PokerStars Unveils New Feature: Power Path
The last few years have showcased an immense smackdown between poker giants GGPoker and PokerStars in their bid to reach the top of the industry. The latest in this ongoing and fierce competition is the reveal of PokerStars’ new Power Paths satellite system.
PokerStars in the Current Market
In the last couple of months, PokerStars has seen a significant reduction in cash game traffic. At the beginning of April, the brand enjoyed just below 4,200 cash game players over seven days. However, at the same time period at the end of June the room had figures of just over 3,100 cash game players.
Meanwhile, GGPoker has continued growing, offering new tournaments, enjoying increasing cash game figures, and becoming a household favorite. Part of the reason for this change is due to some of PokerStars’s decisions, such withdrawing from specific markets and more.
You can see the success GGPoker has achieved with the recent GGPoker World Festival, where the brand promised $200 million in prize money. This not only shattered their own and PokerStars’ record but also the global record for a poker series prize pool.
Power Paths: A Solution?
In response to losing more cash game players in the last few months, Poker Stars unveiled a new feature in their room. This satellite system, called Power Paths, is supposed to be a more flexible step-based progression system for players to qualify for tournaments.
Structure
This system uses a step-based and passes system, with players starting at Sit & Go game with a $0.50 buy-in, which helps them progress to the $1 Multi-Table tournament (MTT) or On-Demand Sit & Go. These options feed into the MTT with an $11 buy-in, which awards the winner a seat in the first pass to a $109 buy-in MTT tournament. In this final step, you can receive the second and third passes. The steps are structured so that casual players aren’t overwhelmed by professional players.
However, while the probability of completing the first and second steps ranges between 35.14% and 63.66% it goes significantly down from there. Steps three to the last pass have a probability between 0.0001% and 1.15%.
Passes
There are three passes, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. These passes redeem packages from the operator, offering invitations to live events or online poker series.
- Bronze - Worth $109 and used with online series
- Silver - Worth $2,500 and used with online and live series
- Gold - Worth $10,300 and used with online and live series
Free Daily Tickets
One complimentary daily ticket to Step One is given to any player that logs in and wagers $0.01. Daily freerolls can also award passes or Step One seats.
A New Concept?
This multi-step progression system was popular a few decades ago, though it has since fallen out of favor. PokerStars used a similar system in 2020 and again with their MegaPath promotion. Other poker rooms, like partypoker, also used similar systems as special tournament promotions.
However, unlike the past the idea this time is to run it indefinitely. The real question is whether PokerStars will sufficiently refresh this slightly outdated system to generate new interest in the room.
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