I saw some email and announcements go by back around December I think it was. Something about Stars VPPs being changed into something called StarsCoin. I didn't pay much attention to it. There was something about a 1.2 conversion rate of VPP to coin which seemed generous at the time. There was also something about FPP, the truth is I could never figure out the difference between FPP and VPP.
As it happened I'm a low volume recreational player and I had about 1,000 VPPs over the years. I remember years ago in 2009 I bought a PokerStars travel mug for 1,250 FPP. I was pleased, I still have that mug and use it. I found the old email from the VIP store. Good times back then.
Anyway I checked the store yesterday for whatever reason and I was surprised to see that I could do a straight exchange of 1,000 StarsCoin for $10 of cash bankroll. That's awesome! before it was not possible for a bronze star to make this type of VPP to cash exchange and it was generally not available or badly priced below at least the silver star level. So that's yay.
The new bonus scheme at Stars seems much friendlier to lower volume recreational players. In the past it was confusing what was available and how to get anything. It's much simpler now coin is coin. And the coin all spends the same in the store, no different prices or availability based on your stellar status. As a recreational player I see these as positive changes.
Now for the $10, well the way I play and run at $10 Zoom PLO I will likely lose it faster than it took to write this post. Oh well at least I was able to get something useful for my VPPs so it's all good.
I did notice the coin seem to be earned in a more quantized way now. At this point I have about 150 hands in this month and the slider says I'm 69% to unlocking 7 coin in step 2 this month -maybe I got 7 coin earlier and didn't notice? Thus I guess if I can put in a little over 200 hands a month at $10 Zoom PLO I can get at least this tiny amount of bonus, less than a big blind. I'm sure it gets better if I could put in more volume. Still it's something and very attainable for a recreational player. In the past it was intimidating and it felt like the VPP store was tilted in favour of high stakes and mass multitabling.
