Partypoker Heeds Customer Suggestions, Changes Terms Halfway Through Promo

Promotions are commonplace in online poker. Every day, online poker rooms run some sort of promo for their customers, offering various prizes and goodies for their poker play. Sometimes, everyone gets a little something just for playing, while other times the real fun stuff is reserved for those who play the most or achieve the most success in a set period of time. We are so used to promos that we typically just glance at the rules and get to playing, never giving them a second thought. But what about when an online poker room changes the terms mid-stream? I can’t think of a notable time when that has happened, until this week, as partypoker has altered the structure of its Caribbean Poker Party promo a month into the contest.

The Caribbean Poker Party promo began on May 24th and, as far as online poker promotions go, was a pretty nice one. Players who participated in Power Series tournaments on partypoker could earn points on one of three leader boards: Low (for tourneys with buy-ins of $5.50 to $11), Medium ($22 to $55), or High ($109 and up). At the end of each day, the top ten players on each leader board won prizes.

The top prize, reserved for the winner of the High leader board (with the second place player also receiving the same prize on Sundays) was a $10,000 prize package to the partypoker MILLIONS Caribbean. This package includes a $5,300 seat in the live tournament in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, $2,000 for flights, hotel, and airport transfers.

Other prize winners received satellite tickets for the event at varying dollar values.

So there, not a bad promo for tournament players. Obviously, one would have to grind a lot of Power Series tournaments and be successful at the same time to have a chance at placing atop the leader board, but hey, that’s how these promos go.

This past Friday, though, partypoker rep Colette announced on the Two Plus Two poker forum that the format of the Caribbean Poker Party would change as of Monday, June 26th. Now, instead of the leader boards running daily, they are now weekly.

In her brief post, Colette explained that the changes were made not because partypoker just up and decided to do so, but because players had actually given feedback, requesting these alterations. Here is what she said:

Following player feedback we have opted to change our Caribbean leader boards to a weekly format starting Monday 26th

The CPP leader boards will run from Monday – Sunday
Top 50 places in each leaderboard will get paid, prizes range from a $5.50 ticket to the $10K packages
High 5X CPP packages
Medium 2X CPP packages
Low 1X CPP package
To earn LB points players must place in the money in relevant tourneys

More specifically, here is what the prize breakdown now looks like, per the Caribbean Poker Party page on partypoker’s website:

Low Leader Board

1st place – $10K CPP Package
2nd – 8th place – 1 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket
9th – 15th place – 3 x $22 CPP Feeder Ticket
16th – 22nd place – 2 x $22 CPP Feeder Ticket
23rd – 29th place – 1 x $22 CPP Feeder Ticket
30th – 50th place – 2 x $5.50 CPP Mini Feeder Ticket

Medium Leader Board

1st – 2nd place – $10K CPP Package
3rd – 8th place – 1 x $1,050 Final Ticket
9th – 15th place – 3 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket
16th – 22nd place – 2 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket
23rd – 36th place – 1 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket
37th – 43rd place – 2 x $22 CPP Feeder Ticket
44th – 50th place – 1 x $22 CPP Feeder Ticket

High Leader Board

1st – 5th place – $10K CPP Package
6th – 15th place – 1 x $1,050 Final Ticket
16th – 22nd place – 3 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket
23rd – 29th place – 2 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket
30th – 50th place – 1 x $109 Semi-Final Ticket

Some people’s first reaction might be that going from daily prizes to weekly prizes stinks because there are now few opportunities to win. While players who are unable to grind every day of the week will be hurt by this, as it will be unlikely that they could adequately compete for a leader board spot if they skip a day or two, this new structure should benefit more people than before.

Previously, a total of 70 people per leader board division could theoretically win prizes each week (10 prizes x 7 days). Now just 50 people per division will win something. The difference, though, is that the previous number was unlikely to be as high as 70 because odds were, there was a lot of overlap in the leader board names day after day. The strongest and most frequent tourney grinders were probably very similar Monday versus Tuesday versus Wednesday and so on.

Now, those who still played a lot each day but couldn’t quite crack the top ten will still have a great shot to be rewarded. In fact, those who grind all week and regularly finished on the daily leader board but never came in first place will now have a better chance to win it all, as they will be able to climb above those who might kick ass on one or two days but not commit to playing every day of the week.

On the whole, more people should win prizes now compared to before.

Plus – and to me, as a low-stakes player myself, this is huge – the $10,000 Punta Cana prize packages aren’t reserved for just those who play in $109 tournaments and above. Those on the Low and Medium leader boards now have the opportunity to win the big prizes. That is not something we often see in online poker room promos, as the best prizes are usually stashed away for the highest rollers.

At first blush, it seemed odd that partypoker was making a change a month into its promo, but upon further review, it looks like it will be good for the players and it is nice to see the poker room listening to its customers.