Full Tilt Iron Man and rakeback

Full Tilt Poker is running a monthly Iron Man Challenge promotion, where you compete against yourself by trying to reach a certain amount of Full Tilt Points on at least 15 days of the month.

Endure and manage that poker marathon and you will be awarded with prize and glory, but what is the added value of Iron Man to a rakeback player?

Table of Contents

• What is Iron Man's value
• How Iron Man promotion affects rakeback
  • Iron Man bonus and rakeback
  • Iron Man medals and tournament tokens
  • Iron Man medals and Full Tilt Points
  • Value of Iron Man freerolls
• Conclusion - Play freerolls or buy tokens
• Afterthought

What is Full Tilt Iron Man promotion and its value?

Once you attain the Iron Man status, you get a choice of either playing in that month's Iron Man freeroll with $10,000 to $30,000 added money, or taking 25-100 Iron Man medals instead that you can spend in a special Iron Man store to buy bonuses, tournament tokens, more Full Tilt Points, promotional stuff like shirts, and even your own table with a seat always reserved to you.

The size of Iron Man freeroll or amount of Iron Man medals earned depends on what status you reach within that month: Bronze, Silver, Gold, or... Iron!

Iron Man freerolls have better value than medals

One Iron Man medal is worth 11¢ to 18¢ to a player who has a Full Tilt rakeback deal, depending on how the medals are spent. The best value from Iron Man promotion is however gained by playing the monthly Iron Man freerolls instead of taking medals.

How Iron Man promotion affects rakeback

The question on every +EV concious rakeback poker player's mind is how to get the most value out of the Iron Man promotion. And more specifically, how Ironman affects rakeback?

The benefits of Iron Man are handled just like any other promotion, meaning that bonuses and freeroll added money are deducted against your Gross Rake in Full Tilt rakeback calculations. But we can calculate the best combined Full Tilt Iron Man rakeback value.

Iron Man bonus and rakeback

If you use Iron Man medals to buy a bonus, this works the same way as regular deposit bonus and counts as a deduction to your Gross Rake before rakeback is calculated. Also the Iron Man mid year bonus works like any other bonus.

Example:

• Your Gross Rake is $300
• You clear a $100 bonus bought with Iron Man medals
• Your rakeback is ($300 - $100) * 27% = $54

Its costs 600 medals to buy the $100 Iron Man bonus. So based on the above example, after the Iron Man bonus rakeback deduction you ended up with $27 less rakeback but cleared the $100 bonus. Your net profit from spending 600 medals in that bonus was therefore $100 - $27 = $73, which amounts to $0.121667 value per Iron Man medal.

There are three different Iron Man bonuses to buy, and you get more bonus by spending more medals. Following this same reasoning, the value of medals when spending them to buy Iron Man bonuses and when you have a Full Tilt rakeback deal are presented in the following table.

Added value of medals spent in Iron Man bonuses

Iron Man medals and tournament tokens

You are given an option in the Iron Man Store to buy a $26 or $75 tournament token. There are no deductions on using tokens, but if you happen to use the token to buy in a tournament which has added money by Full Tilt, that does result in the normal Player Added deduction.

The value of Iron Man medals is simple to calculate when spending them on tournament tokens, if we assume that the T$ value of a token is the same as buying real money to your account.

Added value of medals spent in tournament tokens

If we want to get technical, the value of tournament dollars can be assumed to be 95% of real money, since you can convert T$ to real money in the cashier with a commission fee of 5% charged by Full Tilt. So if we take this into account, the real money value of a medal when buying a $75 Iron Man token is $71.25 / 400 = $0.178125.

Iron Man medals and Full Tilt Points

You can use Iron Man medals to buy more Full Tilt Points in the Iron Man store. If you then proceed to spend those poins in the Full Tilt store or poker room, it will incur the regular FTP deduction of $0.005 per used point against your Gross Rake in the FullTilt rakeback calculations.

Example:

• Your Gross Rake is $300
• You spend 150 Iron Man medals to buy 5000 FTPs, and then spend the points, which amounts to a $25 deduction to your rake ($0.005*5000)
• Your rakeback is ($300 - $25) * 27% = $74.25

So whatever the value of a Full Tilt Point is when buying them with Iron Man medals, it is $0.005 per point in rake less for rakeback players.

Using value of goods to estimate FTP value

Since the Full Tilt store does not have anything of direct monetary value within the poker room to buy like bonuses or tournament tokens in the Iron Man store, the value of Iron Man medals when buying Full Tilt Points is harder to estimate. But for the sake of argument lets try, and take the retail value of Apple iPod Touch 32Gb as an example that you can buy for 87,000 FTPs and which costs $399 in Apple's online store.

If you buy 100,000 FTPs for 2,500 medals in Iron Man store, and then use 87,000 FTPs to buy the iPod in Full Tilt store, you end up with a product worth $399 and $117.45 less rakeback. Net value of the purchase to you is therefore $281.55, which amounts to $0.12945 per medal.

• Value of iPod $399
• 87,000 FTPs spent $0.005 * 87,000 = $435 deduction to Gross Rake in rakeback calculations, which equals to $117.45 less rakeback on a 27% rakeback deal. Net value of iPod is $399 - $117.45 = $281.55.
• $281.55 / 2500 = $0.11262 per medal, but only when 87% of FTPs were used. If 100% of FTPs are used at the same rate, we get ($0.11262 / 87% ) * 100% = $0.12945 as the value of one iron Man medal for a rakeback player when spending the medals in buying Full Tilt Points in the biggest 100,000 FTP batch. For the lower FTP batches of 25,000 and 5,000 we assume that enough are bought with medals to get the 87,000 FTPs required for iPod purchase.

Added value of medals spent in Full Tilt Points

Value of Iron Man freerolls

Over the course of the month you can reach one of four Full Tilt Iron Man status levels, and can opt in to either receive medals or play in a freeroll. The freerolls have added money, and therefore incur the regular Player Added deduction in Full Tilt rakeback calculations.

Player Added deduction: Any money added to a tournament by Full Tilt that is not covered by tournament entry fees is evenly divided by the number of participants in the tournament, and that amount is deducted from your Gross Rake before 27% rakeback is calculated.

The Iron Man freeroll tournaments have $10k to $30k added money, so the value per player can end up being good, even when counting in the Player Added rakeback deduction.

$10,000 Iron Man Bronze freeroll

May 2009, 1094 players, $9.14 added money per player.

Player Added deduction to rake makes your rakeback $2.47 less, so total value of ticket was $9.14 - $2.47 = $6.67.

In place of the freeroll ticket you could opt in to take 25 medals for reaching the Bronze status in your first consecutive month. The per medal value of playing the freeroll instead would therefore be $6.67 / 25 = $0.2668.

$15,000 Iron Man Silver freeroll

May 2009, 834 players, $17.99 added money per player.

Player Added deduction to rake makes your rakeback $4.86 less, so total value of ticket was $17.99 - $4.86 = $13.13.

In place of the freeroll ticket you could opt in to take 40 medals for reaching the Silver status in your first consecutive month. The per medal value of playing the freeroll instead would therefore be $13.13 / 40 = $0.32825.

$20,000 Iron Man Gold freeroll

May 2009, 515 players, $38.83 added money per player.

Player Added deduction to rake makes your rakeback $10.49 less, so total value of ticket was $38.83 - $10.49 = $28.34.

In place of the freeroll ticket you could opt in to take 70 medals for reaching the Gold status in your first consecutive month. The per medal value of playing the freeroll instead would therefore be $28.34 / 70 = $0.40486.

$30,000 Iron Man freeroll

May 2009, 448 players, $66.96 added money per player.

Player Added deduction to rake makes your rakeback $18.08 less, so total value of ticket was $66.96 - $18.08 = $48.88.

In place of the freeroll ticket you could opt in to take 100 medals for reaching the Iron Man status in your first consecutive month. The per medal value of playing the freeroll instead would therefore be $48.88 / 100 = $0.4888.

Comparative value of Iron Man freerolls

Conclusion: Play Iron Man freerolls or buy tokens

• If you are a decent tournament player and have time for it, you get clearly the best value by playing the monthly Iron Man freerolls instead of taking medals.
• Should you take medals instead of freerolls, the most bang for buck and pedal to the medal is gained by investing in $75 tournament tokens.
• The value of the most cost effective $600 Iron Man bonus is 22.13% less than the best value $75 tournament token. But if you only play ring games, then by all means buy Iron Man bonuses with your medals rather than tokens.
• Buying more Full Tilt points with Iron Man Medals is a waste of medals. Win cash, withdraw, and buy your shirts from Walmart instead.

Create a 27% Full Tilt rakeback account now, or read the Full Tilt Poker review to find out how the rooms suits you.

Afterthought

Regular Iron Man players start receiving more medals from consecutive Iron Man months. This will lower the comparative value of Iron Man freerolls for these players, but freerolls retain the best value until a player has qualified for Iron Man status for over one year. After one year the amount of medals gained begins to be so big that instead of freerolls you should be taking medals and using them to buy tournament tokens or Iron Man bonuses.

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