Full Tilt Poker has just kicked off their WSOP promotions. I expect all the online poker sites either have or will soon be announcing their WSOP raison d’être. One of the things that makes Full Tilt’s package unique is that most of the ways into the various promotions don’t require you to spend points to get in. Many sites are saying things like “Freeroll into . . .” but when you read the tiny print you have to use points from whatever they’re calling their points system. As I just wrote about previously concerning my experiences at Empire; that’s not free! And it’s especially not free when you can use your points and cash them out for cash like you can on Empire (which I did, thanks Empire for reminding me I had points on your site). There’s a real money value associated to those points and saying that you can buy your way into a freeroll using points is like saying that going to a bar that advertises that you can drink all night without spending a dime but then presents you a bill in euros.
So, what’s different with Full Tilt’s promotion? Well, you can win your way into the WSOP main event in one of three ways. First, everyone that racks up 10,000 points in a month (or roughly a month based on start and end dates) is entered into a freeroll. Yes, a real freeroll. No points required to enter but you have to earn the points which you can then keep.
Playing against you in the freeroll will be the top 50 WSOP points earners for that same time period. WSOP points are different from regular Full Tilt points in that you only earn WSOP points when playing in a WSOP qualifying event. No WSOP points are awarded for ring games or other games where the eventual prize isn’t a WSOP seat. So, if you’re jonesing to play the WSOP and you spend a ton of cash playing MTT qualifiers but never seem to grasp the golden ring, it’s a second way for you to stumble into a seat.
Also playing in the mega-freeroll is a third group of people who have won multiple freerolls to get in. You have to win a daily freeroll into a weekly freeroll which gets you into the above mentioned monthly freeroll. Yikes, that’s a lot of winning but you could sure put that punk Moneymaker in his place by winning the 2006 WSOP for $0 out of pocket compared to the $50 he spent 🙂
Also in the WSOP grab bag for Full Tilt is a 100 seat gurantee tournament. This is purely a money out of pocket event though. It’s a $500 + $35 tournament will be held at 6PM ET on July 16th. You can satellite in or just pay your way in.
Anyway, as I mentioned, everyone is going to be announcing their big WSOP promotions soon so this should be a great season for those hoping to earn a seat in (even if it does cost you $3000 in entry fees to win a seat into a $1500 event). I wish there was a site doing a EV comparison between the offers. Some are going to be pretty solid deals that the online poker rooms eat as a marketing expense and some are going to be pure ripoffs. Choose your freebies wisely 🙂