Joined: Mar '11
Location: Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 1042
hi, I'm not gold, I'm just chrome star, I do not really play to reach levels as playing in several poker rooms and reach a certain level in each is an investment of time and quite big money, I just I try to play in tournaments that fit my Bank, but be silver or gold in PS brings you good benefits.
thanks for letting me be part of this community and please excuse my English and my writing errors
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 1242
I guess Macubaas is right. Don´t play (too many) poker just for reaching a certain vip level. That can really harm your bankroll. Because I play on different rooms and only microstakes I never reach a high VIP level at a poker room. I was only once silver level at PS (and only for 1 month).
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Croatia
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 1738
As MIGO14 here I was only silverstar for 1 month as well. I reached it coz at that time I was playing lots of zoom and doing well enough. I dont think you should aim for gold star if you find it hard to reach, specially if it does require an extra effort from you to achieve it. It's quite easier to manage your downswings when you continue playing as usual. When you try to reach the next level it always puts you under pressure to have results and even when things dont go well, you always feel the pressure to keep it going just for a bit more and therefore hurting ur roll even further. Be happy to be a silverstar regular. If one day u cash big, then increase ur buy-in values ( If ur up to it that is) and goldstar will come easily.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Yeah don't get too focused on your VIP level, better focus on being a consistent winner at your game. You can calculate the value of it yourself and determine if it's worth it for you to go for it. If you're not sure about if you can get as many VPPs as the previous month (when you hit goldstar), the value of it sinks as well. Lets say for example if you barely hit Goldstar with 2.5KVPPs and you barely maintain it with the same amount of VPPs, you'll make 1250FPPs more during that month, which is only about $20 more (if used well), plus a few extra bucks in value for the Gold+ freeroll. Normally you should make much more playing (if you're beating your game that is), so better focus on that, because it's worth much more.
I used to be platin every month for a few months being a $15 SNGs regular, I'd say you can achieve Gold starting to play $3.50 SNGs as recreational player being good at multitabling ( or if you play $1.50s as main source of income (yes, there are a few and in some countries it's certainly possible to live off it) then it should be possible at this stake too). Obviously you'll have to do the math what you have to play to achieve it, based on your volume, nobody can answer that properly without knowing what you play, that's something you can answer yourself the best.
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 10090
i reached the no reach level- awarded to players who are broke constantly or are sh1tty players in general. what i can say from experience is that to keep this level is very simple, but still very expensive. moral to the story is this: forget these fcukin levels and concentrate on improving your game in general. or dump poker and concentrate on big boobed babes (aka Triple B), if you're a real master you can try to become a master of both (aka Kim Jong-un the Supreme leader of great, free and democratic country of North Korea somewhere in Asia)
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 33 (M)
Posts: 2688
Hi mate, if you playing to maintain your bonus star and cannot afford to play and just login to do it then you better think of something else to do, as the level you keep should be easily kept to show you an active poker player and if you going for the nest level preferably go to full tilt as there level are much more easier to reach and more profitable at the lower stakes compare to pokerstars, you can check it on google to see that the lower level playing the same amount of time on PS and full tilt you will get better bonus on full tilt. Cheers mate!
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Posted by Heskor: preferably go to full tilt as there level are much more easier to reach and more profitable at the lower stakes compare to pokerstars, you can check it on google to see that the lower level playing the same amount of time on PS and full tilt you will get better bonus on full tilt.
No, I read this very often but it's absolutely false. The rakeback % you can get on fulltilt are lower than the ones on pokerstars, even for lower volume players.
Lets just consider 30 days-rolling-averages for fulltilt levels (because pokerstars VIP levels are also determined by a months span).
Lets assume we are silverstar on pokerstars, having made 1000VPPs this month. This means we have raked $181 that month. As silverstar we get 1500FPPs for that, which is about $25 if used at good value. Besides that we earned about $10 in stellar rewards (maybe we didn't earn a stellar at that month, but we do rake towards a future payment, so it should be taken into consideration). We also have a good value FPP-freeroll every week adding a few $s per week in value, but I won't be considering that to ease it. All in all it sums up to roughly $35 in rewards, so roughly 20% rakeback.
Now lets take fulltilt. If we produce the same amount of rake there we'd be silver, but lets be generous and assume we get the value of gold status. Even then, we only get 15% rakeback plus about 5% what the FTPoints are worth. That means even if we use a status higher than we even reach with the amount of rake, and having not even considered the value of the FPP freerolls, we come to the same Rakeback % here. Remember, in reality the FTP rakeback for the same rake is even lower.
I also don't see why the VIp status at fulltilt would be considered to be easier to reach considering higher rake requirements for a specific status, and lower traffic.
Joined: Jan '13
Location: Canada
Age: 46 (M)
Posts: 1066
When I have bankroll I strive for chrome star just so I can keep playing freerolls, Once I hit silverstar I found it rather easy to maintain until obviously my bankroll went to s**t....I got lucky and someone sponsored me 10 dollars on the site and I managed to obtain silver without losing any of that, then I got over confident and lost it all....
ahh well, I was at silver 3 months in a row this year and chrome for ever a year straight