In the past, UB's rakeback MGR was calculated in the method commonly called "dealt". For example, if the pot is $60 ($3 rake is taken) and there were 10 people dealt cards, then each person generated $0.30 in rake for that hand. Using this method of calculation you are generating rake every time you are dealt cards. Recently, they switched their rakeback to the "contributed" method. By this method, If 10 people are dealt cards and only 3 people actually put money into the pot (blinds count), then a $60 pot would give them each $1 of MGR. Those that did not put money into the pot get no MGR. For the tight, ABC playing grinder or pokerbot, this change penalizes their tight preflop play substantially. Possibly reducing their rakeback by 50%.
Today, they officially changed their webpage to reflect what had been popping up sporadically at tables over the weekend: Their Ultimate points would now only be given for hands when the player had contributed. UB effectively increased the time to clear a bonus by 4 or 5 times. The points to cash promotion is nearly impossible to reach. Only players that were previously getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 points per week will now reach the LOWEST level of 750 points.
That is a brutal, brutal bad beat for anyone botting the UB micros for the Points to Cash program. Note, I don't feel like I'm "outing" anyone here. UB has been notorious about ignoring bots for as long as I've been in the game. It's no secret. Open up a table of $.02/$.04 limit at Ultimate Bet. 1/3 of the players at that table will be playing more than 12 hours a day. 12 hours a day of multi-tabling the penny tables! I'd say that's just stupidity if it weren't for UB's complete apathy. It will be interesting to see exactly what Ultimate bet hopes to do with this. Player numbers are dropping, and I'm sure it will only get worse, as I constantly read of people that still haven't noticed their rakeback payments have dropped. Players leave, fewer tables...UB's in the downward spiral, and it seems like it is going to take some fancy maneuvering to pull out at this point.
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