9 Seats to PokerStars SCOOP-43-L Main Event ($109 each) on May 17th, 16:00 ET!

Originally Posted by Tom1559

It is full of one post guys and loads more who are not members. Is that okay?

U R RIGHT COWBOY

Originally Posted by Tom1559

It is full of one post guys and loads more who are not members. Is that okay?

Tom 21
Chip 24th

The 1 posters are going to take all de $109 tickets with the rest of the money
Well done Pascal

Originally Posted by ChipEaterMan

Tom 21
Chip 24th

The 1 posters are going to take all de $109 tickets with the rest of the money
Well done Pascal

they didn't even have to be members , just browse to the forum for the only time in their lives and read the password and never to be seen again

ye god damn 1 posters... should need atleast 2...

Ended 3rd place for 6x$ and a sweet sweet ticket. Thanks ftr!

Thank for tournament!
Unfortunately finished #40

Originally Posted by Pascal

I think my comments were confused by myself - the tournament on the 30th of this month will be open to regs only. The prize pool for this one was so big - even open to all players it was still nearly $5 added a player - that we could not leave it at just 20 players unfortunately. If you guys keep recommending these tournaments to your friends and the qualification group continues to grow I'm confident we can stop needing to release the password to everyone

looking at the lobby


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the poker arena tourney only had 20 entered and they have multiple events. Wouldn't have been better to have split the 981$ of added value tickets across satellites to a number of events and had a number of tourneys. and then had those low fields as an inducement for people to sign up and get involved for access to future tournament. There have been lots of low field satellites running with 20-30 runners.

As it was it was just another way for MTT players to satellite in on the cheap. Only 1 person who won a ticket has actually bothered to come back and thank FTR . You say we should get friends to join in so that it doesn't have to be released publically. What about if it wasn't released publically then there would be an incentive for FTR's primarily cash game players to try their hands at the tourneys. Then the likes of cobra,jyms,hoopy luco,imsavvy,donkbee,boog,tlr,davidem,the broke and disillusioned guy etc may well have had a go.

Also are you suggesting that we spread the spassword around like this
http://www.texaspoker.dk/forum/online-poker/lige-hurtig

in post 61 he said

it's fun to see new member´s behave like little kids in a candy store to get a password, but in the long run just annoying.
I´m also a new member but come on read befor u post and dont ask the same thing over and over again.....
(Just my opinion)

kinda ironic that he calls out others for their behaviour about getting the password then he posts it over the net. Does he really deserve to remain a member?

We couldn't split the tournament because it was offered to us by Stars in a set format. Definitely not suggesting we spread the password around like that guy did - unfortunately we know that happens and there's not much we can do to stop it. We chose to release the password on the forum here to increase traffic and raise awareness of the FTR brand; even if they don't come back, it does help us.

The tournament at the end of the month, with $250 added, will be for Qualified Members only. We'll see how it goes. If it goes well then it can keep happening and I'd like it to keep happening.

If the password for this tournament had a posting requirement, don't forget that freetrollers who saw it in the lobby would come and post on the forum for the sake of posting. That would piss everyone off. There's a balance to be found

Will look into that guy releasing the password.

Hey,

Yesterday I won a ticket in this satellite, so I tought the least I can do is become more active at this forum. I haven't post much yet, but I'll do that from now on. I live in Holland, so my grammar is not always that good . Thanks for the ticket anyways, hope I'll win some next week, however the buy-in is huge in comparison with my normal buy-ins.

- Nick

Wifi was a troublemaker yesterday it did let me reg , but couldn´t play a hand, congrats to the winners and I am sorry I couldn´t make it harder for you.

Originally Posted by Pascal

If the password for this tournament had a posting requirement, don't forget that freetrollers who saw it in the lobby would come and post on the forum for the sake of posting. That would piss everyone off. There's a balance to be found

Will look into that guy releasing the password.

That's because when someone reaches 15 posts the program automatically gives the user the qualified member status. Shouldn't it be better if at the end of the day the Forum Manager had to judge if those that reached the 15 posts deserve to be qualified members by the quality of their posts?

Originally Posted by Pascal

We chose to release the password on the forum here to increase traffic and raise awareness of the FTR brand; even if they don't come back, it does help us.

I think that if they see FTR's tourneys in the private tab of the pokerstars software you will still have that traffic because they will want to search for the password in the site. And when they read the conditions for the password they would say: WOW!!! HOLY SHIT!!! FTR rewards those guys that post regularly in the forum with these awesome tourneys, maybe it would be a good idea if I become a respectful FTR member since the field is low!!! I will tell all my friends! And the one's that don't have a pokerstars account to register with FTR's promo code because they have exclusive cool monthly tourneys too!
That would increase the number of FTR regular posters and FTR rake cows.

Originally Posted by Pascal

We couldn't split the tournament because it was offered to us by Stars in a set format.

So they offered it in a set format , buit don't you then get the opportunity to
reply back and say thanks for the offer but can we split the seat added value over a couple of tournaments with seats in different scoop tournaments and hopefully generate more rake income as a result

Definitely not suggesting we spread the password around like that guy did - unfortunately we know that happens and there's not much we can do to stop it. We chose to release the password on the forum here to increase traffic and raise awareness of the FTR brand; even if they don't come back, it does help us.

why offer the reward and then hope they become members?Entry to the tourneys should be the reward for become active long term members. Long term members are going to create more page hits than a one off visit by someone to look for a password and are more likely to then sign up to rooms to take advantage of the exclusive room promos and generate direct income fore FTR. One off visitors aren't going to generate that income.
Also you disincentivize current existing members from signing up and generating FTR affiliate income since the tourneys have little value to members as most of the value is going to non members freetrollers who do nothing for FTR or non member MTT specialists hunting the added value. for your active members you are making it so that there is more value in using other affiliates for rakeback and/ or rake chases etc.

The tournament at the end of the month, with $250 added, will be for Qualified Members only. We'll see how it goes. If it goes well then it can keep happening and I'd like it to keep happening.

The first one i think were only 8 or 9 players and was a social event. the second one had a couple of tables and then it was opened up to facebook traffic and the social side died ,and quite a few of the regs dropped out as a result leaving most of the prize money going to non regs who don't contribute to the site and just browse to get the password. Its going to need more than one months tournament to get it to a decent sized tourney and a fair bit of on forum promotion. Can it be made part buyin part ticket so that tickets can be won , for best post of the month, best newcomer, best blog etc.All of which helps promote the site and drive traffic and attract newcomers.

If the password for this tournament had a posting requirement, don't forget that freetrollers who saw it in the lobby would come and post on the forum for the sake of posting. That would piss everyone off. There's a balance to be found

The balance is easy with the Qualified member status.look at the post about qualified membership.

New "Qualified Members" Club for Password Access!
We've decided to update and improve our exclusive monthly events where we give away hundreds of dollars of prizes each month to give our members better value and smaller fields!

Qualified Members Club

From now on, only Qualified Members will be given access to the passwords to our exclusive monthly freerolls and added money events.

Minimum Requirements: To be an active, contributing member monthly

Please note the requirement is based on quality posts, not total posts.

New: When you are judged to be a member falling in this category,, you will be automatically added to the Qualified Members group. Being added to the group does not mean you are guaranteed to stay in it - your posts will be double checked.

"Quality" posts include good contributions to strategy threads, new hand history analysis threads with good supporting information, or interesting contributions to non-strategy discussion

under the requirements it say "active members posting monthly" ...that implies for more than one month so why not just firm up that part of the qualification up and say that you have to be a member for at least one full month before you can become a qualified member. i.e you join in january and you can become eligible to be a qualified member in March. This instantly deters anyone from spamming crap posts across the forum because it won't gain them access .

The active can be easily programmed with a requirement for posts on say 25 days in that 2 month period and 50 posts in total in that time. And the quality could require that of those 50 posts at least half of them should be quality posts .

forum and player permissions could be used so that only qualified members would be able to see the qualified members passwords

Originally Posted by ChipEaterMan

That's because when someone reaches 15 posts the program automatically gives the user the qualified member status. Shouldn't it be better if at the end of the day the Forum Manager had to judge if those that reached the 15 posts deserve to be qualified members by the quality of their posts?

Nice assumption that I don't already do that - I check nearly every member's post, and if I miss any and someone sends me a PM (which I've asked several times for people to do) I look over and consider them. I would like to have approval before they go in but I'm too busy for the next 2 weeks and it requires a change to the VB code and our programmers are busy fixing existing bugs before making new ones. Hopefully soon though.

Originally Posted by Keith

Keith's post

Read, understood and took on board. When I thought up and we implemented the Qualified Members group it was an idea from scratch. I hope you at least consider it an improvement over what used to be the case - that anyone could play in the tournaments if they were an FTR member regardless of whether or not they posted. That was the starting point and where we've come from. I admit the program does need work and it does need thinking about - there's positives and negatives to changing the post count up, or changing how automated the addition of the member is. We offer tournaments for direct signups only which are great value and don't get much money, but I appreciate all the points you make. I've got exams for the next 2 weeks but when they're over I'll be looking at detail in the Qualified Member program and I'll be sending you some PMs if that's OK Keith.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone

I think that I understand the problem that concerns the members of forum. They are unhappy that they have not won a prize.
I suggest doing 2-3 freerolla with the password for $ 50 on all people. While the main money giving in tournaments with tickets for the results of the month.

P.S. just don't forget that there are russian part of the forum

Originally Posted by Pascal

Read, understood and took on board. When I thought up and we implemented the Qualified Members group it was an idea from scratch. I hope you at least consider it an improvement over what used to be the case - that anyone could play in the tournaments if they were an FTR member regardless of whether or not they posted. That was the starting point and where we've come from. I admit the program does need work and it does need thinking about - there's positives and negatives to changing the post count up, or changing how automated the addition of the member is. We offer tournaments for direct signups only which are great value and don't get much money, but I appreciate all the points you make. I've got exams for the next 2 weeks but when they're over I'll be looking at detail in the Qualified Member program and I'll be sending you some PMs if that's OK Keith.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone

looking forward toi the PMs

when i first regged on the forum originally there was a similar system in place with a vague statement that after a period of time access to the ftr forum freerolls would be granted. Then every time a freeroll came up the forum was mass spammed by freetrollers trying to appear active for a day and that pissed everyone off.

Then some of the freetrollers actually joined up,became active members and got access to the password. Then spammed it across all the freeroll pasword sites )(which mr sonic did with the password to this tourney) and the tourneys became full of non members and all of the active members dropped out. More value to be gained from grinding their normal stakes than taking part in a social event that had lost the social aspect.

The qualified members is a vast improvement, the first couple regained the social aspect but as soon as it was opened up to facebook viewers those new people didn't interact at the tables and it became 1 or 2 regs per table and chat stopped, and regs started to go back to grinding their normal stakes rather than sitting in a low stakes tourney . Having Facebook access totally destroyed any point in signing up and becoming an active contributing member of the community and therefore totally undermines the idea of having qualified members. This has been addressed with the future stars $250 tourneys and it will be interesting to see how many of the facebook users now join up and become involved in order to get access again and how many just move onto other forums added value tourneys instead.

Originally Posted by Russian Freetroller

I think that I understand the problem that concerns the members of forum. They are unhappy that they have not won a prize.
I suggest doing 2-3 freerolla with the password for $ 50 on all people. While the main money giving in tournaments with tickets for the results of the month.

P.S. just don't forget that there are russian part of the forum

Unfortunately you are the sort of person that is being discussed. All of your posts so far have been with regards to getting access to added value tournaments. You have yet to make a "quality" post.My posts have been with regards to increasing the number of regular posters, which increases the number of hits ,increases forum advertising revenue,and hopefully increased forum traffic can lead to increased room sign ups and more promotions offered by the forums partner sites.

what he suggests is no doubt offered by lots of the freeroll forums, but in terms of driving traffic and increasing revenue will have no effect.

Originally Posted by Qualified Swellhead

You have yet to make a "quality" post

It is difficult for me to write in English to "quality" post.
And in Russians forum only spammers and new members

Well... Good-bye!

your "quality" posts in the russian forum would count , just as contributing to hand discussions would count as a quality post. That is the point of the forum , to help players become better poker players. By posting your thoughts on a hand not only are you helping others improve when what you say about a hand is correct, but if you say something where your thoughts are wrong, other players will say where your thinking is wrong and everyne reading that will learn from it. 100 posts about when the next freeroll is or how to get the password for it adds nothing to helping the forum members improve as poker players.

You have shown that you can read and write in English so you would have no problem in contributing on the English side of the forum if there are no hand discussions taking place on the russian part of the forum or start to post hands in the russian side of the forum and start the discussions going..

y cant prizes be dished out after the tornys finished by the mod who organises game, or is this to m uch work looking at the winners and paying out to members.

i got taken out by a rouge all inner that was shoving nearly every hand, before and after i went out. bit dissapointed this sort off player can get into ftr tornys,

http://forum.pokerom.ru/topic5117-10.html

another case of the password released on other forums. I'm guessing its from the open release time

Originally Posted by joker131

y cant prizes be dished out after the tornys finished by the mod who organises game, or is this to m uch work looking at the winners and paying out to members.

Far too much work. And I'm not about to start giving out prizes based on how well someone plays based on if you think they're a good player or not

Originally Posted by Pascal

Far too much work. And I'm not about to start giving out prizes based on how well someone plays based on if you think they're a good player or not

Hehe our good Pascal

Then CEM would be snap banned

I doubtr that stars backend even has the capability of implementing it anyway. The awarding of tickets and prize money is automated so they would have to program in some sort of override function and i don't think they'd do that .