Hardly played any poker this week, but somehow managed to remember to register for all three of the PokerStars freerolls I was eligible for today - as I made GoldStar status last month during their double VIP points promotion I got to play the $5000 SilverStar Weekly, $7500 GoldStar Weekly and $100,000 VIP Monthly freerolls.
Two scores out of three aint bad. A whopping $18.50 for the GoldStar (27th from 1138) and $100 from the VIP (218th from 2861). The VIP freeroll, was one of the main reasons I went for GoldStar (amid, I'm afraid, several recitals of the Going For Gold theme whilst I was grinding it out). I'm 3 for 3 money finishes in this now in the month's where I've been able to play it, and it helps to make up for the fact I dont do very well in fixed limit on Stars still.
The other incentive for me to get back up to a VIP level was because I have lots of Frequent Player Points to spend and many of the items in their store are available to VIPs only. So now I have just 6 days left as a GoldStar player and it's unlikely I'll even retain SilverStar into next month I need to make some decisions.
Originally I was planning to cash in 15000 FPPs (most of my balance) for one of their single table tournaments with a world champion. These happen every week and entry is equivalent to $225 - you can't buy in for money though, and can only redeem FPPs if you are GoldStar or higher. This seemed like a decent option, as four out of ten places are paid something and there's a $250 bounty for eliminating the champ. I've changed my mind on this though, after I realised that they're usually filled with the same players every week who I would expect to be very strong sit-and-go players and who would probably not be sweating a $1000 payoff like I would. As I can only afford one shot at this, I'll pass for now.
So what's it to be? I can afford an iPod Nano, but cool as they are, I don't really need one. My Creative Zen still does me fine, although it's a bit of a brick in comparison to Apple's beauties, and I really don't fancy having to reload all my music back onto it, and actually face up to the fact that I have probably hundreds of hours of podcasts I still haven't listened to...
So there's the jacket that I had my eye on since I started playing at Stars. Pretty nice, but at 10000 FPPs, it's costing about $150 in terms of what else I could be spending the points on. I'm not sure I like it that much, but have to decide quickly as it's another VIP-only item. Amazon gift certificates are available now, but again you have to be SilverStar or above so I have to order them this week or wait and then get VIP status again. Such a dilemma!
