For those of us that like to eke out every percentage point of value out of VIP programs/Rakeback/dumb fish, Full Tilt certainly made an effort to change the game with the Black Card system. But is this really good value for poker players? Lets find out.

Before we can even talk about black card, there were two other changes to Full Tilt’s system that are worth mentioning. One is the change to how points are gained within Full Tilt. Before, you’d get 7 FTPs per $1 of tournament rake and 1 FTP per $1 of cash rake. Now, the value has been increased from anywhere to 10-500% depending on how you play. You now get 10 FTPs (up 43%) per $1 of tourney rake, and anywhere from 1.1 in Full Ring, through 1.5 for 6-max, all the way up to 5 HU FTPs per $1. This increase makes it obviously easier to gain Black Card status or the Iron Man status of old, and there certainly isn’t a problem here.

Where things start getting murky is how FTP has changed rakeback. In the past, you basically could have played like an uber-nit and let the fish give you 27% for every dumb hand they played in the dealt system. Now, they have moved to the “weighted contribution” system, which essentially means you only get rakeback for the rake you put in the hand. Much anger has been spewed on 2p2 over this, but in reality this system is technically the most fair of them all.

Think about it: rakeback pros no longer get a percentage of your rake for all-in hands you take with fish, and conversely if you fold pre-flop with 72o you shouldn’t feel entitled to rakeback if things get crazy at the table. That said, the fact the rake percentage hasn’t changed is a little problematic, as people will in general be potentially getting less than usual, which is going to hit at the nerves of many players. They are still shelling out the same amount of money, just now its only for the people that deserve it, and for some that still isn’t fair.

So more FTPs but a rakeback system that may or may not give you more money, how does this fit into Black Card?
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Yet we still don’t know how many runners are coming. We can tell you that players are showing up an hour early to take their seats — a sign they won’t win — but the actual number … well that’s a complicated algorithm. It has something to do with numbers of tables available based on other events … and then of course, like all things Vegas, they have to save a few seats for those extra-special VIPs.

(Not sure what they do with those seats when they aren’t taken and there are no alternates … but bottom line is that if Barack Obama or Bono or plausibly even Jeffrey Pollack’s brother showed up to play, they’d find them a seat … even if it meant finding a farmboy from Iowa and tying him up in the back room until dinner break.)

The $1,500 NLH that sold out a few days ago had 2,790 players. And the Seniors Event had 2,707. So there’s your ballpark.

[Fact-check props to the Tao.]

UPDATE: 2,818

And to show the love because Vinny B. has us feeling snippy under his claims that we don’t give proper props to the no-names, click below for a complete list of every single person who showed up today with $1,500 and a dream, but not necessarily a plan on how to really achieve it

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A mid-tourney Phil Hellmuth piss break catches no one’s attention but Dan’s and Pauly’s … whereupon we explore the role of VIP bathrooms at the WSOP — and how the need for private urination is only going to increase in coming days.

presented by:

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.23: Poker VIPees
3:02
[audio:tao/TaoPokerati_WSOP_ProsPissing.mp3]