2021 Poker Room Updates

[fizzymint]

Hi, everyone! We’re about to wrap up another year, and what a one it’s been. Though 2020 has been challenging to stay the least, it brings us so much joy to hear that many of you found some comfort being able to play poker with friends – old and new – on Replay. There’s hope in sight, so cheers to 2021 and new possibilities!

There aren’t a whole lot of changes to our poker room in the new year, but we’re so excited to bring you many features and fixes in the coming year.

Seven Card Stud MTTs

We’re adding a series of Seven Card stud multi-table tournaments, spaced evenly throughout the day, half-way between the current Stud freerolls:

02:45 ET 7 FL Card Stud 2,500 entry 100,000 GTD
06:45 ET 7 FL Card Stud Hi/Lo 7,500 entry 300,000 GTD
10:45 ET 7 FL Card Stud 20,000 entry 1,000,000 GTD
14:45 ET 7 FL Card Stud Hi/Lo 20,000 entry 1,000,000 GTD
18:45 ET 7 FL Card Stud 20,000 entry 1,000,000 GTD
22:45 ET 7 FL Card Stud Hi/Lo 7,500 entry 300,000 GTD

ALL Stud MTTs, including the ongoing freerolls, will have 8 minute blinds instead of the current 10 minutes. The new MTTs will be 6-max. These changes should tighten up the length of these tournaments.

Regional MTTs - Time Changes

The first tournament in all of our Regional events will begin 15 minutes earlier, and the second tournament will start 15 minutes later. Many participants have requested this in order to play in each tournament more easily, and to give players a chance to take a break between their games.

Our new start times (ET) are the following:

01:45 and 03:15 Oceanic
07:45 and 09:15 Asian
13:45 and 15:15 European
19:45 and 21:15 American

Thank you all for playing with us, and we look forward to our 2021 together.

[fizzymint]

We’re making some adjustments to our 7 Card Stud MTTs. We’ll be scaling down according to attendance data by removing guarantees and setting up added prize pools instead.

A couple of observations we’ve made – both Stud and Stud Hi/Lo have equal popularity. Entry fees and time of day cause the major differences in attendance.

Please review the following chart to see how these tournaments will look, kicking off at the start of next month:

Note that the 10:45 tournament has also seen a reduction in its entry fee, from 20,000 chips to 7,500.

We’ll also be adjusting blind periods, making them a bit faster due to player feedback. This should prevent most Stud tournaments from going over two hours.

[fizzymint]

We’re making some changes in the poker room as of Monday, May 3rd.

Our exclusive freerolls for Premium Members will change from three 500K events a week to two 100K events every day:

• 12:00 ET 100K free chips
• 20:00 ET 100K free chips

This is because the Saturday 04:00 event, intended for non US players, has had very few attendees, and we want to reward as as many players as possible.

Regional MTTs will revert back to their original start time for the 7,500 event of each pair. This is the first event of each day.

• The 7,500 event will start on the hour instead of 15 minutes prior.
• The 20,000 chip event will remain at its current time of 15 minutes past the hour.

We’re making this adjustment because attendance of the first event has dropped dramatically since it was changed in January. A recent survey found some people were put off by the increase in time required to play both.

The 18:45 7 Card Stud MTT for 7,500 will change to 20,000 entry with 100,000 free chips added.

We received player feedback requesting an increase in buy-in, and we agree the tournament is popular enough to have a larger stake. This game averages over 25 players daily.

[fizzymint]

Some changes coming up on Monday, June 28th:

We’re adding three new satellite tournaments, which award tickets. All times ET:

08:45 Satellite To 20K - 2,500 entry, 5 x 20K Tickets guaranteed (one each to the top 5)
16:45 Satellite To 250K - 20,000 entry. 3 x 250K tickets Guaranteed (one each to the top 3)
20:45 Satellite To 7.5K - 2,500 entry, 24 x 7.5K tickets Guaranteed, (four tickets to first place, 15 places paid)

Additionally, we’ve made one change:

02:45 Satellite to 7.5K is now Satellite To 20K - 2,500 entry, 4 x 20K Tickets guaranteed (one each to the top 4)

Finally, we’ve updated how satellites awarding 20K tickets and higher calculate their prizes:

These satellites will mostly appear as Guaranteed instead of just a set number of tickets. The only change you’ll see is when the entries paid-in are greater than the Guaranteed amount. When this happens, a new prize of chips will appear in the prize pool, and a new ticket will be added to the prize pool if enough chips are available to create one.

[fizzymint]

Satellite changes coming on Friday, October 1st:

• There are two new satellites awarding 100K tickets, which can be used in any 100K MTT or SnG, such as Astral Pegasus.
• The satellites giving 250,000 tickets both have a rebuy option, and this allows us to Guarantee 4 tickets.
• The increasingly popular Satellite to 50K MTT (R&A) at 14:45 ET has the prize pool increased to 300,000 (6 tickets).
• All tournaments have the capability to create extra prize places when entries collected are more than the guaranteed prize. Excess chips paid in as entries or rebuys etc. will be used to create a new ticket where possible, or paid in a smaller chip prize.
• Under this structure, the number of entrants required at Start time can be reduced to enable more games to start instead of getting canceled.
• Any ticket won can be used in any tournament with the same entry.
• If you have a ticket from a RPOS IX Satellite, you do not have to use it in a RPOS IX event.
• As with all MTTs, we recommend you register in good time (10 or 15 minutes prior to start) in games you want to play so others can see there are players interested.

The satellite schedule is as follows:

These changes are a result of answers we collected from a recent survey. Thanks to those who took the time to fill that out – surveys assist us in shaping our poker room!