PokerStars Rakeback Equivalents Thread to End all Threads

Overview of the VIP Levels

PokerStars has various VIP levels that have increasing levels of benefits in terms of your FPP multiplier and what level bonuses you can receive. This is an overview of those levels:

BronzeStar - This is the level everyone starts with. Here you get 1 FPP for every 1 VPP you earn.
SilverStar - This level requires you to make 1,500 VPPs in a Calendar month, and this status stays with you until at least the end of the following month. Here you earn 1.5 FPPs for every 1 VPP you earn.
GoldStar - This level requires you to make 4,000 VPPs in a Calendar month, and this status stays with you until at least the end of the following month. Here you earn 2 FPPs for every 1 VPP you earn.
PlatinumStar - This level requires you to make 10,000 VPPs in a Calendar month, and this status stays with you until at least the end of the following month. Here you earn 2.5 FPPs for every 1 VPP you earn.
Supernova - This level requires you to make 100,000 VPPs in a Calendar year, and this status stays with you until at least the end of February of the following year. Here you earn 3.5 FPPs for every 1 VPP you earn.
Supernova Elite - This level requires you to make 1,000,000 VPPs in a Calendar year, and this status stays with you until at least the end of February of the following year. Here you earn 5 FPPs for every 1 VPP you earn.

(Source: http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/tiers/)

Overview of the VIP Bonuses

There are four distinct VIP bonuses, not counting the milestone bonuses which are covered in the next section. Here is an overview of the VIP bonuses that lists how much the Bonus is, how many FPPs it costs, which VIP level it's available for, what the $/FPP value is, what the $/VPP value is if you clear the Bonus at its respective level, and how many VPPs you have to get after you buy the Bonus to have it released into your account (you keep these VPPs, by the way).

$50 for 5,000 FPPs - Available to SilverStar or higher, $0.01/FPP, $0.015/VPP. (350 VPPs to clear)
$285 for 25,000 FPPs - Available to GoldStar or higher, $0.0114/FPP, $0.0228/VPP. (1,995 VPPs to clear)
$650 for 50,000 FPPs - Available to PlatinumStar or higher, $0.013/FPP, $0.0325/VPP. (4,550 VPPs to clear)
$1500 for 100,000 FPPs - Available to Supernova or higher, $0.015/FPP, $0.0525/VPP. (10,500 VPPs to clear)
$4000 for 250,000 FPPs - Available to Supernova or higher, $0.016/FPP, $0.056/VPP. (28,000 VPPs to clear)

(Source: http://www.pokerstars.com/fpp/store/cash-bonus/)

Overview of the Milestone Bonuses

You receive Milestone Bonuses for breaking a set number of VPPs in a Calendar year. Each of the these costs 50,000 FPPs.

$2,000 at 200,000 VPP (10,000 VPPs to clear)
$3,000 at 300,000 VPP (15,000 VPPs to clear)
$4,000 at 400,000 VPP (20,000 VPPs to clear)
$5,000 at 500,000 VPP (25,000 VPPs to clear)
$6,000 at 600,000 VPP (30,000 VPPs to clear)
$8,000 at 800,000 VPP (40,000 VPPs to clear)
$10,000 for every 250,000 VPPs above 1 Million (50,000 VPPs to clear)
$10,000 additional Bonus for 2 and 3 Million VPPs

(Source: http://www.pokerstars.com/fpp/store/special/vip-reward/)

Figuring Out How Fast You Gain VPPs

This thread (also by me) explains in easy-to-do fashion how to figure out your own personal VPPs-per-hand rate at some level using Poker Tracker: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/pokerstars-figuring-out-rate-of-vpps-t65238.html

Some Example VPP/Hand and Rakeback Calculations

The following are hand samples for full ring NLHE taken from PokerStars sometime this year:

Insta-sticky.

My stats for 2-4 full ring

Spoon, in your opinion, should most people just buy these bonuses as soon as they can, or would you advise waiting until being able to buy a certain 1? Also, I've read that some people say that you get more value out of OneCall gift cards or saving your FPPs for concierge (assuming you make Supernova).

One more quick question, when you buy a Bonus, does it get released in increments for every xx VPP you earn, or is it all released at once after you clear the entire xx VPP required (pretty sure it's the 2nd option, but want to know for sure)?

IDK about spoon's original intentions, but I would like to see individuals w/ >25k hands at a particular limit/game post their stats (as mcat did), so we can improve the statistics. I'm hoping to get mine up later today.

i have a pretty good sample at 25nl, 50nl and 100nl 6max i can post if someone will do the calcs for me.

So I received this email from my RB provider about PokerStars. Someone tell me what difference there is compared to the regular VPP/FPP plan.

First, yes for 6-max you use $2 instead of $3 for the second VPP in a hand.

Dude, it's not that secret. It's on their page.

https://www.raketherake.com/PokerStars.html

pm me if you want a referral.

lol wtf

They just have a less accurate version of what I've posted in this thread.

There was a Party Poker-like Stars RB going for a while, which I thought you were referring to.

What you've linked to there is the same thing as I've mentioned above and needs no referral.

ty for this post

what do you think about the 5400 fpp sngs? 4/10 people win a seat

if im correct 5400 FPP = $86 and compared to the 4k Bonus u need to win a seat 43% of the time for it to be just as good (which would be break even on cash equiv for FPP)

if u play them at good times do you think you could cash >43% of the time?

Idk i have won quite a lot of the seats in the past but never logged results but generally if i can double up my stack to 3k i feel like i can usually win a seat (unless its not a soft time to play)

*Last edited by ggplz on Mon, 28 Jul 2008, 9:47am; edited 1 time in total*

The hidden cost is something i havent considered but if you can maintain 60% win in those then you have a 17% advantage (which is like 85$ per sng) so depending on your stakes (i play 1/2) i suppose the 4k Bonus may be better for someone playing 5/10 or whatever b/c its just not worth their time to clear that extra bit.

Personally i dont mind it much. Just because opportunities come up where for e.g. u dont want to play cash games.

Also the 210 fpp satellites are sort of a bad suggestion imo.
They would take alot longer to play (5400/210 = 25 games) and also have a slightly worse exchange, 700 FPP = $11 in them, 5400/700 = 7.714 * 11 = 84.85$ equiv for 5400 sng

Standard for the 5400 is (215*4)/10 = = 86
So theres a slight difference of 1.34% in value for FPPs

that + the time it would take makes it sort of bad compared (but i see what you're saying about variance for lower stakes players who care)

Just noting that I updated this sticky with a link to the VPP Calculator I made that people should find useful.

http://www.spoonitnow.com/vpp_calc.php

A quick example: To find out how many hands at each limit it would take to get Supernova VIP status, type 100000 into the VPPs box and hit the Gogogogo button.

{unstickied, as it's been added to the OPR Digest}

i figured this out like a month ago, but FTR was down when i tried to post it, so here it is:

all nl50 on stars

hands: 70,426
1 VPP hands: 14,702
2 VPP hands: 2,271
Total VPP: 16,973
VPP/hand: .241

Very informative thread, thank you. One question regarding the VPP Calculator - the number of hands are all hands played or only those hands that had a rake of $.40 or more?

Thanks!

Bump - Does anyone have any stakes vpp/per hand that they can add?

Does anyone know the Rakeback equivalents for 6max LHE.

200NL 6max
48,966 hands = 24,264 VPPs
Raked hands $.40+ = 17433
Raked hands $2.00+ = 6831
0.4957VPP/hand

100NL 6max
38,700 hands = 14720 VPPs
Raked hands $.40+ = 11750
Raked hands $2.00+ = 2970
.38VPP/hand

50NL 6max
27,525 hands = 6362VPPs
Raked hands $.40+ = 5459
Raked hands $2.00+ = 903
.231VPP/hand

Bahhh lost so many hands when I switched to new PC or else would have bigger sample size (I did wayyy more 100NL and 50NL hands than that).

6-Max LHE

1/2
5903 hands = 2049 VPP
0.347VPP / Hand

Thanks for the numbers guys, we really appreciate it!

Does anyone else have any hands/vpps to contribute?

according to HEM, all at 6max (2 are small samples obv):
10nl - 8806 hands for 377vpps (0.04 vpp/hand)
25nl - 71155 hands for 9325 vpps (0.13 vpp/hand)
50nl - 50253 hands for 12363 vpps (0.25 vpps/hand)
100nl - 8353 hands for 2905 vpps (0.35vpps/hand)

What about limit games? Do any of you limit players have these stat's? Thanks!

I haven't played a lot at PS since my hard drive last crashed; I'm only there if they have a decent reload or I feel like playing SNGs. Here's what I have:

.50/1.00 LHE I earned VPPs at .19/hand.

8,130 hands = 1,545 VPPs according to PT and HEM filters.

Below .5/1 LHE VPPs are close to none/hand (.01386/hand @.25/.50 over a few thousand hands)

Don't play much at Stars, but here's what I have.

LHE Full Ring
0.25/0.50 - 1689 hands, 53 VPPs (0.03 VPP/hand)
0.5/1 - 4746 hands, 1033 VPPs (0.22 VPP/hand)
1/2 - 7683 hands, 3044 VPPs (0.40 VPP/hand)
2/4 - 6960 hands, 3076 VPPs (0.44 VPP/hand)
3/6 - 2295 hands, 1377 VPPs (0.60 VPP/hand)

LHE 6-max
0.5/1 - 1692 hands, 290 VPPs (0.17 VPP/hand)