Sunday, February 15, 2009

The weekend amateurs

Armed with a new 23'' widescreen monitor hooked up to my laptop, I set out to take advantage of all the weekend players. I now have plenty of room for 8 tables or more, though I seem to struggle with more than 5 sit-n-gos at a time when we get shorthanded and the action intense. Pokerstars normally see about 160,000 players at peaktimes during the weekdays, but on weekends they push 250,000. Most of these extra players are losing players.

I managed about 60 $20 SNGs over Saturday and Sunday, and mainly because I went 12-3 in headsup matches I saw my balance grow from $737.37 to $989.37 though I did peak at $1063 before I have to admit fatigue set in. I also had a significant number of 4th places but I think they are the price of going for the win. Overall it seems like I have gotten nowhere really since I was originally boomswitched a few weeks ago though I hope I have learned several lessons that will prevent me from going on as brutal a downswing again. Wishful thinking probably.

Apart from having by far the most online players and making some serious coin that way, PokerStars probably have the worst deals for their players - mainly because they don't offer rakeback. Rakeback might sound like a small thing, but it really adds up. Looking at my spreadsheet for this challenge, in the span I have gone from $100 to $1000 I have paid $1073 in buy-in fees for SNGs. Essentially, while I have done well to grow my roll 900%, PokerStars still made more off me than I did off them! These numbers would be ugly with equally busy but losing player. With a standard 30% rakeback deal my balance would be $300 higher. Instead I have gathered a silly amount of PokerStars points that I can trade in for mainly crap.

So far I can get 4 cookie baskets, a DVD player, 18 Pokerstars T-shirts or 4 'Harrington on Hold'em' in either Italian or German. However if I get 2,988,000 more points I get a Porsche Cayman S. Combined with one of the worst bonus offers going, they really are taking the piss. I guess you can when you have 250,000 players though...

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