tryin to recoup their $$.

good info, wasnt aware of it till one week check my stats, still in the long run winning beats everything

Nope. The overlay is split up by the total amount of players, doesn't matter RB or no RB.

wat do u mean by bonus, the first deposit bonus they deduct?

True.

link?

Gday all,

Id like to thank Zebadie for raising this topic, Once again to was one of those Questions on my list that has been covered, wtg.

Wow, i didnt realises that there was so much to the rakeback system, I am only new to it, so it has been easy for me to make my decision on points or cash .... CASH plz.

Thanks once to CardsChat and its members for answering this question, LOL, that I didnt even need to ask.

What are you looking for a link to, it's answered right here:

Player Added: If you play in a guarantee tournament that doesn't meet the guarantee based on the number of participants, Full Tilt Poker covers the remaining cost and divides the amount of overlay by the number of participants in the tournament

OK. Ive emailed FT about this. I read somewhere that FT recoups only from players with RB. We'll see what they say.

Well I know they don't for a fact, otherwise I would be several hundred dollars in the negative for rakeback on some of the overlays I have played in. By the way, there is a good chance that FT will tell you to contact your MGR about it, but regardless, that's what you're going to find out.

I am sorry for not been clear on the overlay divided part...to be honest i didnt think of it like that, i assumed from the email they sent me that the full amount of people, regardless of rb share the cost....obviously there are many people without rb and therefore they cannot be deducted but as 'absoluthamn' says im sure the amount taken from us would be ridiculus if only covered by rb members.

Thanks for all your comments and opinions, very much appreciate your time.

While it is true they are only recouping the overlay from RB players, it is divided up by total amount of participants. And actually they aren't recouping anything, they just aren't giving you as much rakeback when they already gave you a portion of a big overlay. Of course they don't recoup from non RB players, what are they going to do just take it out of their accounts?

*Merge does something similar, after becoming a rakeback player you only receive 65% of the normal bonus points, because you are getting 35% rakeback. So clearing bonuses is slower, and you aren't eligible for vip cash bonuses. Complain all you want, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

So when I play in the $150.00 freerolls. I am really paying for them out of my rb? I do play those but with less frequency now. I was wondering why I took a drop in my rb last week. I played in three $150.00 freerolls.

The normal full tilt freerolls will definitely affect your RB, Im pretty sure RBPs told me that private freerolls, like CCs, do not negatively affect your RB. But in the $150 freerolls there are what like 7000 players? So for each one you played you would only lose a couple pennies. Spending FTPs, clearing bonuses or playing in a guarantee with a big overlay are the biggest hits to RB.

Yup it would only be 2c from your rb to play in a $150 freeroll and it would definately be the ftps that would do most damage......im not sure about private freerolls but because you usually have to do surveys and the fact that they are not ft funded i assume they do not affect the rb.

OK. For the record I'm not saying you guys are wrong about this. All Im saying is there is conflicting information out there and the wording from FT isnt exactly thorough in its explaination.

This is something that Ive read on the FT forums.......

1. If you play in a tournament with Added money, the money that was added gets divided up amongst all of the players that earn rake back who are in the tournament.
I.e., If there are 1000 entrants and $500 added, and 200 of those entrants are affiliates then you would be charged $2.50 to your account. $500/200 affiliates = $2.50.
2. If you play in one of the Guaranteed tournaments that run daily, and the tournament in which you are playing doesn't meet the guarantee then the difference is divided up among the affiliates in the tournament.
There are 1000 entrants in a $7000 Guarantee tournament, and 200 players in the tournament are affiliates. If they fall short of the guarantee by $1000 then that $1000 gets divided up among the 200 affiliates. So you would be charged $5 against your rake earned.
3. They have Freeroll and Promotional tournaments. The Promotional tournaments are those that you qualify into like the "Iron Man" promotion. All of the money in the promotional tournaments gets divided up among the affiliates who earn rake back that are playing in the tournament.
You can "Opt-out" of these promotions. If you do not wish to participate in any of the promotional tournaments that you automatically qualify for, please E-mail support and let them know so that your account isn't charged. When they send you a reply please save it!


Ive also read the same on 2+2 but I cant find it at the moment. So all i'm saying is that basically Im a proof nit and I want to know. Ironically this doesnt even affect me as I don't play tournys to any serious degree. Still waiting for an answer from FT.

I just know based on having rakeback and this not being possible or I never would have gotten a penny back. And your not charged 2.50 it is deducted from your rakeback. It says right on the website, divided by all the participants (participants does not equal only those who have rakeback), so $500 added divided by 1000 participants = 50cents, pretty damn simple.

So you say. Listen, Im not tryin to be a dick here. It's just that I have read two conflicting ideas from sources that both claim to be right. Its not an attack at you or anything like that.

Obvs they mean it's charged to your RB account.

That is also wrong. Even in private freerolls, when there is money added by FullTilt, you are charged negatively for them. I haven't played in a CC freeroll for a while, but when I do, I noticed about a $1.50 hit in my MGR due to it

With RBPs? I haven't seen a hit at all, and for me its real noticeable since I havent been playing much FT. Money is added by FT to CC freerolls? I know Full Tilt adds money to the addeds and guarantees.

Last week I played 2 $2.25s 27 person SnGs and a CC freeroll that was about it on FT, Im still getting my 14cents from those 2 SnGs.

Im guessing the problem here is different rakeback providers making the answer to these questions different.

I use RBPs as well and I am sure that I have noticed a drop. Like I said, I don't play the freerolls very often at all, so unless something has changed since ~April when I noticed that, I'm confused.

I keep buying step 1 tickets every time I hit 750 points. Is this affecting my rakeback? Or are these tickets exempt, because the rake is built in?
Are you serious? That is ridiculous. What about tourneys like the Friday fun $100 added? Are you charged for them as well?

OK, finally got a decent answer from FT, here are the emails....



Original Message: ------------------------
> I was having a discussion with some poker players and the issue about overlay came up. When there is a tournament and the overlay is distributed among the players is it every player in the tournament or just players that receive rakeback? Is it the same for freerolls? Thanks for the help. Brad.



Hello Brad,
>
> Thank you for your email.
>
> I can confirm that this MGR hit is attributed only to the players that receive rakeback.
>
> If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know. We're always here to help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ciaran
> Poker Specialist
> Full Tilt Poker Support





Original Message Follows: ------------------------
Thanks for the reply. I still dont think the wording you've used is specific enough.

I understand that the MGR hit is attributed only to players that receive rakeback because how could a non rakeback player take a MGR hit. What I want to know specifically is the overlay or added money MGR hit only distributed among affiliates/rakeback players.

Example. 10k gtd $1.10 tourny. 8k entrants. $2k overlay. Only 1200 players receive rakeback. Is it...

A. $2k/2000 players. Each player takes a MGR hit of $1?
B. $2k/1200 players(who receive rakeback). Each player takes a hit of $1.66?


Or can you just confirm that the following that I found on the Fulltilt forum is true....

1. If you play in a tournament with Added money, the money that was added gets divided up amongst all of the players that earn rake back who are in the tournament.
I.e., If there are 1000 entrants and $500 added, and 200 of those entrants are affiliates then you would be charged $2.50 to your account. $500/200 affiliates = $2.50.
2. If you play in one of the Guaranteed tournaments that run daily, and the tournament in which you are playing doesn't meet the guarantee then the difference is divided up among the affiliates in the tournament.
There are 1000 entrants in a $7000 Guarantee tournament, and 200 players in the tournament are affiliates. If they fall short of the guarantee by $1000 then that $1000 gets divided up among the 200 affiliates. So you would be charged $5 against your rake earned.
3. They have Freeroll and Promotional tournaments. The Promotional tournaments are those that you qualify into like the "Iron Man" promotion. All of the money in the promotional tournaments gets divided up among the affiliates who earn rake back that are playing in the tournament.
You can "Opt-out" of these promotions. If you do not wish to participate in any of the promotional tournaments that you automatically qualify for, please E-mail support and let them know so that your account isn't charged. When they send you a reply please save it!



Thanks for the help. Brad.







Hello,

Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Support.

The overlay of a tournament or freeroll is distributed among all the players in the tournament and is not just deducted from rakeback players.

If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know. We're always here to help.

Regards,

Kevin
The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker

That is incorrect. They also charge it back to players earning the cash back bonus. It states it clearly when you accept it - and they have hit me so hard with it I am saying screw their dumb bonus and back to playing at Pokerstars.

I got my bonus the first week - but since playing in the capt's freeroll they have not paid me 1 cent. It is not worth it.

Which bonus? The year end bonus or the deposit bonus? Or both? I figured that the capt's freeroll was going to rape anyone with RB as it was only split like 9 ways.

I think she is taking about the new "cash back bonus" that is equivalent to rakeback and expires unless you reach a certain amount of FTPs every month.