LOL Sasy.,same here I didn’t realize I was in Gem Stones till someone mentioned it. Thought well I play enough MTTS & don’t usually play the specials. I must say though I truly enjoyed it.
the KISS post :
Buyins - Fine ( 1 per hour no bias )
Weekly - Fine ( runs Mon thru Sun )
Leaderboard - no 50% rule to get pts. (not combined with regionals)
Qualifying - best 5 of 1st 7 played…
dont change a thing
Thanks all for the feedback, this is very insightful. 
We will make the Gemstone Leagues permanent and we will be looking at applying some changes as per your feedback. These won’t be effective straight away but we look forward making them as soon as we can.
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Leaderboard Types - We will develop new leaderboard types which have been been suggested and we will test their popularity through seasonal promotions first. When we have a successful formula, we will deploy the format as a second leaderboard type for these leagues. We will keep a leaderboard rewarding players on the volume of play too though. We also value commitment and dedication to the game and the best way for a player to learn is to play more hands. We want to reward players for that too.
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Gemstone/Regional Leagues - We will separate qualifying tournaments for these leagues.
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Schedule & Satellites - We will rethink the schedule and offering according to your feedback. Satellites are indeed not ideal on Replay due to the fact that we only can add a prize pool to a tournament (we can’t have ticket rewards based on number of entrants yet). That said, ‘‘real satellites’’ is a feature that we want to release in a near future, and we will.
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50% rule for tournament points - We will most likely abolish the 50% rule in a near future. We just need to double check a few things. This is a change that we are looking at since a little while now. We feel that any player shoud be rewarded in tournament points for their participation, even if they just play a few hands before busting out. Now that we have a rule that eliminates sit-out players from tournaments if they don’t show up before level 3, the 50% rule on tournament points is not as necessary as before.
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Omaha Leagues - We will be looking into new weekly leagues for Omaha players.
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Replies to some comments/questions
- What is a recreational/casual player to Replay Poker?
It does encompass different player’s profiles (experience, frequency of play, favourite game type, favourite game format etc.). A player who play one tournament each day of the week can be considered as recreational. A player who plays 5,000 hands of ring game a month can also be considered as recreational. When coming up with an offering for our recreational players, our objective is to make sure that everyone (including the more dedicated players) have the right game format, schedule and competition available to them. In that aspect, this promotion was a first initiative for MTT recreational players. We didn’t expect it to please everyone on the first attempt. We certainly wanted to get the ball rolling and expected it to be a first stepstone towards it.
- Chip Economy & Free Chip Prizes
Chip economy is very important for a free-to-play game. True that many F2P games - even some of the most successful ones - can struggle in finding the right balance. As a result, the chip value is going down and the whole chip economy can get out of control. This is why there is quite some innovation in these games, with new game features and sometime new currencies getting released out of the blue. The developpers always try to keep the player interested and engaged with new content while aiming at getting some virtual curency out of the system to keep the whole game ecosystem as healthy as possible. On an other hand, more chips in the system means more competition, more challenges, more time to get to the top of the pyramid. It’s part of the game. There are different ways for a free-to-play poker site to drain chips out of the poker room and we are always looking at different options. Chip economy is something we are taking very seriously at Replay as it directly relate to the attractiveness and popularity of the site.
If you have any further feedback, please keep sharing them. This thread will remain open and everything will be considered with much attention by the teams here at Replay! 
4 Likes
How can you change the 50% rule while a yearlong MTT championship is going on? I missed out on my ticket this month because of 7k points. If the rule is changed now, I will be very upset about it. Ive considered leaving replay for a while now over topics I have discussed here already. If this goes into effect before Jan 1st it will probably push me out the door. It seems to me that rules are here just to be changed.
We will most likely abolish the 50% rule in a near future. We just need to double check a few things.
We won’t turn it off for all competitions straight away. As mentioned, we still need to double check a few things. We won’t change the rules of a competition that is already running.
From : I love the SNG Championship, but… topic[quote=“Shakeraise, post:16, topic:5209”]
Regarding the Championship promotion, we will make sure everyone get tournament points when playing these tournaments. Our tech team is currently adding the possibility for us to customize the percentage of players receiving tournaments points in a tournament. This is something we will also be in a position to change to our current or future leaderboards if we wish to.
[/quote][quote=“NotTheOne, post:26, topic:6534”]
How can you change the 50% rule while a yearlong MTT championship is going on?
[/quote]
@NotTheOne , that quote from Shakeraise was in January, your post was what in the last 24 hours ? Secondly if you check that topic, you’ll see they chg’d it midstream on how long tickets were good for, and mult tickets from 1 month now valid mult months… that was a huge chg… in the middle of the promotion.
So NotTheOne, before the 1st champ MTT monthly in Feb, it was said that in that promo there was no 50% rule…I made sure to bring this up BEFORE the 1st tournament.
This thread was about the Gemstone Leagues, not the Yearlong Champ promotion, therefore if it is abolished… then it would start the following week( weekly promos), month (monthly & regionals)…
Thanks for giving us your deff of “casual/recreational”, I see it as 3 types Casual, Consistant, and Maniac… to me your casual is my consistant. I currently have too much free time, I’d like to get down to 2-3 days a week, then maybe 1 weekend day… I can also see value in allowing players a couple MTTs that won’t hurt them… I also think, while the topic is live, there isn’t “yet” a huge problem with inflation, other than lack of higher buyins… but that is a current problem.
I am happy the staff is considering dump’n the 50% finishing posistion rule across the board, there are 2 other rules… the lvl 3 rule, and the 50% participation rule… those rules I’ll save for thier own topic… Its awesome that so many things are being looked at, but only if it leads to positive outcomes, rather than just kick the can down the road.
Now Shakeraise, I don’t expect Replay to have as many players as Tilt did, but from what I have seen there is room for 1 company to dominate the “free poker - no DownLoad” market… Why not Replay Poker… I can remember "freeroll 180/360 ppl SnG"s closing in, no joke, 2 seconds… when offered every 5 minutes… yet I can’t get a 9 ppl SnG for 5k, @ 11pm MST USA to close in less than 10 minutes ??? where is the playerbase ?
I will continue to brainstorm ways for a viable way of implementation, but I luv the idea of having something for the couple day a week player… I’m shocked that # of entrants can’t be used for sattalites, that explains a few things I wondered about the code, and other things that prolly can’t occur too.
Ohh and Shakeraise, please have someone figure out how to, have those ppl that never played ( dumped by lvl 3 rule ) “finish” lower than someone that played but busted out before level 3. Perhaps hand out prizes & t-points @ the end of the MTT… so that those dumped by the ( non play rule ) can get shuffled to the bottom… ( that is unless you already solved this, lolol )
That was written today. Its just 5 or 6 posts up. Also, I did roll my eyes when I saw the quote about not changing rules midstream. I know its a crock. I read a lot of the posts here but not all. Ive only been here 10 months. I have read a lot of your posts and find them very helpful and insightful. I know this thread is about the gemstone leagues. Since the regional leagues are directly tied to 2 of the gemstone leagues, I thought my comments would be relevant.
NotTheOne,
I was not trying to attack you… and since I have been writing other replies, its possible you confused 50% finishing posistion with 50% participation req. … Or did you mean 50% finishing inside regionals, if so as soon as the 2 are split apart thats a non-issue. I personally think its going away across the board… now I’m totally confused… but at the end of the day, I wasn’t trying to attack you…
I never thought you were attacking me. I dont type well so I tend to get lazy with my responses so they read as cold and short, thats my fault. I was simply trying to clarify myself in response to the comments you made about my post.
@Shakeraise ,
I was under the impression that as new promotions were phased in, they would not have the 50% rule… and then exsisting promotions like the regionals would revert to this change as well, like as a new month started…
You have restarted the Gemstone Leagues without eliminating this rule… It seriously changes gameplay within the MTTs and is counterproductive to making a " ave of " leaderboard fair to all players.
I can only assume staff has not figured out how to both eliminate players @ level 3 ( who never showed up ) and still reward the player who played 1-2 hands then busted out early… The only possible way is to reward T-pts at the conclusion of the MTT, not in realtime as ppl bust out.
As in an earlier post, I do think the format should’ve been " ave of ( best 5 of first 7 ) "… Currently its just " ave of first 5 " with no room for error … Even if there was no top 50% rule, what this does is give some freedom of play, before “no mistakes” comes into play. It gives all players 2 “do-overs” that don’t hurt your average …
Lets look @ a sample player
- 8924 pts
- 16452 pts
- 24588 pts
- 9467 pts
- ------ pts ( finished 42nd of 68 players ) so cutoff @ 50% was 34th or better … So without the top 50% rule, this player would’ve earned about 6100-ish T-pts …
So instead of an average of 13,106.2 … this player recieves an average of 11,886.2
( also, another player also was on his 5th MTT, and went out 29th, and earned enuff points to give him an average of 12,098.7 and put him above our sample player )… BUT Shakeraise, you can’t leave in the top 50% rule, and not give your players @least 1-2 “do-overs” …
Morning Sarah ! " Do overs " As in " Rebuys " ?
No Craig …
I’m saying do-overs, as in going out early and not gettn pts, or having a terrible MTT even without the 50% rule and gett’n say 2k pts … just a small margain for error or bad beats…
Morning Sarah, gotcha 
Thank you.
Short Update
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We will remove the 50% rule as planned. Nothing technical is blocking us from doing so. This will be most likely effective from October 1st. We won’t change the rule in the middle of a month or it would affect monthly leaderboards.
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All Gemstone Leagues will also have a second leaderboard that will reward players for their commitment to the game and volume of play.
1 Like
@Shakeraise ,
Ok, I didn’t think 1 promo had to effect another… I was think’n inside the Gemstones you could do it to start any 1 week, I am glad your tech team had figured out how to give the 1st player busted out pts, but not the ppl that die from the level 3 rule… ( will the month end on a even week ??? because if it doesn’t there will be no way to change both monthlies and a weekly and the same prob exsists as it does now… Best to chg the Gemstones 1st, then change ther things @ the beginning of a month… see what I mean.
I didn’t see in the new Back2school SNGs if the 50% rule exsists, I haven’t finished outta the top 3 yet so I don’t know… I hope there is no rule there… I seen none listed in the description.
(edit) a cumulative leaderboard might be perfect… add the ave from the 4 leagues together… like ( 8976+2365+12457+8841 … 32,639 ) that way it rewards ppl to play all 4, not just the average of them, but cumulitive…
I looked at the Ruby promotion-- Thinking of ROI it will cost me 12,500 chips to enter the 5 tournaments and I must finish in the top 5 ( 5th place pays 15,000)to show a profit of 2500 chips ( not considering any winnings from the 5 games). All finishes below the top 5 and I lose money since the amount won is less than my investment to play the 5 games.
The buy-in to those tournaments (2.5k) is covered by your Daily Bonus though, so it’s actually quite hard to be in the red. Just an observation.